Willow: Early Childhood Support

[Kerri]
So, my names Kerri, I'm Willow's mum.
[Charles]
I'm Charles, I'm Willow's dad.
[Kerri]
Willow was born at 29 and five weeks, and so she now has a developmental delay.
[Charles]
Some of the things that she was meant to do in hospital started to really get delayed.
Like she started to feed with the bottle, but when she had the issues with her brain, that started to set her back and she regressed quite far from there.
[Carra]
My name's Carra Norton, and I'm a speech pathologist, and I work with children predominantly in the early intervention 0 to 7 age range.
I'm working with Willow to develop her speech, language, and communication, and very importantly, develop her ability to eat and drink by herself.
When I first met Willow, she had no words, she had a very small range of sounds, and she was very frustrated at not being able to communicate her needs and wants with her parents.
So, what we're trying to do is introduce her to more of the social skills and the communication that she'll require to actually make friends and join in play with her peers.
[Charles]
Carra's made quite an impact, and if it wasn't for her, I don't think she would be able to be as communicative as she is.
You know, future Willow from now could be a very different person.
[Kerri]
It's given her the greatest gift of all this support that she really, really needs.
It's just been amazing.