ECSE 421 Week 7

This week we talked about a few things that I feel are very important. The class discussed the importance of adult learning when it comes to early intervention within the family, as well as how mental illness is portrayed today and what we need to do to help families. I thought it was great that we learned coaching for adults. When we speak to adults about their children we need to teach them what and why we are using certain strategies with their child. We need to teach them how to use these strategies in the routines within their homes. As we do this they will discover the importance of RBI’s as well as be more trusting of the interventionist who is allowing them to be a part of their child’s therapy.

With mental illness I found it very shocking how hidden it is. Society thinks it isn’t a huge issue because those who have mental illnesses may be ashamed of them. As we let others open up about mental illness we can help them release frustrations and teach them coping strategies in how they can deal with their mental disorder. We need to look at it the same way we look at other disabilities.

The resource that helped me the most this week were the statistics as well as the TEDx talks. The statistics on mental illness were shocking. And the TEDx talks helped me understand a mother’s perspective on mental illness, as well as a teacher’s perspective on helping adults be a part of their children’s education.

For applying this in the future I would say that I am becoming prepared to teach parents strategies rather than do the strategies for the parents. I am learning the importance of being impartial and holding my bias.

My peers did a great job of sharing personal experiences as well as experiences they have had with other people in their lives. It opened up my mind to mental illness and the reality of it. I don’t know many people dealing with depression, or anxiety that have made me aware of it. I’m glad my classmates were willing to participate in the discussion.

“This problem is too big for me to handle on my own. Sometimes there are no good options. So you just pray for grace and trust that in hindsight, it will all make sense.” TEDx talk which is a mother’s perspective on dealing with her son who has a mental illness.

This week for my HWD project I wanted to get some field knowledge on working with children with disabilities and their parents. This is not my expert interview but I needed more information on what it is like working with children who come from different backgrounds. My mother is a special education teacher in an elementary school in Utah. She teachers K-5, and has children in her class who come from very low SES families, as well as middle class families. She said that the success a child has during the week can quickly be back tracked when they go home, IF the parent is not working with the child at home. This made a lot of sense to me because it is vital that every day the child is utilizing strategies and the parents are implementing them in their routines.

This applies to early intervention because I need to provide the parent’s with strategies that they can easily use and resources they can quickly find. My mother says the reason she sends home daily notes on each child is so the parent is aware of the child’s progress and lack of progress. She gives the parents strategies to use at home, and whether they use them or not, at least they have the information available.  As I work with families who are too busy to sit down and implement strategies within their routine, I want to focus on loving the family who is taking care of the child. I want to have communication with them in between intervention sessions to help me be aware of their child’s progress and what I can do to help them keep their child progressing towards their goals. 

ECSE 340 Week 7

This week my home visit went really well. The infant I have been working with is doing very well on her goal, but her mom is not convinced she has met the goal, even though during the session she did. Her mom wants to time her sitting up at different times during the day to see if it makes a difference how well she sits up. Next week we will work on balance and her interpersonal skills while she sits up. I'm concerned that I won't know what to do after this week, mostly because her mom isn't concerned that she isn't crawling at 9 months. She scoots a lot, but her next step from sitting up and balancing is crawling. Her mom doesn't want her to crawl yet.

Working with my Partner, Amanda, has been really good. She helps me with strategies on how I should speak to the parent and she helps me fill out the SOAP note while the mother and I are talking and working with the infant. This week I also want to include the infants father in her strategies.

"RBI's are where we show the parents strategies they can use for their child's goal through out the day."-Sister Swenson, This is not word for word, but it helped me realize how to help the parent apply what we do during and intervention session.

ECSE 421 Week 6

This week we continued to focus on the sub systems of the family. The two main focuses were fathers and siblings. These two sub systems within the family are very important because they are the daily interactions with the child who has a disability.

Fathers are important because they complement mothers in the family. We read several articles as a class that said fathers are invaluable and they are worthless in the family. I would argue this to the death because I know that without my father I would not be who I am today.

We also had students in the class talk about their siblings who have disabilities. There were many stages of the grief cycle displayed. It is important for siblings to share their experiences because they are able to show empathy for one another as well as learn from their experiences with their siblings.

The resource that helped me the most this week was my peers. They were the ones who shared raw experiences they have had and helped me gain a different perspective on how separate members of the family deal with someone who has a disability.

To apply this in the future I am prepared to take into account helping fathers feel included as well as helping siblings have a voices. The point of an IFSP is to provide the family with a plan to help them all cope with each other and the child who has a disability. My peers did great in making sure the discussion board was meaningful. They also shared their experiences in class which added to the class discussion.

