So far in this series, you’ve learned about the importance of two interventions associated with positive outcomes for children and families. In Part 1, we explored strategies that emphasize caregivers’ awareness and interpretation of their own actions. In Part 2, you learned how to help caregivers identify and use everyday learning opportunities to enhance child development. Now, let’s focus on the third intervention: supporting caregivers’ responsiveness to their children (Dunst & Trivette, 2009; Mahoney, 2009; Swanson, Raab, & Dunst, 2011). For some caregivers, responsiveness comes naturally, especially when there is naturally a good fit between how the child interacts and communicates and how the caregiver parents. When it doesn’t come naturally or the caregiver struggles with responsiveness, it can have a significant impact on the parent-child relationship and the child’s development. Let’s think more about what this looks like and what you can do to support responsive interactions.

Supporting Caregivers’ Responsiveness to their Children

Responsiveness – how a parent or caregiver responds to and meets the needs of a child – has been found to have significant connections to communication and social-emotional development during early childhood (Mahoney, 2009). Responsiveness is one of those concepts that we know when we see it. We know it when we see a mother who reads her child’s cues, even the subtle ones, like when he shifts his gaze to make a choice about which book he wants her to read. We see it when a father hears his baby cry and immediately picks her up, bounces her and pats her back while soothing her with his voice. We see it when a childcare provider uses a warm expression and voice to calm a toddler then invite him into a turn-taking game of blowing bubbles. All of these interactions teach young children that they are important, that adults care, and that their attempts to communicate and engage with others and the environment have meaning.   

Responsiveness is also something that jumps right out at us when it’s not there. Think of the grandmother who ignores her grandson’s vocalizations because he “doesn’t make sense” and who swats him when he acts out from frustration. Think about the mother who misreads her daughter’s arching back and gaze aversion as a personal offense, which negatively impacts their attachment to each other. Or, consider the father whose depression makes it hard for him to respond to his child’s needs consistently or at all. There are many factors that can interfere with a caregiver’s ability to be responsive, and truthfully, we are not always able to mitigate them. We can, however, keep our eyes on responsiveness and encourage it, celebrate it, teach it, and praise it whenever we have the opportunity.

What Does This LOOK Like in Practice?

Here are a few strategies you can use to support responsive interactions between caregivers and children:

Label it when you see it – When you notice a parent being responsive, talk about it. Describe what you saw the parent do and how the child responded. Ask the parent questions to help her identify responsiveness and the impact, such as “What did you do that made Elena smile?” or “What did Elena do after you smiled at her?” Point out the delight the child showed when her parent interacted with her and praise the parent’s efforts.

Model and facilitate contingent interactions – In the context of interacting with the parent and the child together, model contingent interactions that are responsive to the child’s communication and social cues. Talk about what you are doing and why. Coach the parent to notice the child’s communication attempts, movements, or behaviors and help him/her interpret them with meaning. Point out what the child did before and after the interaction and talk about what the parent could do to respond, keep the interaction going, help the child be successful, etc. Just be careful to turn the interaction back over to the parent after modeling so he/she can practice engaging the child. You may be great at using a responsive strategy but that only matters if the parent can learn from you and use the strategy successfully with the child.

Use your voice and facial expressions – Affect is an important part of responsiveness (Mahoney, 2009). Using a warm voice and expressive facial expressions that convey that you are present, engaged, interested, and enjoying the child send an important message. Talk about the importance of affect and provide specific feedback to parents when they are using their affect in responsive ways. This is especially important when interacting with children who struggle with social-communication or who have sensory differences.

Encourage imitation and turn-taking – Use imitation and turn-taking as the vehicles for building responsiveness. When a caregiver struggles with responsiveness, help her understand the back-and-forth nature of interactions and communication. Use simple turn-taking games to entice the parent and child into interactions. Look for turn-taking games that they can enjoy and sustain (for a reasonable amount of time depending on the child’s age and developmental level). Start small, with the parent imitating the child’s actions or sounds, and shape these interactions into turn-taking. Help the parent look for ways he can take a turn whenever the child does something and vice versa. Encourage the parent to expect, wait for, and prompt the child to respond whenever there is an opportunity. Responsiveness is reciprocal but the parent sets the tone.

All three of the interventions you’ve learned about in this series have responsiveness at their core. When caregivers are more aware of how important their own actions and interactions are, understand the learning opportunities they can facilitate during daily interactions, and recognize how to engage and respond to their children to facilitate development, you increase the chances of intervention happening everyday. You also help build stronger parent-child relationships that last well beyond EI. Like I said before, that’s powerful stuff.

Now it’s your turn.

What is your favorite strategy for supporting caregiver responsiveness?

Share your ideas in the comments below!

References:

Dunst, C. J., & Trivette, C. M. (2009). Using research evidence to inform and evaluate early childhood intervention practices. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, 29(1), 40-52.

Mahoney, G. (2009). Relationship-focused intervention (RFI): Enhancing the role of parents in children’s developmental intervention. International Journal of Early Childhood Special Education, 1(1), 79-94.

Swanson, J., Raab, M., & Dunst, C. J. (2011). Strengthening family capacity to provide young children everyday natural learning opportunities. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 9(1), 66-80.

The post 3 Interventions Every Early Interventionist Needs to Know – Part 3 appeared first on Early Intervention Strategies for Success.

