We are very pleased to be able to introduce you to a new publication, Every Child Can Learn: Using Learning Tools and Play to Help Children with Developmental Delay. One of the authors, Katrin Stroh, has been a colleague and friend for many years. We have had the privilege to watch and encourage the progress of this work toward publication, and are now delighted to welcome the finished product into our collection of training materials.

The publication, which is a set consisting of a book and CD/ROM with video, was written and developed by early intervention specialists in the UK who have worked for over thirty years with children of all ages with learning difficulties. Based on their extensive experience, the authors focus on the potential of children, that is, on what children can do rather than on what they cannot do. The main focus of the book, in the authors’ own words, “is always on the practical work, techniques and activities used to enable children to develop their learning, and to be able to play and communicate.”

The authors describe in detail what they call Functional Learning, a unique intervention approach that is based on the play and learning of typically developing children. In this approach, early play with objects is described as Learning Tools, the cognitive tools used by all children, cross-culturally, to learn and solve problems. Learning Tools include, for example, placing, piling, banging, pairing, matching, sorting, sequencing, and brick-building.

In the book there is a chapter devoted to each one of the Learning Tools. Included in each chapter are extensive step-by-step instructions and detailed drawings of practical activities that can be used to help children with developmental delay. This in-depth information enables parents and practitioners to set up and provide Functional Learning sessions.

Children across a broad spectrum of diagnoses and age groups will benefit from the concepts within this book-and-video set. Together they provide the means to unlock a child’s potential through interactive learning, directed exploration, and basic problem solving. Click on the link below to view an excerpt of this publication, and increase the impact of your treatment or training by integrating these valuable techniques into your daily practice. Every Child Can Learn: Chapter 3

About the authors

KATRIN STROH is a speech and language therapist, social worker and developmental therapist.

THELMA ROBINSON is a clinical psychologist, Montessori teacher and developmental therapist

ALAN PROCTOR is a teacher working with emotionally and behaviorally disturbed children and young adults, as well as being a child-and-family therapist and a developmental therapist