Years ago when my son and I were receiving EI for his torticollis, I found myself surprised about how hard it was to remember to use the strategies that the PT and I practiced during our visits. She taught me to use TAMO techniques and positioning strategies and shared other ideas that I was eager to …
Don’t Let the “What Ifs…” Keep You From Using Routines-Based Practices!
We’re really good, in early intervention, at the “what ifs…” – especially when it comes to adopting new practices. When a practice feels unfamiliar or even contrary to how we were trained, it’s so easy to jump to the “what ifs” and feel like there are many reasons not to use the new information. Often, though …
Strategies for Working with Children with Torticollis
What Does the Research Tell Us?
Physical therapy and helmet treatment are considered the conservative strategies for positional torticollis, congenital muscular torticollis, and deformational plagiocephaly.1 Retrospective and prospective studies of conservative measures have reported, “good to excellent results, with success rates ranging from 61% to 99% when intervention was initiated before one year of age.”(p.370)2 Ellen …
EI Research to Practice Brief #2: Linking Parents’ Verbal Behaviors with Children’s Communication Development
The practice of early intervention (EI) is always evolving and changing as new evidence comes to light about how to support children and families. This brief summarizes a research study that examined the behaviors of caregivers of young children with autism that were associated with higher levels of joint attention and language in children. It is …
Being Playful vs Playing with Toys…What’s the Difference?
Pick a visit, any visit. Walk in the door and…what are you most likely to see? What’s the most common activity to occur on a visit?
Well, the title of this post surely gave it away, but you are very likely to see the provider and child playing with toys. Why? Why do we still find ourselves sitting on …
Using Pausing to Encourage Development: Examples from Real Visits
Examples of using pausing to encourage development are more powerful than me describing why this technique works so let’s start with a few examples from real intervention visits:
Sandy
One day on a visit with Sandy and her nurse, we played with Sandy’s favorite toy and assisted her as she activated it. Sandy had multiple disabilities and difficulty with communication. After she …
How to Get from “I just want him to walk” to a Measurable IFSP Outcome
Figuring out how to measure IFSP outcomes is always the elephant in the room when talking about writing IFSPs. Individualizing outcomes, measuring them, taking the time to make sure they reflect family priorities, trying to write them so that they will meet requirements and make the insurance company happy (at least in Virginia)…all of these important …
To Give Homework or Not To Give Homework…
Think about this for a moment. How many people can truly say that they LOVED getting homework when they were in school? Very few of us (okay, I might be one of those people but still…). Just the word “homework” has stressful emotions attached to it for many people, even though it was an important part …
Using Self Talk and Parallel Talk During a Familiar Routine to Stimulate Language
You’ve started working with a wonderful family. It’s a large, busy family of six. The child’s mother tells you that she has great intentions to play with her toddler, Jordan, but unfortunately she never gets enough time. She feels guilty because Jordan isn’t talking and she knows that playing is so vital to his communication …
Put Away the 1 inch Cubes!
One inch cubes…the staple of every assessment kit in early intervention. What is so important about stacking 1 inch cubes?? Is it really important that a toddler is able to stack a tower of these tiny blocks?? Should you actually teach a child to do this? My answer to this last question is NO. Here’s why.
Stacking …