Fredericksburg Parent

14 Fredericksburg Parent and Family • Special Issue 2024 INTERVIEWED BY EMILY FREEHLING Ask the Expert a sk t h e e x p e rt When a child is delayed in meeting developmental milestones in the first three years of life—a critical time for brain growth—it can be hard to know what to do. Parent Education-Infant Development (PE-ID) is a program of the Rappahannock Area Community Services Board known commonly as early intervention. PE-ID's team of occupational, physical, speech and other therapy providers work with parents and young children together in the home to give parents the tools to help their children through frequent, repeated, play-based exercises that fit into common daily habits such as diaper changes and feedings. The goal is to help children ages 0 to 3 narrow developmental gaps and put them on a path to be as ready as possible for kindergarten and the years ahead. Get to know PE-ID and its approach to helping parents and children in the following interview with PE-ID Program Coordinator Suzanne Haskell and Part C System Manager Alison Standring. Q: How do PE-ID's services differ from outpatient therapy services? Alison Standring: Early intervention services are provided under a parent coaching model in the family's home. We are facilitating the parent to work with the child more than we are working directly with the child. We show parents how to incorporate specific practices that can address their child's delay into frequent daily routines, and then we give parents and children time to work on those skills and hopefully see progress before our next visit. As a result, our visits are less frequent than what you would find in an outpatient therapy service. We are not there to work solely with the child. We are there to work with the parent, and to show the parent how they can help the child every day. So active parental participation in our sessions is essential. Parent Education – Infant Development puts parents in position to help children meet developmental milestones The early intervention philosophy is that parents know their children best, and the child will respond to the parent better than they will to an outsider. If we can help parents incorporate strategies into what they are doing every day, they will maximize their child's progress. Instead of a physi- cal therapist coming in four times a week to do exercises, parents can do stretching exercises during every diaper change. Language opportunities aren't limited to time slots with a speech therapist—they happen all day long. When parents are empowered, the child gets far more therapy than we or any outpatient provider could facilitate. Q: Why are parents at the center of early interven- tion's approach? Alison Standring: Parents are with their children far more often than we could ever be with a child. They have that many more opportunities to provide that intervention by incorporating it into whatever they're doing in their daily rou- tines. Parents also know their children's baseline, their rou- tines and skills better than any provider. Ultimately, they are going to be able to effectively incorporate the techniques we teach into a typical day far better than we could. Suzanne Haskell: Children require a routine or skill to be practiced multiple times before they master it. A child with a disability or developmental delay requires that number to be even higher. So, for the children we serve, training par- ents to weave our techniques into their days is critical to maximizing the first 36 months of brain development. Helping Children by Empowering Parents

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