Research that paid off- Uplifting stories

            Early intervention is a topic I am passionate about due to the impact I have seen it make on children I have personally worked with over the years. Being able to assist a child and their family with finding the resources and implementing the plans to be able to create a higher potential for growth and development is what being an early educator is all about.

            While living in Alaska a child was in my classroom that suffered from seizures in utero and was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy. The child was carried to term and delivered, however there were times the child was deprived of nutrients and the brain was not fully developed. When he was to be moved from the infant room in hopes of helping become more mobile I was the room they choose due to my patience and knowledge of working with children with development delays and disabilities.  He was two years old entering my classroom which was normally a pre toddler room ages varied from 11 to 24 months.

            When he began in my room he wore glasses he was legally blind, but with the glasses he was able to distinguish some forms and had heightened sense of taste and hearing. He was unable to walk he got around through a form of crawling or moving in a hunched sitting position. He was thriving through his height and weight he was in the 90^th percentile for his height his weight was slightly lower than average due to be unable to chew his food we has on protein shakes and smoothies.

            Prior to his transition to my classroom the parents,  the director, myself and his speech and occupational therapist created an action plan to try to challenge and push him to begin to physical develop. It was a tough rode and there were many obstacles and lots of tears from everyone, but through the continuity of care and the therapist we were able to create some strides.

He was in occupational therapy and the therapist had him fitted for what we called his “scuba suit” . It was a neoprene  jump suit he wore that compressed his muscles and allowed him to gain strength through giving him better posture and pressure to keep his curricula ion what is needed to be for gross movement. This was a newer technique and took patience and learning through use from all involved and he hated it, until following a Christmas break when holding on to his dad’s hand he walked into my classroom. I burst in to tears and he was smiling ear to ear. The intervention and tiresome times were paying off.

The scuba suit was a nightmare at times, but it was what then allowed for him six months later to walk alone with a walker and began to slowly cruise through the classroom.  This is what research and supporting the early intervention is to a more unseen extreme, but we were able to get him to a place where he was able to gain some mobility and even begin to create sounds for speech. This is and will always be why I do what I do.

Your Personal Research Journey

The topic I have chosen is on inclusion particularly in the three to five year age range. I find there are far more children in programs with developmental issues varying from low to high functioning. Learning how to tailor a curriculum for all children with varied abilities while also creating an environment to match is what I am hoping to be able to accomplish. Allowing for all children to be able to learn along side their peers is what allows for all in a classroom to thrive.

In my personal experience I have worked with a very wide variety of children many of which are mid to low functioning. It was difficult to be able to create the necessary spaces quickly and I often found we did not have materials available to allow the children to participate with the others. While in Alaska we had two children who were in separate time frames who suffered severe delays. While in my classroom neither child was able to walk the infant walkers were not appropriate, yet we did not have one for a two year old. We were able to locate and order one, however it took a almost a month.

Programs should create a resource room with items to be able to tailor to children since we never know who will need care. This is one of the reasons why I choose this topic. To be there to advocate for the child as well as the families of children who may need beyond the scope of basic care.  

I know of KIT.org as well as NAEYC both organizations are great tools for training and learning about inclusion in the classroom. Zero to Three is another organization I have attended conferences through. Please feel free to share and other organizations or any curriculum or materials your programs have to assist with inclusion. Thank you for your help. 

https://www.kit.org/

https://www.zerotothree.org/

http://www.naeyc.org/

Building Research Competences

Hello everyone! Looking forward to working with everyone in the class building our skills and knowledge with building research. Can't wait to learn with everyone.

