NIU Voices: Stay on track at NIU’s summer camp

School may be out, but learning certainly is not.

Children have the opportunity to stay on track and make progress with their speech and language skills during the summer months at Northern Illinois University.

NIU’s Speech-Language Pathology program is excited to offer On Track, a speech and language summer camp for children ages 3 to 8. The four-week camp is supervised by a licensed speech-language pathologist and conducted by a team of graduate students enrolled in the NIU Speech-Language Pathology program.

This is a great program for children to maintain and improve on existing skills during the summer when they might not usually receive therapy. And for children who receive services privately, this is also a wonderful program to increase the frequency of therapy for potentially quicker gains.

Each week, the sessions incorporate a theme to target various skills like building vocabulary, grammatical concepts and phonological processes. In addition, each session provides campers with both group and individual activities.

And while children learn, NIU Speech-Language Pathology students learn as well. This camp provides graduate students firsthand experience coordinating group speech therapy, and they learn how to manage a child’s individual goals and needs while maintaining the group experience.

It’s a win-win.

NIU graduate students find success in coordinating, planning and executing a fun and beneficial camp experience. Campers find success in their speech and language skills and success in peer interaction.

All sessions are held at NIU’s state-of-the-art Speech-Language Hearing Clinic, located at 3100 Sycamore Road in DeKalb. COVID-19 precautions (masks, physical distancing, hand washing) will be strictly enforced in accordance with CDC and NIU guidelines.

The camp runs through July 30. Children ages 3 to 5 meet Wednesdays and Fridays from 8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m., and children ages 6 to 8 meet Wednesdays and Fridays from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Learn more about On Track and NIU’s other summer camp offerings at www.niu.edu/summercamps/index.shtml.

• Emily Palmer is a clinical assistant professor of Speech-Language Pathology at NIU’s School of Allied Health and Communicative Disorders.