Meadowood Springs Speech and Hearing Camp provides intensive, seven days a week residential and 3 days ‘day camp’ therapy for boys and girls who are currently receiving services through an Individual Educational Plan or private services. It is one of the few recognized camp/clinic facilities in the Western United States providing intensive therapy. Therapy is based on the premise that speech is the most human of all man’s behaviors, and that effective speech and language therapy for speech and hearing challenged children will consider the child’s total set of needs and their total environment as part of the rehabilitation task.

The purpose of the camp is to offer concentrated intensive therapy by trained speech pathologists in a recreational setting during the summer months when therapy is generally not available in the schools. The camp atmosphere tends to facilitate learning by removing many of the social and environmental barriers existing in the more formal academic school situations. The intensive therapy and carefully structured environment combine to make this quality program enjoy a high rate of success.

Meadowood provides a program wherein children can receive speech management services directed to their specific needs in a setting that will provide a unique opportunity for growth in independence and self-reliance. Speech is an assertive act requiring confidence in one’s own ability to perform. Children with speech, hearing and language difficulties can be said to have relatively few opportunities for successful communicative experiences, which does not always foster confidence or self-reliance. When children are given the opportunity to succeed and to increase their independence in areas afforded by the camp experience, the effect can enhance their communicative abilities allowing them to become more receptive to speech management procedures. There are many children who require speech services beyond what is available during the school year. Therapy in a recreational setting encourages children and motivates them to accept challenges and risks they may avoid in a conventional setting.

Another primary advantage of the camp program is the opportunity to transfer new communication skills learned throughout all daily activities.  The transfer of language skills newly learned from the clinical setting, to the greater environment and the maintenance of these skills has long been a matter of concern to practicing clinicians. It is in this area that many clinicians consider the process to break down. The camp provides a community wherein the children can use and be encouraged to use their newly acquired skills and still be under the therapeutic surveillance of their clinician. In short, the child’s clinical environment is extended throughout all of their waking hours.

Throughout the country, Universities and Colleges continue to encourage students in the field of communication disorders to work at Meadowood as a training experience, accepting the clinical clock hours they accrue towards certification as a Speech-Language Pathologist under ASHA guidelines.  While at Meadowood, Student Clinicians are provided with opportunities to work with different childhood communication disorders under the direct supervision of Certified Master Clinicians and the Clinical Director who also holds her CCC’s.