What a creative way to address the mother’s priority and get at what the child really needed to learn, Jeff! I really like how you were able to find a way to do both. Have you read about the work in executive functions that has been floating around – about how helping young children learn persistence, attention, problem-solving, etc. is more important thank pre-academics like colors – and more predictive of academic success? Sounds like something you probably already know about or would be interested in!

Yes, Dana, I just recently had a family request ideas to teach their two year old colors and shapes. Due to this child’s delays, he had several preliminary skills to develop prior to this, so we used the idea of colors to teach how to do a simple learning task. We came up with a simple put-in, Structured Teaching-style task associated with a single color following the child’s natural interest in cars (i.e. putting red cars into a small hole on the top of a red container). We were able to start teaching him how to do a simple task while pacifying the mother’s interest in teaching a pre-academic concept.

Thanks Jeff! Yes, you got it exactly! Do you have any suggestions for how you help parents dig deeper and understand those important underlying skills? I truly think THAT is the key to really successful intervention – helping parents understand what those underlying abilities are and how to promote them everyday.