Early Intervention Strategies for Success

Sharing What Works in Supporting Infants & Toddlers and the Families in Early Intervention

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cups of ice cream flavors

Remember with me. You are a young child—in your elementary years—and you find yourself in an ice-cream shop. Let’s call it Baskin Robbins for the sake of nostalgia. You can barely see over the freezers but as you gaze up and down the line at all the different flavors to choose from, your excitement and …

An important and ongoing part of a service coordinator’s job is gathering information from families about their child and how that child fits into the daily routines of their life. This information ebbs and flows, changing as children and parents develop together over time. By gaining insight into these routines service coordinators can facilitate an …

Logan’s annual IFSP review is underway and you are excited to celebrate his progress. You’ve been working with his family for a year so you’ve seen the steady pace at which Logan continues to develop. When he first entered early intervention, he was only two months old and doing most of the things a two-month-old …

Think about the following perspectives during the Assessment for Service Planning and IFSP development process:

Team Members ArriveSC: I arrive to facilitate the assessment for service planning and IFSP development for Jacoby. I meet Franklin, occupational therapist, and Maria, developmental specialist. We all walk in and I introduce Marilyn and Kevin (Jacoby’s mother and father) to Franklin …

Teaming and collaboration are what we DO, right? We use teaming practices everyday as we connect with other professional team members to support the family in achieving their goals for their child. We understand that we’ll do our best work when we collaborate with caregivers as equal team members, valuing their perspectives and priorities on …

Service coordinators, the early intervention (EI) team members who lead the transition process, often have questions about how to ensure that all of the required transition steps are followed and documented. Individualizing the process while accurately documenting the required steps is an important balance for service coordinators. There are a lot of details to attend …

As the idea of conducting functional assessment takes root here in Virginia, there have been some worries about what it means. Does it mean that we won’t do our more traditional assessment anymore? How will we determine a child’s age-equivalency? How will we get all of the information we need? Who will do the functional …

I have to admit…talking about financial stuff was one of the most uncomfortable parts of my job as a service coordinator. Asking families about their income and even their tax information to assess their ability to pay for EI services…not fun for me or them. As with many aspects of service coordination, I found that …

I have a confession…I don’t actually think we should spend so much time talking with families about their concerns. I think we should ask once, so that we have it for Section II of the IFSP, then leave it alone. Instead, I think we should focus much more on the family’s priority for their child’s …

Marco was recently referred to early intervention (EI) due to suspected global delays. His family is living in a homeless shelter and only has one more week left before they must leave. His father is trying hard to find employment but is challenged by his lack of childcare. He is the sole caregiver for three …

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