This episode of Circle Time was previously recorded with technical difficulties. However, there's so much good information from Jennifer in the episode we wanted to share. If you're sensitive to audio feedback, in particular echos, you may want to skip this episode. Welcome to Circle Time, a podcast by South Side Early Learning unpacking the big things you want to know about little learners. From the car seat to the classroom, we're answering your questions on parenting, child development, and early education. I'm Colin Page McGinnis, CEO of South Side Early Learning and your host on the show. In each episode, I'll chat with a friend or two, all of whom just so happen to be experts and leaders in their fields, as we explore all things little, sharing them with you in toddler sized tidbits. Are you ready to master the first five years? If so, gather round for Circle Time. Jennifer Haddow welcome to Circle Time I am really excited to have you here to talk about the questions that we have from families particularly around children with special needs and how we can be adapting our home environments to best suit those children. But before we jump too far into the episode I'm hoping you could introduce yourself to our listeners. Tell us a little bit about who you are and the position that you have at the Childhood League Center.
Jennifer:Thanks Colin. And thanks for having me today as your co-host. I really am looking forward to our podcast. So my name is Jennifer Haddow and I will say that I've been a lifelong educator. My entire career has been in the field of special education. Went from teacher to program developer to administrator to now I am the Chief Program Officer here at the Childhood League Center in Columbus Ohio. And at the Childhood League Center, we service children from birth through five both in the home and also here at the Center. I also think I provide a unique perspective because I am a parent of three children and my third child I was what we call it a surprise to us in many ways including the fact that he was born with Soto Syndrome. And immediately known to us that our child would develop on his own schedule a little different than our other two children.
Colin:Yeah that's such a unique perspective and I think an awesome way to tie in both your work, but then also your personal experience into the questions that we received from some of our parents. And one thing that I want to start off with is obviously we are now almost a year into this global pandemic and the world really has been flipped upside down. We no longer maybe have the same access and resource to some of the programs and interventions that families may have been using with their children. So I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about some of the things that the Childhood League experienced or heard from parents when the pandemic began and some of the broad concerns that they may have had in terms of if service was disrupted or not. So I'm not sure how things worked with the Childhood League but here at South Side we actually closed for 55 days over the course of the pandemic and shorter than the K-12 system there definitely was some disruption and things families had to navigate. So I was wondering if you had the same experience that we had at South Side?
Jennifer:Yeah, so it's hard to believe that we have just completed our year anniversary of the pandemic and last March 16th we did shut down. Our preschool program follows the traditional school calendar, so we run from August to the next May or early June. So when we shut down on August or on March 16th we were preparing for shutting down just for a few short weeks. And I often laugh and say if anybody would've told us that we were going to change our way of learning at such a quick turn, we could have never thought we could prepare for it but we did. And I'm sure just like your staff, I think we did it very well. We immediately started putting some packets together and we immediately started doing a lot of videos. We did something called a Bitmoji classroom where we had a classroom and some representations for the teachers and then we could click on links in there for the families. So we got that up and running in bits and pieces as we closed down. Not everything was there that first week but by the end of the school year we had stories read allowed, we had our therapists coming on with some activities that they could do with the families, we had some zoom classroom meetings that were happening and we would constantly be putting together some bags that parents could come by and pick up or that our teachers delivered. Some of our teachers drove several miles as we serviced children all over Franklin County to get some of those bags delivered. We were able to open our preschool program back in August. It took a lot of changes. We were using decision-making tools that we hadn't used before. We were taken input with our parents. We did some zoom meetings with parents to hear what some of their biggest concerns were and some of their worries. We took all that information together and have successfully run our preschool program from the Center this year. Now, our birth through three program our early intervention program which is where we go into the natural environment which most often is that child's home and provide therapeutic services. We are still doing that in our Help Me Grow programs virtually.
Colin:I'm so fortunate that programs like yours were able to continue to serve the families even through the pandemic. But it leads me to a great question from one of our parents which is despite the supports that were maybe provided from the education setting there was a little bit of changing that had to have happened at home too. So while parents began either working from home or maybe having to coordinate care from home itself a lot of questions began to arise around adapting the home environment. So, one of the questions that I have from our parents here is, When visiting my child's classroom I noticed they have schedules of different things that they do. Why is scheduling so necessary for our daily routines? And then a second question I'm going to put it in as a follow up which is how do we create these routines at home? So as early childhood professionals you and I know the importance of a routine for all children regardless of where they fall in terms of need but I think this becomes particularly important with our friends that have an intellectual or developmental delay or disability or special teaching situation that may be needed. So what can we start doing in a home environment to address some of these changes that I think we're great with from a classroom level but haven't really thought about up until this point at the home environment?
