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I used my mom to role play with me and I felt like she was able to give me good advice on how to help parents understand the screening and referral process. As a mother she could tell me what was helpful to know and talk about and what wasn’t very important. I felt like this role-playing activity gave me an idea on how parents want to be talked to and treated when dealing with a difficult situation. I wanted to stay positive and supportive to help the parent feel confident that we could help their child. I also wanted to give tips on how they can support their child and the developmental concerns. I learned that while this is a hard topic to talk about to parents it’s best to be straight forward and let them know what the next steps will be. I also learned that there’s many steps that go into screening and processing a child with developmental concerns. I also didn’t know that parents can request screening if they think their child is delayed but teachers should catch delays that children have.

I told the parent that developmental screening provides a quick check of your child's development. It can be thought of a snapshot of your child's motor, cognitive, language, and social-emotional skills. Screening will help determine if your child is meeting the appropriate milestones for their age. Screening is a type of assessment used to determine if a child is at risk for behavioral or academic problems. Screening should not be used to decide where to place a child. Results should be used to determine if a referral is appropriate or not. Early screening can help parents access state and federal programs for their children such as Head Start and preschool. Screening may show a need for a referral, or a parent may ask to refer a child for possible developmental or potential disabilities. A request is made in writing, and the teacher, parents, and other school officials meet to determine a need for evaluation. Once a determination has been made about a need, the evaluation can take place to determine if the student is eligible for additional support. The evaluation consists of experts doing observations, playing, and talking with the child. They will also look at their medical history and look into their social habits. Depending on the child's particular signs, a specialized expert will be part of the team who conducts the evaluation. Parents provide written consent and help determine what the right conditions are for the child in order for the evaluation to take place. Parents provide background information to the evaluators to indicate whether or not the observed behaviors were typical of her or not. Once this determination is made, a team made up of her parents, teachers, and school officials help create an individualized education program (IEP). The IEP contains modifications and interventions to help the student receive extra help. It may also contain services needed to help a child succeed as supplements. While it’s a lot of information for a parent, I wanted her to know the exact details and process so that she could feel confident that we would do our best to help her child.

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Tier 1: The whole class

All students in the general education classroom are in tier 1. Teachers do their best to give kids teaching that fits their skill level and how they learn best. An example that I have seen would be when we made diversity people using play dough. We talked about the project and why it was important. Then we gave instructions to start making their own diversity person but there were a couple kids who didn’t totally understand what they were supposed to do. We showed them some examples of diversity people that their other classmates have done in the past to give them a general idea of what they should be making.

Tier 2: Small group interventions

This tier focuses on children who need some extra help. Children who aren’t making progress in tier 1 will get help in tier 2. Typically, children will have small group lessons two to three times a week in this tier. The teacher will check on the children every couple week to see if the children are making progress. If they are then they can go back to tier one but if they’re still struggling, they might stay in tier two or move into tier three. An example of this that I have seen is in my preschool program. The teacher has children go into one small group and one large group for art projects so that she can help each child more in depth. If children are getting better at their art, then they get to move to the big table and do it on their own in the large group. If they’re struggling, they stay at her table, or she gets extra help for them.

Tier 3: Intensive interventions

Tier 3 is for children who are struggling and tiers 1 and 2 support doesn’t help. This tier can mean small groups or individual lessons. An example that comes to mind is one child who struggled with his speech and social development. He needed to have someone specifically work with him on his speech and social skills. Being able to have one on one time with someone to develop those skills helped him feel confident when playing with other children. After time had passed his skills improved and he was able to go back into tier 2 then eventually into tier 1.

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Tier One: The whole class.

These include and are focusing on the entire class. We will do our best to teach all the children in a way that works best for each individual’s skill level and how they learn best. An example of when I have seen tier one being used is when a teacher included everyone. They were demonstrating a math activity (I don’t remember the full activity.) A few students were struggling to stay focused, in their seats, and not distracting others. The teacher noticed that and was able to adjust the lesson to be more engaging. Every student was able to complete the lesson and understood it. If a child is struggling, they can move into Tier two.

Tier Two: Small group interventions

If students aren’t making progress in tier one, then they will get help from tier two. This is a way of special teaching where there are small group lessons a few times a week. Students in tier two still need to participate in regular activities with tier one. An example of a time I have seen this intervention is when a teacher used a check-in/ check-out system. The student would check-in with the teacher every morning about how they want the day to go, behavior wise. Then throughout the day at random times, the students will receive structured feedback on their behavior. At the end of the day, they check-out with the teacher and discuss behavior from that day. If they are doing great, they can move back to tier one, or if not, they might be moved to tier three to get extra help.

Tier Three: Intensive interventions

When tier one and two support isn’t helping, students are put into tier three. This can mean small group work or individual lessons. An example of when I have seen this is non-verbal cues and signals. There was a student in the classroom who was non-verbal. When he first started, he was shy and didn’t want to communicate with anyone, but after a few weeks of the teacher getting to know him, he started to use hand signals. The teacher and the little boy had their own language, by using cues and hand signals, by the end of the school year.

