Support for Children with Language, Hearing, and Speech needs

Alexander Graham Bell Montessori School (AGBMS) and AEHI is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to empowering individuals who have language, hearing, and speech needs to achieve age-appropriate language, literacy, and overall academic skills through unique educational options. 

AGBMS is a model full-inclusion program where we provide the combined benefits of: 

• a challenging, mainstream Montessori curriculum
• individualized and small-group instruction
• unlimited opportunities for interaction with hearing peers 
• an intense focus on oral communication skills
• Cued Speech as a supplement to English -- especially in difficult listening situations, in cases where new and/or complex information is being presented, and in cases where there are language delays that must be resolved in an accelerated fashion. 

Our school provides special services for children from birth to eighteen years old.  In addition to our regular staff of certified Montessori teachers, we employ a team of specialists, including certified teachers of the deaf, a speech/language pathologist, Early Interventionists, and a certified Special Education teacher.  These specialists collaborate with each other and the classroom teaching staff to provide on-site therapeutic and educational services in accordance with each child’s IEP or IFSP.  AGBMS is approved by the Illinois State Board Education (ISBE) to provide services to Deaf and Hard of Hearing children as well as children with speech and language delays up to the age of 15..

AEHI is the outreach component of our program.  AEHI provides outreach services including Cued Speech workshops, individualized parental training and support, educational consulting, professional development opportunities, and access to a wide variety of information on Cued Speech and its benefits.  AEHI also supports a model Cued Speech inclusion program for the education of children who have language, hearing, and speech needs within AGBMS.

Miracle of Language
AEHI fosters literacy and empowers people with language, hearing, and speech needs  to achieve their full potential through unique educational options. AEHI’s mission is to provide full educational opportunity and age-appropriate literacy skills for children with language, hearing, and speech needs by:

• Ensuring  that parents of children who have significant language, hearing, and speech needs are aware of all of their options for educating and communicating with their children
• Providing training in Cued Speech – a tool that makes spoken language 100% accessible  – to parents, teachers and other professionals 
• Providing  a visual/oral Cued Speech program for educating children with language, hearing, and speech needs alongside their typically developing peers and supporting parents’ rights to choose this program for their children

• Educating the educators and other professionals throughout  the Midwest in the use of successful approaches and techniques for improving literacy rates and speech and listening skills for children who have language, hearing, and speech needs.

---