Jennifer:Yeah you have a lot of good things involved in that question Colin. I think that you're exactly right. Our homes during this pandemic have changed to school rooms, to offices, to lots of different things. And so how do we accommodate that? Routines. The very first thing that I would say about a family developing a routine is make it work for your family. But a routine provides consistency and especially when we're talking about these age groups of infants and toddlers and preschoolers. It gives them a sense of security and stability. And so you would mention that one of the parents was talking about seeing schedules and things in the classroom. I like to use the term visual schedules. Those are often visual schedules and visual schedules provide predictability of what our day's going to be. And especially our children that maybe have autism or have some type of developmental delay, that unknown piece of what's coming next can be very upsetting for them. So a visual schedule can be one of two different things. It can be just graphic representations of what your day's going to be like. First we're going to get up, then we're going to get dressed, then we're going to have breakfast, then we're going to do this activity. And can go throughout your day and you could go back to that over and over. It can also break down a particular task that might be hard for your child. Such as our toileting routine or brushing teeth routine where again you'll have pictures at each step of the activity broken down into tasks. If I was going to say to someone one of the things that I think would be fantastic to buy for the home I would say Velcro. And you can take a strip of Velcro and you can put it anywhere and then you can put this visual schedule on in order of how the day's going to transpire on this velcro sheet. Because we all know life happens. Something might change your schedule and then you can just flip those pictures. Also a visual schedule can allow a child repetition as the method of learning. So we can go look at that visual schedule at the start of the day and say, first we're going to do this, then we're going to do this. And we can go back to that visual schedule later and look to see where we are in the schedule. What's happening next? And your child can get involved in that conversation. They can also start learning independence with that visual schedule. I know that after I brush my teeth I'm going to go do this activity. So when school teachers put visual schedules together they're usually trying to associate the schedule for the day and also maybe putting some pictures of materials that the child will need. But you can make your visual schedule look like anything. And those routines you were talking about. They're important. And one of the things that we've looked at a lot in the last few years is what we call trauma informed care. And we know that all children, it doesn't matter if that child's had a traumatic experience, whether they have a developmental delay or whether they're just developing normal, when I know that I'm safe and secure, then my brain can engage in learning. And routines help remind us that we're safe and secure. Some children have gone to school some days and other days are home days because maybe a classroom had to be shut down or maybe we're doing a virtual week following a vacation. And those are great vocabulary to use too at home. Today we're having a home day and this is our schedule. Today we're having a school day and this is our schedule. So the repetition of the vocabulary, the repetition of the routine and having that visual schedule to help guide is very important. It's no accident that this parent was seeing those visual schedules and their teacher's classroom.
Colin:Yeah I would echo Velcro is probably the best thing that we could be using when creating those routines because we want that flexibility to allow, honestly, if nothing else for the parent the day the shift a little bit and be able to still have the visual representation there of what the routine is going to be. I'm curious though if a family should focus on just the routine for our younger child or if we should tie in some of the sibling routines too? And my reason for that question actually comes from one of our parents. And one of our parents asked what is the best way to help my special needs child who has ADHD? It is incredibly hard to get him to focus on any one thing for more than a few minutes. I have another child who is 10 who is usually working on school work too and he can sometimes be a distraction for my four year old, but then again, everything seems to be a distraction from my four year old. I'm wondering if routines could help here with that or if you have some other recommendations for this question in terms of our little guy here who's getting distracted by what seems to be everything but in particular the older sibling?
