Why Turtle Wing? Early Childhood Opportunities for Children with Developmental Issues!

As Turtle Wing Foundation begins their ninth year of “helping children with learning challenges in rural areas achieve their full potential,” there are still many in the rural communities the foundation serves who don’t fully understand what Turtle Wing does. The foundation wants to help the citizens who reside within its service area of Fayette, Colorado, Lavaca and surrounding counties to more fully comprehend their mission and utilize their services where appropriate. In our first ‘Why Turtle Wing?’ article we introduced the critically important programming area of Early Intervention. Today, Turtle Wing would like to share two programs available to youth 2, 3, and 4 years of age with learning differences including (but not limited to) Autism/PDD, Down Syndrome, Speech delay or nonverbal, and Behavior problems. The first program, and the longest running Turtle Work collaboration, is the Hatch Ahead program offered by Hatch, a learning habitat and consulting firm. This is an Early Intervention program that uses the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) to teach effective communication, language development, play and social skills, and primary school readiness. It is offered on Mondays and Thursdays from 8:30-12:30 and is very affordable due to being underwritten by Turtle Wing. Space is limited so to see if your child might benefit one should contact Renee Absher at (361)578-2257/reneeabsher7@gmail.com. Hatch is located in Weimar.

Additionally, Turtle Wing helps fund the Mini Milers group at Beyond Therapy in Schulenburg. This specialty program was designed to help children with complex needs achieve speech/language, communication, cognitive, and motor developmental milestones. The Mini Milers program is led by speech-language pathologists, occupational and physical therapists in a collaborative effort to achieve the greatest positive impact on the children and families served. Mini Milers is offered on Wednesday from 10:00-11:00 am. To learn more about Mini Milers families should contact Tonia Livingston at (979)743-2108/Tonia@beyondtherapy.care. These may be small children, but these groups of little's can, and will, do BIG things!!! Turtle Wing partners with families in need to help access necessary assessments, offer referrals to local providers and assist where necessary with funding if insurance or local programs won’t cover the fees. Turtle Wing has been providing Early Intervention, Supplemental Services and Community Education & Advocacy programming to children and families with academic, social-emotional, behavioral and/or developmental needs since 2012. Annually, over 325 children are receiving direct services with thousands more benefiting indirectly through education and advocacy work. For more information contact Susie Shank at (979)505-5090, visit the Turtle Wing Facebook page @turtlewingfoundation, or the website www.turtlewingfoundation.org.

Picture:  Levi Carden working on his fine motor skills at Hatch Ahead