2026 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference
March 15-17, 2026 • Jacksonville, FL
3/19/2024 | 3:30 PM - 3:55 PM | The Language of Self Advocacy: Success from Early Intervention and Beyond | Capitol 5
The Language of Self Advocacy: Success from Early Intervention and Beyond
How early does the language of self-advocacy start? Language is defined as a system to communicate and self-advocacy is defined as the ability to communicate your needs to others. People who self-advocate are more likely to thrive in school, work, and life. Infusing daily routines with meaningful language focused on self advocacy sets children up for success from early intervention through adulthood. By combining the complexity of language skills with the function of self-advocacy skills within meaningful language opportunities children have the opportunity to fully maximize their communication potential. Children’s language development and self advocacy skills progress when teachers, speech-language pathologists, early intervention specialists and parents work collaboratively to develop expectations and opportunities across settings. The goal is to provide a foundation for young students that builds into late elementary, middle school, and high school.
This presentation will provide strategies that can be implemented and generalized to support children’ self-advocacy skills across a variety of environments. The presentation will include how to define language skills and self-advocacy skills and demonstrate how they support each other. It will include how to prioritize language targets by identifying motivating factors and utilizing them to facilitate language production and self-advocacy. Evidence supports that specialized intervention focused on specific language structures increases language proficiency and allows children to advocate for themselves from birth and beyond.
- Attendees will define self-advocacy skills in early childhood.
- Attendees will identify the language needed for young children to effectively communicate their needs.
- Attendees will identify tools and strategies to facilitate self-advocacy through motivating language opportunities in early childhood.
Presentation:
3478265_16312AlexandriaMestres.pdf
Handouts:
Handout is not Available
Transcripts:
3478265_16312AlexandriaMestres.docx
Presenters/Authors
Alexandria Mestres
(Primary Presenter,Co-Presenter), University of Miami Children's Hearing Program, asm120@med.miami.edu;
Alexandria Mestres holds degrees in Education of the Hearing Impaired and Elementary Education as well as a Masters in Applied Learing Sciences. Alex has worked as an administrator, professional development trainer, and consultant in the fields of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Education and Early Childhood. She is currently working for the University of Miami Children's Hearing Program as the educational specialist.She also works across multiple counties in the state of Florida as a Deaf and Hard of Hearing Specialist for Charter Schools. She also works with AGBell's LEAP program, and serves ACIA's scientific committee.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
No relevant financial relationship exists.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
AAA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
Financial relationship with Academica Charter schools, Charter Schools USA, and True North Charter Schools.
Nature: AGBell Florida Board member, AGBell financial aid review committee.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
Daniela Berrios-Reyes
(Co-Presenter), Nova Southeastern University, danielab.slp@gmail.com;
Daniela Berrios, M.A. CCC-SLP, LSLS Cert AVEd is an ASHA certified and Florida licensed bilingual speech-language pathologist and certified Listening and Spoken Language Specialist. She currently works at Nova Southeastern University as a Clinical Supervisor/Instructor. Daniela is passionate about advocacy, research, training and building capacity for individuals who serve children with hearing loss. She has served on a variety of professional organization committees and presented at the state, national and international levels. She is currently the President of the Florida Chapter of the Alexander Graham Bell Association and participates in research pertaining to listening, speech and language development and outcomes for children with hearing loss.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
Nonfinancial -
AAA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
Nonfinancial -