Jennifer:Attention span! That's a great topic and a great question. I think first I would want to set the stage a little bit for what your expectations should be for your four year old. Research varies a little bit but your toddler, young four year old attention span is probably only going to be about three to six minutes unless they're getting that one-on-one adult support for the task completion. So don't set your expectations too high of what their attention span should be. But I hear another factor in this question which is I have an older child who needs to be doing school and maybe can't be distracted by that four year old or maybe the parent needs to be helping them. So along with those routines and those visual schedules that we've already talked about is a wonderful tool that I would suggest to parents called social stories. Social stories are just taking a story, it can be handwritten, you can draw the pictures, you can take pictures and put it in there, and you could do it on an iPad. There's so many different ways you can make social stories but are taking an event and breaking it down into social steps. So maybe in this case you might want to have a social story for this child that's sometimes I get to play with mom or sometimes I get to play with dad. Sometimes I have to play quietly while my brother does his work. When I need to play quietly, I can choose. I can play with my blocks, I could look at books, I could play a game on my iPad. When I'm all done mom will tell me, good job. Something just that simple, a social story that breaks that down. Now you're adding in the ADHD component for this particular little one. Which I think if you can preplan as much as possible that helps. And again when we suggest these things we're not saying that parents have to go buy things. You can get anything. You can get Tupperware or some cloth bins or laundry baskets or boxes and maybe you have some preferred activities in those boxes. Maybe there's some Lego's in one. Maybe there's books in another one, Play-Doh in one. Something that that child likes to do. If you have the velcro or if you have a little picture on each one the child can actually take the label off of the Lego's and then put it over on a sign that says I'm done. And then they can go to another one, and do that activity and put it over there and say I'm done. At the end of it just remember to reward the child, but having some pre-planned preferred activities. I think another thing that's really important is to have the place where those activities are going to happen identified. And you can make that place fun. You could put a blanket and make it a little fort. If you have a pop-up tent you can make a pop-up tent. Maybe you take the cushions off of the couch and make a fort that way. identify with that child where those activities are going to happen while they're playing independently so that that 10 year old can have that time or maybe even the parent's attention. I talked about attention span at the beginning of this. One thing that really helps sometimes when we know that we need that child to focus independently is do some regulation activity before they start too. And what does regulation mean? That means just doing some type of activity that that child's going to get a little energy out or get some sensory input that they need before they sit down and perform these tasks independently. If you have a small trampoline, it could be jumping on a trampoline. Those couch cushions, it could be maybe plan a game where we're really squeezing between a couple of couch cushions. Or maybe you're taking a laundry basket and putting some heavy things in it that child can push. So I think about how can I regulate my child? How could I write a social story? What are some preferred activities they can do? How can my child and I identify the special place where these will happen? And remember at the end to reward; congratulate, you did a good job! High five! Celebrate those moments. And don't expect perfection the first couple of times. You're going to have to go back and practice those routines. A visual schedule again could be the step-by-step. And I think a final thing to remember is that even us as adults, our attention span is 10 to 20 minutes. It's hard for us to remember that. I'm sure it's not by accident that your podcasts are usually 20 to 30 minutes. But we usually need some type of change in that time. The speaker's voice, the mode that we're getting the learning. But keep that in mind too.
Colin:Yeah those are all great points. I'm curious from social stories, routines, some of these regulating activities. How much input or how much co-creation should we have with our little? Is this something that should come top down from parent? Is this something that we should co-create together? What are your thoughts regarding the involvement of the planning side of these activities
Jennifer:Part of this, I think, would be dependent on the age of your child. Part of this would depend on the needs of your child. So I think that's going to vary a little bit. If you're talking about a child who has some developmental delays and you have therapists that work with you, I would go ahead and ask them. What is it? How do I look at my child and find out what is their sensory diet? What kind of things does my child need for regulation? You can also just observe. And you can do trial and error. Now if your child is a little bit older and has great verbal skills you can also ask them, What activity would you like to do before I need to walk away and do this or before I need to walk away and take time with my 10 year old brother, before I need to walk away and make a phone call that I need to make for work. But sensory trial and error and talking with your therapist. Some kids need that jumping and really need to get that activity out. Other kids are going to do better when you turn down the lights. You turn down the music, you turn down background noise and have a quiet environment for them to concentrate in. Might have some of your own ideas on that too Colin.
Colin:Yeah you hit on everything that I would recommend to our teachers in the classroom setting. And I have appreciated everything that we've talked about so far. The question that I have from a parent cause we've been talking a bit about adapting the environment, is, for a household that has a three-year-old child with autism who puts everything in her mouth, what is the best way to make sure our home environment is now safe and allowing her to explore and learn while we're at home? And I think this is something that was a realization for a lot of families, which is we spend a good chunk of our time at school and at work and when we're together in the home it's usually a shared experience, it's before school or after school right around dinner time. It's very different now that we're spending 24 hours in our homes. How can we make sure that the environments that we're creating, if it's developing these bins for regulation activities or if it's putting together these routines that are now on the wall, how can we make sure that the environments are safe when we're creating these new adapted environments?
