Easter Seals Disability Services

Early Intervention

Services

Southwest Human Development Easter Seals’ Early Intervention program offers a full range of services for children ages birth to three who have developmental disabilities or delays, and their families. These services include:

• Occupational, speech/language, and physical therapy
• Developmental special instruction
• Assistive technology services
• Service coordination

In some cases additional services such as nursing, nutrition, hearing, vision, mental health and transportation may be available.

Services are provided in a variety of settings including:

• The child’s home
• Southwest’s offices
• Parent-child playgroups

What is Early Intervention? 

Early intervention consists of professionals working in partnership with parents and families of children with special needs, to support their growth, development and learning. Since children learn best within the context of their family, home, and daily routines, early interventionists will help parents and caregivers provide children with opportunities to practice targeted skills throughout the child and family’s day. Early intervention helps children to move, play, eat, communicate, and make friends in places where they naturally use these skills such as a park, library, restaurant, friend’s home, a playgroup, child care setting, and in their own home.

Southwest Human Development Easter Seals’ early intervention will:

• Be woven into your family’s everyday life
• Build on your child’s relationship with you and other members of your family
• Include family members
• Be responsive to family concerns, priorities and resources
• Be focused on your child and family’s strengths

Program Philosophy

The early interventionists at Southwest Human Development Easter Seals are committed to providing a continuum of quality, direct and consultative early intervention services for children and families. These services respect diversity and foster self-sufficiency by supporting parents as the primary educators of their children.

Southwest Easter Seals believes that:

• Children learn best when they are actively engaged and involved in “hands-on” experiences that are pleasurable to them.
• From the very earliest age, children explore and learn about the world through play.
• There are key emotional characteristics established very early on in a child’s life which are critical for educational readiness. These are: confidence, curiosity, intentionality, self-control, the ability to relate to others, the capacity to communicate, and cooperativeness. These are developed through a child’s earliest relationship with parents and other important people in the child’s life.

Believing that it is most important to support parents as they help their children to develop and learn, Southwest Human Development Easter Seals’ early interventionists will:

• Help you discover what interests and motivates your child and what activities will be most effective for teaching new skills.
• Work with you to plan various ways to give your child opportunities to practice what he or she is learning during everyday routines (such as diapering, mealtime, or bath time).
• Help you take advantage of simple “teachable” moments of everyday life in the home, community, and child care.
• Challenge your child with the goal of helping him or her try new activities and develop new skills.

Southwest Human Development Easter Seals uses a transdisciplinary team approach for providing early intervention services. A transdisciplinary team is a group of interventionists who provide services in a collaborative manner by sharing not only information, but roles. In partnership with parents/guardians, priority goals are developed and information, knowledge, and skills are transferred across disciplinary boundaries. Frequent consultation and/or meetings (approximately monthly) provide opportunities for exchange of information and training as various team members assume a primary facilitator role for addressing the goals. All team members are considered “active” and are available to meet with others on the team and to deliver service directly as needed.

The membership of your child’s early intervention team will vary depending on the outcomes and services identified on the Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP). An early intervention team will always include parents/guardians and one or more of the following early intervention professionals:

Child Development Specialist: An early interventionist has expertise in the areas of child development and disabilities. Through this expertise, the early interventionist will help you incorporate the different goals and activities you have planned for your child into your child and family’s daily routines, and will help guide the identification of next steps for supporting your child’s development. The early interventionist will be able to discuss with you any questions or concerns you may have about carrying out the IFSP.

Speech/Language Pathologist: The speech/language pathologist’s role is to help you and other team members design and implement a plan that will support your child to expand his or her ability to understand and communicate with others. For example, some children communicate by looking at what they want, others by pointing, and still others by using words. A child’s ability to communicate may be affected by how and what he understands, as well as by his or her physical abilities. Your child may need to develop more understanding of language or better control of the muscles in his/her tongue and mouth in order to develop better communication skills. The speech/language pathologist’s job is to help decide the best course of action to help your child become the best communicator he or she possibly can.