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*I am still available for a zoom meeting this weekend if that schedule works for anyone else. This post is just incase that doesn't work out*
I chose to have a role play situation with the director of my program where I pretended to be a teacher that was seeing developmental concerns and she was the parent of the child that I was concerned about. This was a very informative way to have feedback from another professional about such a tough topic to have to discuss with parents. Even though this was all for learning purposes I was still really nervous to have this conversation with a pretend parent. These types of conversations are so valuable but also so intimidating. During the conversation I tried to utilize 'a compliment sandwich' strategy. So I first gave a compliment, then broached the subject about the red flag. Truthfully I was prepared to end the conversation with another compliment about the child but after we started talking about the developmental concern my role playing partner did a good job of asking very relevant questions. This derailed my original plan and I felt that in a real situation it would have been beneficial to think ahead about the questions that a parent might have and plan on how to answer them or provide any resources that I am able to. Being able to provide information on screenings or referalls was so valuable but I should have been more prepared to answer their questions specific to their child. I was able to wrap up the pretend conversation on a positive note with a final compliment. In the end my director was able to provide some great feedback. One thing that she said would be really reassuring for parents is for me to take a moment to try to be more confident in myself as I am giving the news. Being hesitant or 'beating around the bush' is not helpful. Being straight to the point, articulate and confident will help parents feel confident in our ability to help/ support them. In general it was a super learning experience!

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Tier 1: The whole class.
These kind of interventions are focused on the entire class as a whole unit. This can include things like structuring a schedule that works for all children, or setting up the classroom environment in such a way to promote success or prevent challenging behaviors. One example that I have seen of intervention at this level is the teacher created transition cards that included games, songs and small activities that the entire group could do during times in the schedule that had excessive amounts of waiting. Although the teacher tried to create a schedule that limited any wait time, there were still times when the children had to wait. She chose  to fill this time with fun and busy activities to help limit any unwanted behaviors. The kids actually started to look forward to this time because it was so fun!
Tier 2: Small group intervention
This kind of intervention is focused on small groups that need a bit more intervention of support on more specific issues. The small groups are more targeted to any extra learning how to handle specific emotions or communication issues. This allows for lower teacher to student ratio and gives the teacher time to talk specifically to the group that really needs some extra support.
An example of this kind of intervention that  I have seen was about a sharing issue involving some train toys. There was a small handful of students that were really struggling to share some new train toys that had been put into the classroom. Instead of taking the toys out the teacher gathered the small group for a short social story about sharing exciting new toys! The story talked about asking to share instead of taking and also how to handle excited emotions that we feel in our body. The teacher took the time to talk to them individually and as a group to help teach them how to handle these emotions. Then she continued to sit with this group to help them problem solve in the moment as they tried to start to use the skills that they had recently learned.
Tier 3: Intensive intervention
This tier is specific to an individual child that need extra support for challenging behavior. This can include prevention strategies and even teachers taking time to decide how the adult will respond to specific behaviors. It is very detailed and specific to a certain child.
An example of intensive intervention that I have seen work before was doing emotional check ins with the child ever 10 minutes. This specific child was very high energy and very easy to anger. They would often get upset at what seemed very insignificant things and then they would resort to violence. After meeting together as teachers we thought that the behavior was actually looking for connection with other children. This child really wanted to play nicely with other children but would often get overly emotional and lash out. They were a very good child but often "saw red" and reacted. We as teachers decided that we would aim to catch the child doing good things in order to build them up! We started setting a timer for every 10 minutes and we would have a quiet verbal check in with the child during that time. If the child was making great choices then they would earn a sticker! It also have us teachers a chance to prevent any challenging behavior because we were connecting with them so often. Although a bit challenging to maintain it was a great success! And we were able to build this child up emotionally and then talk about building new strategies for handling our anger afterwards.

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I performed the role play scenario with my friend Kailynn who is also in the teaching program. I pretended to be the concerned teacher while she pretended to be the parent I was confronting. I was still stressed about talking to her as my pretend parent about my concerns for her child. Talking to parents is fun for me usually, until it comes to telling them the things that they necessarily don't want to hear. Whenever I talk to parents, even if it is just a casual conversation during pick up time at the end of the day, I use the sandwich strategy. I start with one of the child's strengths or something positive, and then I add an area of growth and improvement followed by another strength.

First I mentioned everything positive that has happening as well as mentioning the child's strengths in the classroom. Then, I talked to the parent about developmental screening. I told them that screening is important to see if every individual child is matching the appropriate developmental standards for their age. Screening is not used to see where to place a child, it is used to see if a child has a potential to have academic or behavior issues. As I was describing the process of these developmental screenings, you could tell that the parent was starting to look worried. I noticed this and switched gears back to talking about positives. I figured this point would be a good time for questions so I could open the conversation up to her. She asked questions about disabilities and what it would look like in the classroom.

After we finished this role play scenario, my friend and I switched roles. I wanted to see another point of view of how teachers could inform parents about this. I think it was really good for me to be on the other side of the role play scenario too. This way I could address the concerns and questions from the parents perspective. I was able to think of any questions that parents might ask and I think this really helped me for how I would answer them next time.

Some feedback that my friend gave me after we performed this role play scenario was slowing down when I talk. She said I started to speed up my talking when I started talking about the developmental concerns with the child. I feel like this is really good feedback for me because I just need to be more sure and confident in my responses--it will help the parents feel more safe and secure. I really enjoyed this role play scenario because I was able to practice my taking to parents abilities and learn some really helpful tips.

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Just for clarification purposes we should be making 2 main posts here this week correct. One for "Practice Module activity 2" and one response sharing our experience with the role playing?
Does anyone have a preferred time to schedule a zoom meeting. I am available each day this week from 12:30 - 3:00.