Jennifer:All of these questions are excellent questions that are being asked, Colin. And again, I'll go back to the fact that our homes are now multipurpose. They're schools, they're offices and we have to start defining spaces in new ways that we never have. And I think one thing to keep in mind is you and I are focused on the littles, but we also have families that have wide ranges between their kids. And so let me take this maybe a little bit different approach and then I will answer the question about the three-year-old. But if you have older children you need to define their space too. They need to have their space during all this time where they can spread out their schoolwork, where they can kick back and relax a little bit. So you need to also think about with them, where can we keep your stuff? So that it's your stuff in your place but that we can keep it safe from your younger sister or brother or younger sisters and brothers who don't understand. So I think if start and let them have a lot of ownership. Here's some things that maybe worry me if you have an older sibling that has those little tiny Lego pieces that we know aren't safe for this three year old who's putting things in their mouth, I know your Lego's are really important to you. Where can we build your Lego's? Where can you keep your Lego's where they're safe from your little brother and sister? And think about that important ownership piece with that child getting to be involved with that older child. For your younger child, first of all putting things in your mouth is a normal way for children to explore their environment. Especially for children two and under. And I think you said the person asking this question was for a three-year-old. Somewhere between three and five most children drop this oral sensory input where they have to put everything in their mouth. Again, if you have a therapist with you and you're really concerned about this with your child talk to your therapist. They're going to give you some child specific ideas. But for your lifestyle right now, a three-year-old who's putting things in their mouth can most likely also open doors and walk around. So look at your environment from your child's standpoint. Is everything that's toxic, that's not safe, is it behind a locked door? Is it put up high? If you're not sure about the size of things, the easiest thing to do at home is to get an empty toilet paper tube, if it drops through it, put it somewhere where the child can't get it. If it doesn't drop through it, it's safe. Now you can buy one. It's actually just a tiny bit smaller, but I would just use the toilet paper tube. We use it here at our school. We have one in the classrooms and it's a simple way to make sure that it's a safe item for our younger students here. I would also clear the clutter as much as possible. If you haven't really had to pay attention to that because you weren't there 24 hours really look at the areas where your three-year-old is and clear that clutter. And then I'm a huge believer in replacement skills. If a child's putting something in their mouth and we know they're going to do that, I want to know what's safe for them to put in their mouth. And so look at toddler toys. One of the things that you can look at you can just get on Amazon or if you have an OT you can ask your OT about it, is Chewy's. And there's even something out there now called chewelry, which is like jewelry. But it's chewable jewelry so you can have bracelets or necklaces and the child can just put that in their mouth. And those are great things because your child probably still needs this oral sensory input. And that's why they're doing that. Think about a baby, they use their oral stimulation to also regulate, to calm, to settle them down. So your child's probably still looking for this. Here's a couple other ideas that I actually stole from one of my teachers one time for a child I was working with. If you're working with an art project for your child or Play-Doh and you're worried about those items going in their mouth, have something right there that child can eat. Maybe some crunchy cereal, maybe some carrots. Something that they can be putting in their mouth while they're playing with this other item. I know that occupational therapists for my own son recommended that I get one of those vibrating toothbrushes just to get a little extra oral stimulation a couple of times during the day. There's other things that if you really feel like your child needs that extra oral sensory input there's other things that you can do. You can have whistles that they can blow and if your other children are doing schoolwork you might want to take them outside for that. Straws. I know a lot of people are cutting down on straws because the plastic concerns, but straws can be a great oral sensory input for a child that needs that type of stimulation. But yeah I think really the biggest thing is looking at that environment and making sure that we're keeping things as safe as possible now that we're all at home. And we do a pickup 10. My kids range greatly in ages and it doesn't matter your age. Every now and then I look around the house and realize it's cluttered and I'm like okay, it's like recess or commercial break, we have to all do a pickup 10. And then four of us do that, in two minutes we just picked up 40 little items.
Colin:I don't have any littles in my right now but even the amount of clutter that's amassed just from us working at home was shocking to me. I even recognizing that our house isn't always like that but when you're in it all the time and then you start adding in children and maybe your spouse's at home or your partner is at home too. I love this idea of pickup ten. We're going to start doing pickup 20s at my house to try to clean up some of this mess because my kitchen island is a disaster right now. And it seems to always be that one spot where things go. So I love that idea. We've talked about a lot of really great things that parents can do to adapt the environment for a little, but we had a handful of questions that came in that are related to children, but I think are a little bit more for our parents themselves and helping them navigate and cope through some of the realities that they are facing. The first one that I want to dive into a little bit is, as a new caregiver of a young child with special needs, can you give me some tips on how to best welcome a special needs child into our home so that they're not overwhelmed? So we've talked a lot about the routine itself and adapting the learning environment, but I think there's an underlying component of this question which is, if I've never done this before how do I do this well and how can I make sure we start from the beginning in a supportive loving and nurturing way? So I'd love for you to dive into that a little bit if you could for me.
