Founded in 1977, The Hanen Centre™ specializes in developing evidence-based programs and resources for the important people in young children’s lives – their parents and caregivers – to help them gain the knowledge and skills to build children’s social, language and literacy skills. To maximize our reach, we focus on training and supporting speech-language pathologists around the world so they can provide personalized support to the families they work with using Hanen programs and resources. We also provide training to early intervention professionals, who use the Hanen approach in their work with families of young children.  

Read our mission

 

We believe in:

The power of parents and caregivers in early intervention

We recognize the family as the most important element in a child’s life. Our programs are grounded in extensive research showing the tremendous impact parents can have when they are supported to play a leading role in their child’s intervention.   

The critical role of early childhood educators

These professionals have the power to connect and interact with children in ways that benefit children for the rest of their lives – building their confidence and well-being, while helping to lay the foundation for social, language and literacy success. 

A naturalistic approach

Research shows that children learn to communicate not by being “taught”, but by participating in enjoyable everyday conversations and activities with their parents and other important adults. This means that early intervention becomes  an ongoing, more impactful process because it becomes part of a child’s everyday life.  

Child-led, strengths-based interventions

Hanen Programs support parents and caregivers to understand their child better, and to use their child’s individual strengths and interests as a basis for helping them learn. 

The importance of starting early

We know that the earlier a child receives the support they need, the greater the impact it will have. 

Best practice, evidence-based approaches

Hanen Programs are based on extensive research and current best practice in early language intervention.