ECSE 340 RB 2

Weekly Quote: “Identify interests and motivating factors”

I liked this quote because it is something that we should not only strive to do with our infants but with the parents, with ourselves, and with any other child or peer we are trying to work with in the future!  As we identify interests and motivating factors with whoever we are working with we are able to understand them better and be able to better connect with them!

One thing that I learned this week was that ‘Natural Environments’ means settings that are natural or normal for the child’s age peers who have no disabilities to the maximum extent appropriate to the needs of the child. So a natural environment for a child with disabilities will be a lot different and will have different components. I really liked in class where it said that our primary role is to work with and ‘support’ family members and caregivers.  The main word I really liked in that sentence is support.  We are not going into the home knowing everything and the parents knowing nothing, so we need to keep that in mind, validate what the parents are doing and then expand and build upon what they are doing to help make it even more beneficial for the child.  I even after watching the video example of a home visit I still have a few questions of what we are supposed to do.  Such as, what do we do if the parent was an early childhood major and already knows a lot of what we are being taught to teach the parents and work with the children with?  In the interventions I want to help the parent and the child but I don’t want to be telling the parent to do things she is already doing with the children or that she already knows.