Jennifer:Sure Colin. I think that is a good question. I'll build a little bit here on my own experience too. We bring a baby home and we've made a room for the baby and we've made a bassinet for that baby that's going to join us. And we have this expectation that child is going to grow up in our house the way that our house is set up. But that changes when you find out you have a child who maybe has been in the intensive care for quite a while, maybe they're coming out of NICU, neonatal abstinence syndrome is a new term but a lot of people are bringing home children or maybe fostering children that have had this exposure. And they're very sensitive. So I'm not exactly sure what the caregivers whole picture was that asked this question, but if I know that I'm bringing a young child home from the hospital, home from somewhere that has some different needs, I would definitely go to my home and look around my environment and say, what do I need to adjust at this moment? If it's a newborn, I would look at the lighting. Yes NICU's and hospitals are busy places, but what can I do at home to make this a more soothing environment? What sensory input can I calm down for this baby who's maybe hypersensitive. I would look at the noises. How can I turn the volume down for things? If I have an older child once again have them have a safe place that maybe is away from the baby where they can do things that they need to do? I know right now it's COVID 19 but let's just take ourselves even out of COVID-19. How do I tell people right now we need time with this baby? We need time to adjust with this special needs child. You're going to be very important to this child's life, but right now we just need to introduce them to the people in our home. And then start letting them know when they start being introduced to the baby or to the young child. I would want this to be a little bit more specific with what needs we're looking at for this child but there is a great resource that I've researched that I've referred some of our families to. We have families, we have foster families here, we also have families that have had a child that has special needs and they look at constantly how can we adapt our home to make it meet? Maybe you have a child with a walker. Maybe you have a child with a physical ability where they roll things. It's called creating a home where your child can thrive with a disability and I'm pretty sure you can just download it. It is called, creating a home where your child can thrive with a disability. I'll say it again so that your listeners could get it that second time. I believe if you just put that in it will pop up and it goes through all types of different disabilities in the way you can look at your home. Now here at the Center, when we know we have a child that's coming in with a walker or a wheelchair or cerebral palsy or something that's going to prevent that child from navigating the environment the way maybe their peers do, we always go in and look at where are the toys placed? Are they all the way back on the shelf because that's hard. So put them towards the front of the shelf. If you have a child that you know is only going to be able to reach so far because they spend most of the time on the floor, what do they need to get to? What low shelves can I put these things on? And again if you have a child in your home that is using a walker, look for those little things that we don't think about. The corners of rugs, things like that could be tripping hazards for them. If you have a child that has a visual or hearing impairment, you're going to have a specialist who can help you look at your home environment and make it work for them. Don't ever overlook your therapist. They're there for a reason. Ask them for help. But again sensory friendly homes help all of us.
Colin:I love this idea of looking outside covid a bit more so when we're post pandemic which, I know is a phrase that is wearing a little bit on me I'm getting a little bit of fatigue about talking post pandemic, but at some point that will happen. And one thing that we're going to see is this transition back into our normal routines. So we've been talking a lot about adapting our home environment for the world as it is now, but there is a question here regarding when we go back to school and catching up a little bit on the work that we feel maybe our child missed from the virtual environment, and some of the supports that could be offered to our child or to our family as we go back. I know you mentioned a few times now working with the specialists whether that's an OT or a PT or a therapist or caseworker. What's a recommendation that you would provide to families about those first months when things return back to whatever normal is going to look like. When we're able to go back into the school building, when we're able to return back to our offices. And homes are allowed to go back to home a little bit more. Do you have any recommendations for how families could approach that transition back so maybe it's a little bit less chaotic than what we were thrusted into about a year ago?