“Push fear of the unknown out of your head and worry about today and what is right in front of you.” –Alex Parrott (Fathers PDF)

This week I have felt kind of stuck in my HWD project. As I talked to Sister Swenson I was able to expand my thinking beyond the jobs within Early Intervention, but also to the disabilities I will be working with. I will research 3 new disabilities that I am unfamiliar with and what they will need within early intervention. I am also getting ready to do my professional interview to gain more perspective into the field. I have 2 ideas of people I can interview and I will be contacting them this week. 

ECSE 340 Week 6

This week for my intervention session I had this feeling the infant would reach her goal when I went to her home. As we worked with her on sitting up for 2-3 minutes she had times during the session where she would make it 20 seconds and then fall over, versus 4 minutes where she would stay up for a long time. We tried a few different strategies in order to have her sit up. She liked interaction with her mom and her sister over the toys. When the mom and sister used a toy to interact with her she also responded to that very well. She had moments where she was able to keep her balance when a toy was out of reach, but balance will be something her mother and I want to work on with her more. For my back up plan I will have her work on getting on her knees to go from scooting to crawling.

In class I really appreciated the class sharing their concerns as well as their triumphs. This helped me remember that we are in the beginning stages of our learning and it is okay not to be perfect. I also learned during class how important it is to be repetitive and learn from our strategies that don't work. I am looking forward to our next session together as we try new strategies and I see her continue to develop.

"I feel like she is grading me!" -Rachel

While this is a funny quote, I think it is applicable because a lot of us feel incompetent, but Sister Swenson reassured us that as long as we are making progress and intentionally planning and thinking through our plans, it counts.

ECSE 421 Week 5

This week I was greatly impacted as we talked about families and the grief cycle. We also had a guest lecture by a mother with who has 2 sons with various disabilities. In the grief cycle we talked about how it is important to be aware of the family’s needs at the current moment. They will go through the grief cycle many times as their children fail to reach milestones they would have expected for them. As a professional in the home we should become familiar with the grief cycle and label where they are in the cycle so we know how to approach interventions.

My greatest resource this week was the guest lecture. It is not very often as professionals that we get to hear the mother’s day to day routines that are difficult to adapt to. She has to plan her entire life around those boys and it is a struggle to keep the energy going in order to keep up with their hectic routines. She has realized that she gets to provide experiences for her boys instead of having experiences. I can imagine that is very exhausting.

To apply what I have learned this week into the future I would like to take on a new attitude. I need to realize that while I may know what the child is like at home, I am not at home with that child day in and day out. I do not know what those parents are going through because I have not experienced the everyday care of that child. I would like to be more empathetic towards parents and show them that I realize they know what is best for their child and I am there to provide the tools they need to accomplish their child’s goals.

 My peers learned a lot this week and I learned a lot from them. They participated in the class discussions and provided insight I had not thought of before. I appreciate how they are willing to share personal experiences with family members or people they know who have disabilities and what it is like in their home.

“Their behavior isn’t a reflection of my parenting.”- Guest Lecturer

As I venture deeper into my HWD project, I am coming across many ways to apply what I am learning into the field. I have been able to take strategies from ECSE 340 and apply them to early intervention. This week I focused on learning what and early intervention specialist does within the homes of the families. I learned that the main goal of the Developmental Specialist is to work with the parents to create goals for the child. As they look at the developmental checklist along with the parental goals, they will help the parent be the advocate for their child.

The families do not have to pay for these services, and the Developmental Specialist is able to create a plan for the family called an Individualized Family Service Plan. Through this plan the families will be able to learn how they can implement strategies into their daily routines. The Specialist helps them learn these strategies based on the child’s goal.  

I have also seen other careers in Early Intervention such as, Speech Pathologist, Physical Therapist, Behavioral Support, and Occupational Therapist.

http://www.eiskids.com/default.asp

ECSE 340 Week 5

I attended my home visit last week and have another one scheduled for this week. My previous blog post explains my thoughts on the previous home visit. As I reflect and learn on what I will be working with this infant on I am excited to create this goal with her mom and work on gross motor with her. The goal we are looking at is having her sit up for 1-2 minutes during a session. This will help her in so many areas as she develops her core strength and balance.

This week in class we talked about developing an intervention plan for the infants. We talked about focusing on the domain the child is in need of based on their Ages and Stages paper work. The infant I am working with is significantly low in her gross motor development. Her goals will be centered on sitting up and building interpersonal relationships with others as she gains a new perspective from sitting up.

“Make goals specific, measurable, and observable.” –Sister Swenson. This is important as we create goals to make sure we can observe the success within the intervention session. This is how we will measure progress.