Okay, when you read that title, maybe you were curious, wondering if you were going to learn about three new discoveries that will make your job easier. Or, maybe you did a quick eyeroll, thinking “Here we go, the next big ‘thing’ that I need to do.” Either way, I’m glad you’re here. While I’m not sure that these three interventions will make your job easier, I do think they can make your work more effective. No, these interventions aren’t new or the next big “thing,” but they are based on the evidence we have about what early interventionists do that has a positive impact on child and family outcomes – meaning child development is enhanced, children learn and participate in everyday activities, families understand how to help their children, and quality of life is improved. One of the key aspects of these three interventions is YOU – how you interact with families and what you do to support parent-child interaction. You are a key, so read on and learn what you can do on your next visit to have that positive impact.

Here we go. Interventions that:

1. Emphasize caregivers’ awareness and interpretation of their own actions,
2. Help caregivers identify and use everyday learning opportunities to enhance child development, and
3. Support caregivers’ responsiveness to their children

have been found to be most effective in positively impacting child outcomes (Dunst & Trivette, 2009; Mahoney, 2009; Swanson, Raab, & Dunst, 2011). That’s big stuff. In this post, I’ll tackle what the first intervention looks like in practice. I’ll discuss the other two interventions in Parts 2 and 3.

Emphasize Caregivers’ Awareness and Interpretation of their own Actions

When you implement this intervention, you go deeper than just modeling or teaching caregivers intervention strategies. You approach intervention from the perspective of expanding how the caregiver thinks about her (or his) capabilities, her impact on her child’s development, and the positive effects of her everyday interactions with her child. Some caregivers come to EI already embracing their influence as the parent, but many are in the vulnerable position of being a new parent or a parent of a child with strengths and needs that are different from what they expected or previously experienced with other children. Early intervention can be a new window through which to see a child’s potentialities, and we can open that window with how we approach the support we provide.

I truly believe that it’s not enough to tell families that “you are the expert on your child.” Those can be empty words if we don’t back them up with support that builds on what caregivers already know and do. We need to convey, through practice and intentional interactions, that the parent is just the right person to help her child grow and learn, she is enough, and what she does really matters. She may not have entered the program knowing how to stretch her child, how to prompt her child to increase vocabulary, how to teach her child to sign, or how to regulate herself so that her child learns to manage his emotions – and that’s all okay. We are there to teach, guide, and help the caregiver become aware of, embrace, and learn to interpret the link between her actions and her child’s behaviors, interactions, and learning. That’s a deeper level of engaging families, a level at the core of who a parent is. Full disclosure – I don’t think this is easy (often it’s not), but I completely believe that if we walk in the door of every visit with the perspective that we are there to look for opportunities to build the caregiver’s awareness of her own actions and help her learn to interpret that impact, what we do and how we do it changes – for the better.

What Does This LOOK LIKE in Practice?

Here are some strategies I’ve learned from EI practitioners in recent conference sessions where we talked about this intervention:

Use open-ended questions to help the caregiver reflect and think about what she (or he) is doing and why. Ex: What did you notice…? What did you see Jack do when you…? Why do you think that happened? 
What did you do differently that time? What could you do differently next time to help Jack learn to…?

Look for moments to build awareness and interpretation. Keep your eyes and ears open for opportunities to point out those moments when the caregiver interacts with the child in ways that enhances development. Adult learners typically want to know if they are doing something “right” so reinforcing positive interactions helps caregivers know they are on the right track.

Provide specific feedback that points out what the caregiver did, what the child did, and the relationship between the two actions. Help the caregiver make the connection, then ask what she thinks about it. Ex: When you waited before helping Emma stand up, she reached up for the pack ‘n play bar to try to stand herself up. What did you think about that?

Use video recordings to build awareness and interpretation. Record the caregiver using a strategy with her child using her cell phone. Then, watch the video together and process it using reflection and feedback. Share what you notice and ask the caregiver about her observations and feelings. Problem-solve if the strategy or interaction can be tweaked to help the caregiver get closer to her goal for the child. You can also encourage the caregiver to record short videos between visits to watch together during the next visit. These videos can become joint plans and records of progress too, so their value (and the learning opportunity) expands beyond the reflection point that happens during your visit.

Now it’s your turn:

What strategies have you used to build caregivers’ awareness and ability to interpret their own actions? What did this look like on your last visit?

Share your ideas and examples in the comments below!

In Part 2, I’ll dig into the second intervention to explore how to help caregivers identify and use every day learning opportunities…and what to do when this is hard. In the meantime, pay attention to how you build awareness on your next visit. Use this series to help you celebrate when it goes well and problem-solve when you need help. Let’s learn together!

References:

Dunst, C. J., & Trivette, C. M. (2009). Using research evidence to inform and evaluate early childhood intervention practices. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, 29(1), 40-52.

Mahoney, G. (2009). Relationship-focused intervention (RFI): Enhancing the role of parents in children’s developmental intervention. International Journal of Early Childhood Special Education, 1(1), 79-94.

Swanson, J., Raab, M., & Dunst, C. J. (2011). Strengthening family capacity to provide young children everyday natural learning opportunities. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 9(1), 66-80.

The post 3 Interventions Every Early Interventionist Needs to Know – Part 1 appeared first on Early Intervention Strategies for Success.