$60k Raised for Specialized School

Local restaurants fundraise for School For Language and Communication Development.

The School for Language and Communication Development held its eleventh annual "Chefs for Children" event Wednesday, featuring food and wine tasting at the Jericho Terrace in Mineola. The event featured fare from several area restaurants and vendors. Glen Cove businesses at the event included Page One Restaurant, La Bussola, and DoraNonnie at Bernard's Market. Ellenmoris Tiegerman is founder and executive director of the 26-year-old school, which she said started with 36 students and has grown to serve more than 450 in several location, one of which is on Glen Cove Avenue. Tiegerman said she expected that the event raised $60,000. "This has been a successful event through the years," she said. "The success is in the results. Tonight, I …

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Video: SLCD Hosts 'Town Day'

Students at Glen Cove School for Language and Communication Development create a virtual town.

The Glen Cove School for Language and Communication Development transformed its halls and walls into a living, breathing town on Friday, as part of the school's first ever "Town Day." As SLCD serves young students along the Autism spectrum, the day's plan was to familiarize students with real life situations – with an emphasis on interaction and communication – in order to implement skills and tools required in everyday life. "This amazing opportunity allows students to showcase and apply their skills in and out of the classroom," said Dr. Ellenmorris Tiegerman, Founder and Executive Director of SLCD. "The 'town' consists of a wide range of stores, such as a jewelry store where students actually purchase and make jewelry, a restaurant with…

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SLCD: 5 Special Needs Grads Going to College

The Glen-Cove based School for Language and Communication Development (SLCD) congratulates its first high school graduating class.

The School for Language and Communication Development (SLCD), headquartered in Glen Cove, congratulated its first graduating high school class on June 22 at the SLCD high school in Richmond Hill, Queens.  All five graduates of SLCD's first high school class received New York State Regents diplomas and will be attending colleges including Pratt Institute and the Parsons New School of Design in Manhattan.  SLCD is a publically-funded educational institution founded in 1985 by Dr. Ellenmorris Tiegerman to meet the specialized educational needs of children with language and autism spectrum disorders. Up until this year, parents faced the difficult decision of where to send their children for school when SLCD's curriculum could no longer …

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Child Development

Good Study Habits

Parental monitoring and good communication are critical to child's education.

School has started and children are beginning to establish the daily routine of completing homework assignments. It is never too early to have a discussion with your child about your expectations concerning study habits. It is, however, a parent's responsibility to provide the right environment for children to do their homework.  My first recommendation is never allow children to either study or do their homework in front of a television. Children should complete their homework in a space which does not have noise and distractions which will interfere with the child's attention and focus.  It might also be helpful for a parent to help the child clean off his desk and organize information in files at least once a week. Children tend to get …

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Child Development

Is My Teenager Crazy?

Adolescence: a roller coaster experience

For many parents that sweet and delicious child who was the "apple of your eye" turned into an alien somewhere around thirteen years of age. This period of time, which is usually fraught with bickering and/or conflicts about homework, chores, curfew and personal rights, may be over shadowed by risky behavior. Putting aside the issue of weird hairdos and clothing styles, it's the drugs, sex and alcohol that parents fear the most. What happened to the sweet little boy who hugged you every night at bedtime? Actually, the conflict does not in and of itself signal that the parent/child relationship is falling apart. Researchers indicate that adolescence is a time of "individuation" and temporary discord. In the process of challenging parents …

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Child Development

Let's Talk Baby Talk

Although many people don't realize it, babies understand language before they can speak it.

Editor's Note: Dr. Ellenmorris Tiegerman is the founder and executive director of the School for Language and Communication Development in Glen Cove. Many adults are of the opinion that young children do not understand most of the things that they hear in the natural environment. This is far from the truth. There are developmental stages that reflect children's growing abilities from infancy to elementary school. However, it is important to understand that the entire complex language system is up and running by age 3. The question that often arises is: "How complicated is language?" Over the past 60 years, there has been a raging controversy about whether language development is innate and biologically based or learned and environmentally …

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Child Development

When They Can’t Agree

If a school problem occurs, parents of special needs children should remember that they have rights as well.

Editor's Note: Dr. Ellenmorris Tiegerman is the founder and executive director of the School for Language and Communication Development in Glen Cove. When special education comes under fire, there is usually a great effort to either remove children from special education programs or make it more difficult for children to get into special education programs. The committee of professionals, which is mandated by the New York State Education Department (i.e., Committee on Special Education), that makes the decision about a child's educational disability and special education program must engage the parent within this process. Parents must agree with the committee's decisions and recommendations. But what happens when a parent does not agree …

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Child Development

Time to Discuss Special Education

It is not easy to diagnose a child with a disability.

Editor's Note: Dr. Ellenmorris Tiegerman is the founder and executive director of the School for Language and Communication Development in Glen Cove. When things take a turn for the worse economically, special education comes under fire. One of the typical attacks on special education programs is that the children are not "really" handicapped and, therefore, do not deserve to receive special education services.  So, how handicapped does a child have to be to warrant special education services? Let's consider how a child is actually evaluated and how complicated the entire process is from beginning to end. The first step in the diagnostic process is a comprehensive evaluation, which includes assessments of language, social and cognitive …

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Child Development

Babies Learning Speech is Progressive

A closer look at how children begin to talk.

Editor's Note: Dr. Ellenmorris Tiegerman is the founder and executive director of the School for Language and Communication Development in Glen Cove. Infants are uniquely attuned to perceive the various sounds they hear in their environment. Some researchers suggest that babies are pre-programmed to learn speech since the acquisition process occurs so rapidly. The first sounds that infants acquire are the sounds which are universal to all languages.  Although infants can perceive a vast range of speech sounds (i.e., phonemes) within a language, they cannot, however, produce the same range. The reason is that the structure of an infant's mouth, throat and tongue is not sufficiently developed to allow him the range of movement to produce …

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Child Development

Our Mothers are Teachers

The interaction between a mother and child plays an important role in child language development.

Editor's Note: Dr. Ellenmorris Tiegerman is the founder and executive director of the School for Language and Communication Development in Glen Cove. The most important lessons in language development are not learned in school but at home with Mother. The interaction between mother and child during the first three years of life is so specialized and unique that it is referred to in clinical research as "Motherese."  When a mother speaks to her young child, she regulates the structure and the content of her input to her child's level of understanding. So when a mother speaks to her very young language learner, she uses one or two word utterances, she repeats herself many times, and she uses objects within the environment that her child can …

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