About Hanen

Founded more than 35 years ago, The Hanen Centre is a Canadian charitable organization with a global reach.

Our mission is to provide parents, caregivers, early childhood educators and speech-language pathologists with the knowledge and training they need to help all preschool children develop the best possible language, social and literacy skills, including those children with or at risk of language delays and those with developmental challenges such as Autism Spectrum Disorder, including Asperger Syndrome.

We fulfill our mission by:

The Hanen Approach

The Hanen approach has led the way in changing early language intervention by putting parents first in order to help children best.

Many years ago, early language intervention involved speech-language pathologists "treating" a child in a therapy room with little or no parent involvement. In the early 1970's, research began to reveal that the involvement of parents in their child's early intervention was critical and that the earlier parents were involved, the better the outcome for the child. Research also showed that children learned best in their natural environments, where they were motivated to communicate with the important people in their lives. This required a significant change to the way speech therapy was offered to young children.

So, in 1975, Ayala Hanen Manolson, a speech-language pathologist in Montreal, Canada, developed an innovative program for groups of parents whose children had significant language delays. This program did something novel: instead of giving the children speech therapy once a week, Ms Manolson gathered their parents in a group for a series of sessions and taught them how they could assume a primary role in helping their children develop improved communication skills.

The success of this program, which eventually became It Takes Two To Talk® - The Hanen Program® for Parents of Children with Language Delays, led to the establishment of The Hanen Centre and paved the way for the development of seven other Hanen Programs®; four for parents and three for early childhood educators. To learn more about these programs, click on the following link:



In support of each program, Hanen has developed many helpful resources, including guidebooks and DVDs, for both parents and professionals. Hanen resources break down the most current research in early childhood language development, and transform it into practical, easy-to-use strategies. Click on the link below to learn more about these resources:



To share the Hanen approach with speech-language pathologists/therapists worldwide, The Hanen Centre has developed training workshops which are currently offered in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and The Netherlands. Click the link below for detailed information about our workshops: