An Example of The Robyn Taylor Framework In Action

Emily is three years old, with a sister, five years old, and a brother 7 years old.  Emily’s symptoms began when she couldn’t sleep on her own in her bed.  She was fearful of loud noises, frightened of animals and when out, would want to come back to her home base.

As part of the Robyn Taylor Framework, Emily’s cognitive abilities were assessed by Robyn, and it became evident that Emily could be experiencing hearing problems.  Further examination found Emily had hearing issues of both upper and lower tones.  It was very difficult for Emily’s parents and significant others to have diagnosed this problem.

Emily couldn’t understand what people were saying on occasions, and her pronunciation of words was poor as a result of her hearing issues.  This made Emily feel insecure and fearful, as she was never confident.  However, Emily was incredibly intelligent and could lip read.

Emily’s hearing problem had caused Emily to become incredibly sensitive and emotional.  Emily became insecure in relation to going out and leaving home.  Emily developed an array of fears and anxieties about the outside world as she couldn’t make sense of it, as a result of her upper and lower tone hearing loss.

At the age of two, Emily had also experienced her father’s best friend having significant depression and temper outbursts.  Emily’s father would often take her with him to visit his friend, as Emily’s father was his main support person.  Over time, Emily would witness the environment of depression and temper outbursts.  This further increased Emily’s anxieties and fears, and made her feel that to go out anywhere and visit anybody could be extremely frightening and terrifying, and that ‘something bad’ might happen.

The combination of Emily’s hearing problems and her visitations, once a week, to her father’s friend, who was experiencing emotional problems, had caused Emily to construct the puzzle in her mind that the environment was fearful, unpredictable, scary, and one that she couldn’t trust.  This translated into anxiety, and symptoms such as fears of animals, new places, leaving her home, and not sleeping.

It was very important that both, Emily’s cognitive and emotional issues were diagnosed, and that a plan of action was put into place so that Emily could resolve these problems and move forward to reach her true potential.  Therefore, as part of the Robyn Taylor Framework, Emily was given an action plan which addressed both her cognitive and emotional needs.  Specialist Programming staff at the center were given a set of exercises and strategies specifically designed for Emily, and Emily’s program was executed each day that she was placed in our care.  Emily’s parents were also given exercises and behavioural strategies, which they could implement in the home environment to help maximise Emily’s potential.  Working as a team is vital for the Robyn Taylor Framework.

Early detection and intervention is the key to realising each child’s true potential.  If Emily’s issues had progressed into primary school being undiagnosed and untreated, they would have evolved into both academic and emotional issues of significance.  Academically, Emily would have experienced difficulties in reading, spelling and putting pen to paper.  Emotionally, Emily’s anxieties and fears would have compounded and extended to a wide variety of areas in her life, causing ‘road blocks’ to her full potential.  This does not mean in any way that Emily’s parents have done anything wrong.  It is just a combination of situational variables that cause children to put their puzzle together in the wrong way.  The puzzle that children put together of the world, denotes each child’s personal success.

The Robyn Taylor Framework provides a wholistic approach to developing children cognitively, emotionally and behaviorally, to enable parents to maximise their child’s true potential.