Using the tool during the consultation session

Unless you have a specific listening or communication environment that you would like to explore, ask the child what they would like to tell you more about, such as home, school, playing outside, or socializing with friends at an often-visited place. The chosen environment should be connected to the goals for the session or the issues and challenges raised by the parents.

Take the selected environment and ask the child to help you make it “just for them” by arranging furniture and selecting characters to represent friends and themselves.

With the child, identify the primary communication partners in the selected environment. Ask the child for, or suggest examples of communication challenges that might arise and ask the child to describe the situations to you.

You can use the child’s responses to start exploring their world, how they cope with challenges, and brainstorm solutions.

Role play the situations with the child through the characters they’ve selected. You may also use the characters in the third person. The goal is to offer a set of characters that mirror the child’s current situation. Suggest a communication environment such as, “This is my friend Johnny, he wears hearing aids. He is seven years old – just like you. This is his classroom. I wonder where he should sit so he can hear and understand the teacher.”

To quickly find out which situations it would be relevant to discuss with the child, you can ask them to bring a few photos of everyday communication situations to the appointment.

These photos can be a starting point for your conversation and may offer concrete situations that it will be helpful to role play using My World.