“Oct 8, 2011 marked 25 years since President Reagan signed into effect Part C of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) allowing services for children under 3.  That’s a huge milestone!”  said CPD’s Early Intervention Coordinator Marla Nef.  “And now we have new regulations that will go into effect Oct 28^th on updates to this law.”

It’s been a long time-1999- since new regulations for the Infant and Toddlers program have been published.   On October 21, 2011, the U.S. Department of Education announced the release of the 2011 newly revised regulations for early intervention.

These new regulations focus on measuring and improving outcomes for the approximately 350,000 infants and toddlers with disabilities served by the Part C program in the U.S., with the goal of ensuring that these children are ready for preschool and kindergarten.

“As everyone who works in education understands, one of the most important things we can offer children is a high-quality early learning experience that prepares them for kindergarten,” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan stated.  “This is true for all children – but it’s especially important for infants and toddlers with disabilities to have access to high-quality early intervention services that prepare them to successfully transition to preschool and kindergarten.”

“Early intervention works!”  So states Kareem Dale, Special Assistant to the President for Disability Policy. He emphasized how critical it is for our nation’s future that children with disabilities enter school ready to succeed in “integrated and inclusive classrooms.”

Nef agrees.  “Children under 3 make progress at a more rapid rate than older children and can make gains that may decrease the amount and intensity of services they will need later in life.  Anyone who wonders if their child or a child they know may be delayed developmentally, is encouraged to give us a call. There’s help available and people don’t have to wait to see if their concern goes away.”

The Up to 3 Early Intervention program that Nef coordinates at the CPD has been serving infants and toddlers and their families since 1989.  They currently serve 310 children who have identified developmental delays or disabilities and their families.  The excellent staff includes service coordinators/family educators, speech/language pathologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, nurses, a Spanish Liaison, a social worker, an autism specialist, and numerous class/preschool teachers.

With such highly qualified staff, this early intervention program makes a great impact on the lives of the children and families that they serve, giving them the boost that they need to move on and continue to progress.

“We’ve been waiting for the guidance of the regulations for a long time,” remarked Sue Olsen, Director of the Up to 3 program.  “Overall, there is very little change, but the new regulations do provide clarification and guidance.  The Utah Department of Health, Baby Watch Early Intervention (BWEI) will be addressing the regulations with State policies.  The BWEI will hold public hearings to take public comment related to the new policies.  We encourage parents and other agencies involved with early intervention to participate in the comment period.”

A boy plays in the sand box at the CPD's Developmental Playground.

Young children who come to the CPD have been enjoying our new Developmental Playground for some time now, but we officially broke it in this month with a dedication and ribbon cutting.

Nearly 100 people braved cold, rainy weather to come.  Many of them cooperated to make the playground possible. Landscape architects, occupational therapists and educators worked together to ensure that it would be more than fun; it would also encourage a child’s movement, speech, cognition and social development. Private donors contributed more than $15,000 toward its construction.

The vision for the new playground came from experts at the CPD who are well aware of the many benefits of play; how it stimulates physical and social development, fosters language, and even helps a restless child relax.

“We wanted it to be socially inclusive,” said Dr. Keith Christensen, an assistant professor in the Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Department and a CPD Faculty Fellow. “It was designed for independence and learning, just to let these kids see how high they can climb.”

Everything—from the sandbox to the water elements to the plants that grow in the margins—was designed to encourage the development of the young children who receive services at the CPD. When the senses are stimulated, learning comes easier.

“We all deal with sensory stimulation in different ways. Some are much more sensitive than others,” said Amy Henningsen, an occupational therapist at the CPD.  “We can diagnose and treat kids with the type of input they need to help them mature in a functional way on this playground.”

Once again, we’d like thank all the donors who made this moment possible. And if you haven’t done so already, check out our Facebook photo album of the event. It shows off the play equipment and some adorable kids.

This CPD Legacy Story is written by Becca Crookston whose two daughters have been involved with the Up to 3 Early Intervention program at the CPD.

Part-time Therapist, Full-time Mom
By Becca Crookston

As a mother of children that need extra help, I am busy. I love the Up to 3 Program. It helps me solve the current problems I deal with everyday. But, it also adds to my busyness. They have also helped me find other services in the community for my children to benefit from, such as great interactive story times, and Signing Time products, and even a Rachel Coleman concert. These events also add to the busy in my life, but it is worth it. I am busy for my children. I am busy because I’m a mom.