Occupational Therapist: The occupational therapist’s role is to look at your child’s small muscle coordination (for example how she uses her fingers to pick up little things, moves things back and forth from hand to hand, pushes buttons on a pop-up toy, and does simple puzzles). The occupational therapist will also focus on how your child is beginning to dress or feed him or herself. In some cases, the occupational therapist can help identify particular textures or sensations that are uncomfortable or upsetting for you child (for example some children don’t like to touch anything sticky or gooey).

Physical Therapist: The physical therapist will talk with you about your child’s motor skills such as: reaching, rolling over, crawling, pulling to stand, and walking. She will focus on your child’s balance, coordination, and strength. She will also observe your child’s motor planning skills (for example getting into and out of a chair or climbing onto a riding toy).

Program Managers: Program managers are interventionists that may have expertise in any of the disciplines. They provide direct services to families as well as being responsible for overseeing the implementation of services. Program managers monitor, mentor, supervise and direct staff members to support quality services.

Mental Health Consultants: Mental health consultants have expertise in the area of social emotional development. They focus on issues related to a child’s emotional well-being and the role of parents and caregivers in supporting a child to develop a healthy and positive self image. Sometimes, mental health clinicians work with families and other early interventionists to examine behavioral challenges a child is experiencing.

Support Coordinator: Service coordination refers to the activities carried out by a service coordinator to assist and enable an eligible child and family to receive the rights, procedural safeguards, and services that are authorized to be provided under the state's Early Intervention program. The service coordinator is responsible for coordinating all services across agency lines, serving as the single point of contact in helping parents to obtain the services and assistance they need. Service coordination in an active, ongoing process that involves, assisting parents of eligible children in gaining access to the early intervention services and other services identified in the individualized family service plan, coordinating the provision of early intervention services, facilitating the timely delivery of available services, and continuously seeking the appropriate services and situations necessary to benefit the development of each child being served of the duration of the child's eligibility.

Medical Community: Pediatric healthcare providers and specialists play a critical role in your child’s life and are a primary referral source to the AzEIP system. Medical personnel can provide essential information about how your child’s health status may be impacting his or her development. We will work in partnership with you to assure that your child’s pediatric health care professionals are provided with appropriate and meaningful opportunities to participate in your early intervention services. With your permission we can share your child’s evaluation results, reports, and IFSP.

In short, Southwest Easter Seals’ early interventionists provide services that are:

• Implemented in collaboration with parents
• Play-based, interactive, enjoyable, and “hands-on”
• Designed around routines of everyday life (not special “work” or “therapy” times)
• Oriented toward supporting your child’s social and emotional development
• Responsive to community and family resources

Partner Agencies

Southwest Human Development Easter Seals works in partnership with the Arizona Early Intervention Program (AzEIP), which is a statewide system of supports and services for families of children, birth to three, with disabilities or developmental delays. The AzEIP system is collaboration of activities by the following state agencies:

• Department of Economic Security (DES)
• DES/Arizona Early Intervention Program (AzEIP)
• DES/Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD)
• Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS)
• Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and the Blind (ASDB)
• Arizona Department of Education (ADE)
• Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS)

Each agency has unique guidelines for eligibility and service delivery. Depending on your child’s unique needs you will qualify to receive services from one of the partner agencies identified above. Your early interventionist will help you understand the particular characteristics of the agency with which your family is interacting. Should you need or want to contact a representative from the agency, your early interventionist can provide appropriate contact information, and if desired, assist you in making that contact. In addition, we will continually re-evaluate your child’s needs to assure you are receiving services through the appropriate agency. Arizona’s Early Intervention Program (AzEIP) maintains an informative website www.de.state.az.us/azeip/ or you may contact them by phone at 602-532-9960.

For more information about Southwest Human Development Easter Seals’ Early Intervention program, contact us.