ECSE 421 Week 4

As we learned more about families this week we discussed open systems and closed system families. Open system families have information constantly flowing in and out of their home. They are open with other families about things going on in their lives and don’t mind that everyone knows their family matters. A closed family is the opposite. They are very private with information going on in their family and don’t want a lot of help. Working with both open and close system families can be a challenge because one (open) is always looking for a fix, while the other (closed) has a hard time accepting help for their child.

The greatest resource for me this week was how Sister Swenson taught us about the Crisis Cycle. As I read about the crisis cycle it didn’t make complete sense how the stages worked and how a child can flip back and forth between stages. She really explained how to prevent going into escalate mode and waiting until they are ready to problem solve before we make the next move as caregivers.

I am well prepared to understand open and close ended families, I do think it will take practice in sensitivity to know how to approach each situation with skill and tact. I also feel helping children learn the crisis cycle will take a lot of practice so I know how I can keep from triggering escalation.

My peers learned this information and retained it really well. They applied what we were learning to their families and asked questions about how to apply the crisis cycle in different scenarios. I helped by being a part of the discussion and also discussion outside of class with my classmates about what we had learned. It helped us retain it and continue to apply it.

“All children have basic needs for acceptance, appreciation, and love. Exchanging unconditional love is an essential ingredient of family affection…” –Families, Professionals, and Exceptionalities p. 57

ECSE 340 Week 4

This week was my first home visit to the infant’s home where I will be working with her. The home visit went great as the children crowded around to play with the little girl and her mom and I discussed where her development is at. As her mother and I talked she discussed how she is 9 months old and feels she is a little behind developmentally. While we went through the ages and stages checklist it was clear that she was more around a 6 months level rather than a 9 month. It will be great to see how she progresses as we work on some motor development with her as well as separation anxiety.

While I did the case study on a girl names Serena in the book, I realized that some of her motor movements will help me with the infant I will be visiting this semester. I really tried to focus on her as I planned the lesson for my case study.

Working with the infant I have been assigned, I would like to allow her the opportunity to explore her world as she develops her gross motor muscles.

“As children develop, they become increasingly more capable of acting on their world. With the help of supportive adults, young children learn to address their needs in more sophisticated ways with increasing independence.” –Family-Centered Early Intervention p. 168

ECSE 340 Week 3

This week we learned about intervention plans and what it is like conducting a visit where we implement strategies. Our book talked about Routine Based Interventions (RBI) and how they need to be family based. The purpose of this is to help the parents understand what they can do in order to carry out the routines when the specialist is not there. In the coaching model it talks about how we should be working with the parent. They know their child the best and as we seek their advice we can also counsel them on strategies to implement what they think is best for their child.

We also learned about how to begin our lesson plans for this class. They need to be detailed in order to show that we are being intentional and show that we are thinking through the strategies we have come up with for these toddlers.

“Joint planning [within the coaching model] puts the parent in a more active role in determining what is appropriate and manageable for his or her family…” 

-Family Centered Early Intervention p. 93

ECSE 421 Week 3

This week in ECSE 421 We focused a lot on the family and understanding the family in order to help the infants we will work with. In order to understand children with disabilities the class discussed our ADA projects. Each student did a different simulation on a particular disability. The insight I gained from each person’s statement was that they had time to reflect on how hard it would be, even though the simulation isn’t even close to what the actual person with a disability would go through.

The experience that helped me internalize and empathize with these infants and their families was on Friday when we each discussed our own family dynamics. It was really powerful to learn about the families and their subsystems and how these systems shaped the individuals in my class. It is amazing to me that with about 25 students in our class each and every family situation was unique. This will help me realize the infants I work with will all have unique family situations and their IFSPs need to be incredibly individualized and specific to that family. My peers impacted me as they shared these personal stories which allowed me to feel open enough to share my family story. They helped me understand how to be open minded when working with families in the future.

The resource that helped me break down the family systems was the power point that was shown in class. When I was reading about it I wasn’t able to categorize and internalize this information. The PowerPoint had bullet points that helped me simplify the family into spousal, parental, and sibling subsystems.

“…whether they have children with disabilities or not, families are unique and complex.” –Families, Professionals, and Exceptionalities Ch. 2

For my HWD project I have decided to research Early Intervention and jobs within it. I have thought about becoming an Early Intervention Specialist, so I looked up what that job entails. First of all I would need to graduate from an accredited school with my bachelor’s degree. Then I would be able to work with children through Early Intervention from birth to 5. An Early Intervention Specialist travels to preschools, homes, or kindergartens in order to work with the infant and their families. This is when they will create an IFSP individualized for the family.

Looking up this first job within early intervention has made me even more excited to get into the field. I hope to find more jobs so that I can broaden my horizons.

http://www.specialeducationguide.com/teacher-certification/what-early-intervention-specialists-do/