My husband and I have four children and they, of course, all have different needs. All of them have been in speech therapy.

I have elementary-aged boys. I volunteer in their classes at school and serve on the PTA board, so I can ensure they know I care about them and their education. They know they can tell me so-and-so did such-and-such and that I know the personalities in their classes, so I believe them and can help them brainstorm a solution to the problem if needed. They talk to me about things that are concerning them more than they would if I wasn’t in the classroom. (I know because I spent half a year not volunteering in the classroom.)

Speaking of talking to me…that within itself is a major milestone for my autistic son. We lived out-of-state when we were doing early intervention with him, so we didn’t get to use Up to 3, but at least we did have help. Now that I’m familiar with the classes offered here, I wish we had been here. He could have benefited from the Leap Frogs class (Let’s Eat And Play). New food has always been a challenge for him. It’s not like we were trying to make him eat crazy stuff either, just “normal” things like eating a cookie without eating around the chocolate chips, or putting milk on the cereal, or eating grapes without peeling them, or eating a strawberry with the seeds and all. He has made great progress and I am extremely proud of him, however we are not out of the woods yet.

Last year my second son was in a speech program at his elementary school. One day when he was sick, I went to get his homework. His speech teacher wanted him to work on a certain sound, but when she pulled open her file with that letter, she realized she was out of the pages with the words she wanted him to work on. I explained that I could pull words out of my file, and stick them in a game to have him practice. She was impressed, but I wasn’t trying to impress. I was just being his mom.

We first learned about the Up to 3 program when my oldest daughter failed the hearing test at age 2. We were shocked as could be. We set an appointment for surgery and called around looking for a early intervention speech program. We got the initial testing done over the phone. Kathryn, our service coordinator, asked me questions about her speech and I said she has two sounds. She says “ma,” and “ba.” She made those two sounds stand for, mom, milk, more, bottle, ball, and bird, as well as anything else that she could get away with. She was in the program for one year, until she turned three. During that time we attended most of the classes offered, but her favorite class was Signing. She picked it up so fast. She knows more signs than I can count. She learned about 200 signs in a month. She had found her way to communicate. She would see it and start using it. I would study each word and try to figure out where to put my fingers, review the words, teach the words to my family, and keep a list of words we still needed to learn. When a college-age person saw that I was signing, she told me that she took a signing class and it was hard and asked how could I keep the signs straight? The difference between us, was she wanted a good grade and I wanted to communicate with my daughter. I did it because I’m a mom.

I’m sure we had a few too many potty training accidents that were my fault. When someone signs they need to go and you don’t look at them, because dinner is important, too, you end up having to put dinner on pause anyway. We still sign in our home, mostly out of habit. I don’t really realize I’m signing most of the time. Signing helps us clarify words. “Thirsty” and “fishy” sound the same when my daughter says them, so to know if she wants crackers or a cup, we rely on sign. I have to really focus sometimes and realize how much signing we use. The times that she signs without vocalizing too, we know to have her ears checked. She is on her fourth set of ear tubes.

As we approached the time we were going to need to exit the Up to 3 program, many of the teachers told me we would be back. My second daughter was following the same pattern. We caught it earlier with her and she had her first (and so far, only) set of ear tubes placed at 16 months old. She will exit the program next month when she has her third birthday, but we know what to do at home and in the community because of the Up to 3 Program.

Sometimes attending different classes and hearing different approaches to behavior and speech was really frustrating. If one teacher tells me to require and push sounds, and the next teacher tells me to use picture cues, and the next teacher says to accompany a sign with each routine, it can be a little bit–well, really a lot–confusing. I have to remember that I am the mom and these ideas are suggestions. It is up to me and my husband to try them, and work them into our daily life, figure out what is working best, and know when to push a little harder.

As we have another birthday around the corner, I sometimes feel like we are being dropped from the system on the school district side. With our oldest daughter we went from ten hours of classes a week at Up to 3, to forty minutes a week at the school district! I know we have made wonderful progress and I don’t want to only focus on the things we still need to work on, but those needs do need to be addressed. I address the needs because I am the mom. When we transition to the school district and they don’t see the need to provide as many classes, I know we can find the help my children need by relying on the information I already have put into practice and made into habits.