Final Post of Issues and Trends

Learning about the international early childhood field is difficult and creates consequences three that come to mind as I reached out and learned from my contacts were:

• 1.     The frustration with funding. The government supplies little funding to early learning programs where as internationally the focus on education and life long learning is different and of higher priority. Being able to fund programs and create higher quality programs is not as difficult with the finding coming through to the programs.
• 2.     Cost to the families. The burden of being able to afford high quality programs is difficult for families here in the United States. The ability to afford the high quality programs is not a reality for every family here and when they meet the standards of the middle class and are unable to get the assistance they are sometimes unable to attend the desired programs due to cost.
• 3.     The frustration created around the standards of required education of those teaching in the classroom. The educators in the classroom, as I have learned over the past eight weeks, are held to the standard of the teachers in the education system. Required degrees and trainings are not an option they are a requirement.

Continuing to educate individuals, policy makers and families on the importance of early learning is how I hope to lessen the academic gap. Being able to educate on the learning done in quality early learning programs through interactions, relationships as they are built, as well as the experiences through play are important to scaffold the proper learning for the future.  Educating and advocating for our little learners is how we will succeed in the early education field here in the United States.

http://childcareaware.org/families/paying-for-child-care/federal-state-child-care-programs/

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 3

This week was great being able to get to know my contacts even more. Being able to get a snapshot of them, as a professional seeing what they work to overcome each day is wonderful. Many of the struggles we face each day are the same as those around the world.

Sara discussed with me her dreams of becoming a larger part of the Nursery schools becoming a director of a large nursery school there she does work with. She discussed by working to attain a job in one given program she hopes to be able to create a positive early learning program for those in the community and be a part of it each day. This would reduce her commuting throughout training those in other nursery schools and allow her to focus.  The qualifications in England to work in the schools are a degree in early learning as well as experience in the field to be a main teacher.  In addition there are also many trainings and other various classes to routinely stay current with. Sara discussed the issue of getting people through the door with the qualifications and keeping them from leaving for primary school. The salary is more for those teachers commonly they loose those to primary school once they receive high enough credentials.

Saya discussed with me her hopes of becoming the flight chief of the Child and Youth Programs. Being able to be a large part of all the early learners as well as the school age up to eighteen year olds would be a wonderful accomplishment. Working with military people is rewarding however, she discussed the difficulty of maintaining enough workers to staff her program through constant movement. People to start in the classroom must at least have a high school diploma and must sign a paper stating they will complete required training modules by eighteen months of higher date or will be terminated. Saya discussed the difficulty of getting people to the target level and being able to then have them still there not ready for their next move. Overcoming the obstacles of being apart of an ever changing community is a way of life it is not a bad just difficult to keep quality providers.

Being able to hear from these two ladies has me again reflect on the importance of creating providers who are well rounded, passionate, well educated individuals. Being able to assist with this in the early learning community will continue to be a goal I work to.

 https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/early-years-teacher

Sharing Web Resources

An article this week that caught my eye was on the “Deserts” in child care. The article was on the inequity of supply and demand in the growing of quality care programs. Being able to allow children the ability to attend programs that are of high quality is becoming an increasing issue. The study put into place by Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 2014 encourages the study and documentation of the progress being made to reduce the gaps of inequity of high quality, accessible care. The Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 2014 stated about the findings that “it is paramount that states and communities understand how to study child care supply and demand, analyze the findings, identify areas of child care deserts, and implement solutions” (Dobbins, 2016). Continued research in the inequities in the early learning field will be the way to decrease the gaps and educate those in the field.

Head Start has been discussed frequently lately through their ability to provide quality care to the low income families in the community. However, it is a program until I began this journey to achieve my masters I knew very little about. On the site I found an insightful article on Head Start and the creation of Child Care Partnerships. The article discussed the funding and the services provided to the families the program services. The strong ties the program makes to the community intrigues me as I continue to learn about the program.

Full Report can be found at:

http://usa.childcareaware.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Child-Care-Deserts-report-FINAL2.pdf

Reference:

Dionne Dobbins, PhD Jessica Tercha, Michelle McCready, MPP Anita Liu. (2016). Child Care Deserts: Developing Solutions to Child Care Supply and Demand. Retrieved from http://usa.childcareaware.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Child-Care-Deserts-report-FINAL2.pdf

Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships. Retrieved from https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ecd/early-learning/ehs-cc-partnerships.