Program Monitoring Practices for Teachers of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Early Intervention

Program monitoring is an important and necessary assessment practice within the field of early childhood deaf education. Effective program monitoring requires a focus on both the consistent implementation of intervention strategies (fidelity) and the assessment of children’s ongoing progress in response to interventions (progress monitoring). Teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing (TODs) who provide early intervention services need to conduct regular program monitoring to evaluate the merit of their efforts. However, progress monitoring is a practice often overlooked by practitioners within the field of early intervention. It is recommended that TODs monitor children’s progress “regularly,” but evidence of such practices by TODs is as yet unavailable. In this article, we describe how TODs can use both progress monitoring and fidelity checks to achieve the goal of effective program monitoring for young children who are deaf and hard of hearing

“Dosage” Decisions for Early Intervention Services

Evan is 2 years old. He has been referred by his pediatrician to the early intervention program in his small town due to signs of global developmental delay. Evan says two words—ma (for mom, dad, or grandma) and ba (for bottle). He is still on a bottle and rejects many table foods. Evan began walking 4 months ago, and still falls down quite a bit. Although his parents report that Evan is generally a happy toddler, when he becomes upset, he is prone to intense temper tantrums that include screaming and kicking. His parents handle these episodes in a calm, consistent manner, and Evan typically regains his composure within 2 or 3 minutes. His mother and father teach in the local school district, and Evan is cared for by his grandmother during the school day. Evan’s parents are quite engaged in seeking support for Evan; they vow to do everything in their power to promote his development. Bryce is also 2 years old. He was referred to the early intervention program in the same small town by a caseworker with the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) as required by law under CAPTA (the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act). Bryce was found one rainy day wandering alone outside the ground-level apartment where he lives with his mother and baby sister. He had succeeded in opening the screen door and walked out unnoticed. A passer-by spotted him and called the police. A DHHS caseworker was assigned to investigate the circumstances. During her visits, the caseworker observed that Bryce communicated by grunting and pointing to things, but she did not hear him using understandable words. Bryce’s mother reported that he was usually good-natured, but the caseworker noticed that when he became upset, he was prone to intense temper tantrums that included screaming and kicking. Bryce’s mother did not seem to know what to do with him at that point, and she told the caseworker she usually gave him what he wanted because he “was so upset.” Bryce was not removed from his home because his mother voluntarily agreed to services offered by the caseworker. The caseworker also explained that she was required by the CAPTA provision to refer Bryce and his family to the early intervention program for assessment of Bryce’s development; Bryce’s mother expressed interest in the program. The local community’s Early Intervention multidisciplinary team completed assessments of both children. The assessments included observations and standardized instruments completed with the boys and their parents to determine the children’s eligibility for services. Although results of the observations and standardized assessments revealed that both Evan and Bryce qualified for early intervention services as children with developmental delays in cognitive and language development, many questions remained for their early intervention teams. What were the families’ priorities for their children? What supports would be optimal to effect positive outcomes for these children? What dosage of service from the early intervention team would be needed—How often and how intensive

2003-2007 Report on Hate Crimes and Discrimination Against Arab Americans

Analyzes rates, patterns, and sources of anti-Arab-American hate crimes and discrimination, including detainee abuse, delays in naturalization, and threats; civil liberties concerns; bias in schools; and defamation in the media. Includes case summaries

Parent Engagement during Home Visits in Early Head Start and Head Start: Useful Strategies for Practitioners

This study explores strategies used by early childhood professionals (ECPs) involved in a school readiness intervention to support parent engagement in young children’s learning. In this study, we used video recordings to understand the ECP-parent interactions during Early Head Start and Head Start home visits. We coded the videos for the number of parent engagement strategies that were used by ECPs as well as the quality of parent engagement during visits, including the amount of parent-child interaction that took place during the visits. Findings have implications for the implementation of the Head Start Parent, Family and Community Engagement (PFCE) Framework, and the professional development of early childhood professionals

Stabilizing Developmental Language Trajectories in Infants/Toddlers: A Preliminary Study

Parents’ interactions with their children can have influential effects on children’s language outcomes. Special supports may be needed however, when young children live in poverty and show developmental delays early in life. This study analyzed data for a subset of children enrolled in Early Head Start programs and participating in a randomized trial of the Getting Ready intervention (Sheridan, Marvin, Knoche, & Edwards, 2008). These 41 children had standard scores below 85 on the Bayley Scales of Infant Development-II when the EHS and intervention services began. Statistically significant benefits were observed for the 28 children in the treatment group compared to the 13 children in a comparison group on children’s scores on the Preschool Language Scale-4. These preliminary findings suggest that the Getting Ready intervention may provide added value to Early Head Start programs and stabilize children’s developmental trajectory for language skills for children experiencing the dual challenges of poverty and developmental delays early in life

LET\u27S GET PHYSIC(AI)L – TRANSFORMING AI-REQUIREMENTS OF HEALTHCARE INTO DESIGN PRINCIPLES

As healthcare\u27s digitization advances, artificial intelligence (AI) techniques offer opportunities to improve medical care. In addition to the much-discussed potential in diagnostics, AI-based systems can further support processes in clinics or comparable healthcare facilities, helping to improve medical, organizational, and administrative processes. Nevertheless, apart from single use-cases, AI in healthcare is still not unleashing its full potential. To empower the technology and provide a guideline for developers but also other entities such as medical institutions, we derive and plan to validate design principles guiding the design of AI-based systems specifically operating in clinics and healthcare facilities. In this research in progress study, we conduct the first two phases of the DSR approach by identifying requirements in literature and transforming these into design principles. By doing so, we provide a collection of literature-based design principles that need to be considered when implementing AI-based systems into healthcare contexts

Homelessness & Adverse Childhood Experiences: The Health and Behavioral Health Consequences of Childhood Trauma

This fact sheet was developed by the National Health Care for the Homeless Council and the National Network to End Family Homelessness, an initiative of The Bassuk Center on Homelessness and Vulnerable Children and Youth. The purpose is to ensure clinicians working with people experiencing homelessness understand the role of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in health outcomes as well as the options for responding

Assessing Pre-Literacy Behaviors in Infants and Toddlers: Psychometric Evaluation of the Infant Toddler Literacy Assessment (ITLA-3)

Assessment of emerging literacy in young children is generally limited to either skill development in children over 3 years of age or the quality and context of young children’s early literacy experiences. Although there has been promotion of their early literacy experiences, assessment of emerging pre-literacy behaviors in children younger than 3 years has yet to be organized into a single tool. Preliminary work on the Infant Toddler Literacy Assessment (ITLA) has progressed through initial steps of scale development and shown promise as a criterionbased, standardized assessment for tracking children’s pre-literacy behaviors and guiding practitioners in supporting development of those behaviors in populations that might otherwise show delays later-on. Previous analyses of data on 450+ children provided statistical support of a developmental sequence of ITLA exemplar behaviors, from easiest or earliest learned to later developed skills. Results of the present study showed the ITLA-3 has moderate construct validity with the PPVT™-IV and demonstrates one overall construct of pre-literacy across its 15 exemplars and 105 behaviors. Evidence now exists to support use of ITLA-3 by early childhood teachers to assess and guide the advancement of pre-literacy behaviors in infants and toddlers. Ongoing development of the ITLA-3 is recommended for further standardization