Basketball Resiliency

This course was titled Influences of Family, Culture, and Society in Early Childhood and I believe there was some discussion on family, culture and society that affects early childhood.    However, I preferred the breaking down of articles that discussed specific topics of family dynamics, community support, stress, and resilience that focused on my major assessment topic.  I feel this course was better focused on those topics and my major assessment.   

Resiliency is a hot topic for the students I teach in their socioeconomic class.  Learning how to cope with problems that they deal with on a daily basis is a teaching tool that is left out of most preschool classrooms.  For the following year, I am hoping to incorporate teaching terms revolving around resiliency into everyday lesson planning and curriculum.

One article discussed that most children do not want to go back to their past experiences but to remind them to bounce up like a ball.

Major Assessment Interviews

My major assessment for my current Walden University Doctoral class revolves around using individualized education plans to meet the needs of children with language disorders.  

 

I interviewed professor who has significant experience with children with disabilities, assessment and individualized family service plans (IFSPs).  I had no idea that the state she is from only solely completes IFSPs and not individualized education plans (IEPs).  The other interviewee was a colleague of mine who is the special needs teacher at our local school district along with a parent of a child with an IEP.  Both women were knowledgeable on working with children with disabilities which helped me out tremendously. 

While discussing the types of goals on an IEP for language disorders, Dr. Pretti-Frontzcak said to focus more on functional goals than measurable ones.  Goals that meet the child’s needs wholly and not just language, behavioral, etc. are better suited to create a common link to help the child grow to its fullest capacity.

I am really struggling right now with the fluidity of my major assessment.  I have learned a lot about children with disabilities and the IEP process but not enough specifics on language disorders.  It seems as though the research spans disabilities across the spectrum but does not address my specific need of language disorders.  How are language disorders different from the other special needs that children have in your experiences?   

Preschool Children and Language IEPs

My Major Assessment is focusing on preschool students and their families with language delays.  These delays may be developmental or dual language learners.  Specifically, I want to focus on creating goals on individualized education plans (IEPs) to collaborate between the school, teacher and home environments. 

I have few experiences with IEPs in the preschool classroom but the ones I do have experience with the parents seemed confused and wanting different results for their children.    Parents are receiving information and goals from the itinerants who are testing and working with the children.  Parents are assuming that they just have to sign the paper and let the IEP sit as stated.  After a few parent teacher conferences, parents have expressed their concern of goals not being met and children not showing signs of improvements.  My questions and focus is encompassed by all of these processes while creating and implementing an IEP.

My only question with completing this assessment is observing growth of a child with an IEP in one year time.  I also cannot perform brain scans on children who are nonverbal to figure out why they are delayed and what medical interventions are needed for continued support.