The Up to 3 Program provides so much. It is easy to take it for granted. I wouldn’t be able to provide these services to my children or know what specific testing to request if I hadn’t been trained from Up to 3.  Kathryn is frequently asking me about our whole family. She has given me ideas that work with all of my children.

Maybe some of the best advice I’ve received was a few months ago from one of the Speech and Language Pathologists, Stacy Sessions. She reminded me that sometimes a child needs to be a child and I need to be the mom. Maybe the days get too full of therapy. Maybe snuggles need to be given and the book needs to be read without any therapy requirements. Maybe sometimes the juice needs to be poured without requiring the articulation of the word be practiced. Maybe I should push her in the swing more than three times before stopping the swing and having her request more. All of the things we do for therapy daily are habits. We push and always require a little more. Do we really congratulate and enjoy the small advancements? I think we should also enjoy being a busy mom.

After all, I am a part-time therapist and a full-time mom.

Nine training grants have been funded for 2011-2012 by the Interagency Outreach Training Initiative (IOTI), an initiative that is intended to improve the lives of people with disabilities by supporting training for consumers and agency personnel.

Three of the IOTI grants were awarded to CPD staff members.

Since 1995, the CPD has coordinated the funding which comes from the Utah State Legislature for training in Utah.  IOTI has funded more than 100 projects conducted by over 30 public and private agencies and organizations through the years.

IOTI training grants funded for this upcoming year include the following:

Guardianship Training- for families with children who have special needs and the professionals and educators who support them to help them understand the process of obtaining guardianship.

ABC’s of Autism (CPD project)-training for families of young children in Utah with an Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Autism Training-for parents of children with sensory processing problems and providers working with these children.

Justice, Equity, and Access (CPD project)-training for people with disabilities, law enforcement and legal advocates on preventing violence and increasing justice, equity, and access for people with disabilities.

AT Training (CPD project)-for assistive technology specialists at the Centers for Independent Living Centers, Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors, DSPD staff, and Area Agency on Aging staff.

IDEA Part C/Part B Transition Training-for parents/families of young children with disabilities and developmental delays being served in Early Intervention programs, EI professionals, special educators, administrators, etc.

Provider Education Training-for mental health providers and state agencies who work directly with individuals with severe and persistent mental disabilities/brain disorders.

Family Preservation Training-for families and care givers of people with disabilities to assist them in meeting the stress associated with supporting people with developmental disabilities.

Supported Employment Training-web-based training for community rehabilitation providers, secondary transition teachers, and parents.

This Legacy Story is written by Heather Jones, the mother of Traegan, who receives services from the Up to 3 Early Intervention program.  This story was originally written as a post on her family blog.

I feel like a good mom for the first time in a while. Not because I’m sitting here blogging, but because Traegan is doing so much better!

Traegan has never been a big talker. Or a big eater, like he doesn’t eat anything. Or a great sleeper. I just have always assumed that was all normal for my child, but things are so much better now.

About a month ago, I took Traegan to the doctor to get the rash around his mouth looked at. (“It’s Wet/Dry Cycle. It’s nothing serious and pretty much impossible to get rid of.” Yea.) While there I mentioned how I was worried about Trae’s speech.

Everyone, including the doctor, told me not to worry about it. That he would talk when he was ready and he was fine. But because a member of my family had some pretty severe speech delays, I was worried. I know how beneficial it is to catch problems like that early and get them caught up to “normal” before entering school. Plus, I had a sneaking suspicion that his delay was due to me not teaching or engaging him in the correct ways.

The doctor gave me the number for the Up to 3 Program. Best. Program. Ever. It is a free evaluation, so worst case scenario, he qualifies for services and best case, they say he is fine and I have peace of mind.

Anyway, he barely qualified for speech therapy. And in about two weeks he has about 7 new words. It has been a drastic change. He is trying so much harder to talk, understanding more, and is much happier. And I am properly equipped to help him now. I now know how to talk to him and how to play with him so that he can learn easier.

Also, as part of this whole thing, we met with a nutritionist. There I found out that Traegan was drinking WAY too much milk. Go me. And because of that, he was always full. Now that we have remedied that, the boy eats like a champ. And he is sleeping so much better now.

So all in all, that was the best phone call I have ever made. I’m so glad I did it.

I’m not going to lie. I sometimes felt like a failure mom during the process. But that is just dumb. I’m a first time mom who doesn’t know everything and is okay admitting it. Help is available, why not use it? I’m so grateful that programs like that exist because sometimes you just need to ask for help.