Jennifer:I do. And I think I've heard you talk about being at home too so I want to make sure I capture all the parts of your question. But I think your focus is on when we're returning back to our school, back to our normal? I think that one of the biggest things that you can do is again I might pull out social stories. You want to make that transition from home to school whenever it happens or maybe it's beginning to happen for you now, you want to again make it as predictable as possible for that child. So one of the first things that I would do is reach out to your child's school and say do you provide social stories? Do you provide videos? Can we drive by the school? Absolutely you can drive by the school. Anybody can do that. Can we take a tour of the school? What are you going to provide us? Because even if the child might be coming back, like here at the Childhood League Center our children are coming back, but one of the things that we set up in August when they started coming back is staggered entrances from the outside. So we were not opening up the building for tours. But what we did instead is we got the phone with a video camera feature on there and we filmed the areas that child would be using and we sent them home. Our behavioral interventionist made a video for every single classroom starting from the parking lot and walking down to their entrance and put it to really cute music and we sent those home to each house. We call our classrooms houses here. So each house got that same video in plenty of time so that they could watch it over and over with their child. I love it that I had one parent come up to me the first week of school and say I didn't even need to walk him down there, of course she did for safety, but he watched that video so many times he knew exactly where to go. And that's what we wanted was that sense of predictability for that child. I would try to get a picture of the teacher. Here at the Childhood League Center it doesn't mean we did everything exactly right, but we took all the main people that we knew the children would interact with and we took a picture of that person with a mask and that person without a mask. Because we wanted the children to know, so here's your teacher Ms. Christina. Here's Ms. Christina with a mask. She'll be wearing a mask at school. And just repeated that story over and over. I think all of those things are great ways. Some of that does rely on the school. So if the school doesn't provide that, ask the teacher if you can get a picture of them and make your own social story at school. We're going to go back to school and the name of my school is South Side Learning Center. At my school, Mr. Colin's going to be my teacher. Here's a picture of Mr. Colin. One of the things that I think for young children it's really important is what is a transition object. And I think the backpack is often the best one. Here at home, when we put the backpack on that means we're going to school. At school you're going to have a snack. You're going to play with your friends. Maybe you're going to take a nap. And then at the end of the day, you're going to put that backpack back on and that means mom or dad or grandma are coming to get you. So talk to your child about that backpack being that transition. For kids that haven't been back to school, it's been a long time and we want them to be as secure as possible knowing I'm going to a safe place. But when I put that backpack on someone safe is coming to pick me up at the end of the my day. Again visual schedules, I know I sound like a broken record but I love visual schedules. Even if you put a little visual schedule next to your door so that child can help get themselves ready and be involved. What do I need before I walk out the door. I need my lunch box, I need my coat. If it's the middle of the winter they might need their hat and their mittens. And I need my backpack. Now I'm ready to go to school.
Colin:These are all great points for transitions And I know these are things that have come up in previous episodes before, so I think it's great to reinforce these ideas that work and they're effective. I love the idea of pictures of the teachers with and without the mask. That is not something I thought of before and I actually think I'm going to ask my staff at South Side to do something similar for our families because that mask is different. It takes away a third, if not more of our face. So I really liked that idea. The last question that I have for you is a question that comes up actually quite often but came up a few times when we were preparing for this episode and I understand why. I'm just going to read it directly and then allow you to respond, if that's okay? So the question is, how can I find out if my child has a special need? I suspect so but I'm worried about a diagnosis and the label of special needs itself somehow creating a stigma with others that will keep him held back and prevent him from succeeding educationally. I know this is a question that we get a lot. This is a question I get when I sit down with parents and I figured you were the perfect expert to have talk a little bit about navigating this first response that a parent may have for their child.
Jennifer:That question has a lot of different things included in it and I'm sure it's very heartfelt question asked by this parent. One of the first things that comes to my mind when you asked this question is, what are the big things that we're hearing a lot about now? Diversity, equality, equity. If your child truly has a developmental delay or lifelong disability, you want to provide them as many equal opportunities as possible. I think our world is so much more accepting of special needs than it was in the past. But one of the first things I'd say is don't be scared of that diagnosis. And get information about your diagnosis from a trusting source to help how to deal with that as a parent too. But we know that brain development is most important in these first five years. 90 percent of your brain development happens in these first five years. So if your child is young, your child might have a developmental delay that they're going to overcome. Or they might have a disability that's going to impact them for their life. Either one we want to prepare that child for as much as possible. And I also want to put in the disclaimer that maybe your child's older and you start realizing something just doesn't seem to be right here. You want to get help and support. So this question we could probably talk a whole hour. If your child is in that birth to three age and you're just concerned, you don't have any reason to suspect a disability or maybe some things are beginning to happen and you're thinking this just doesn't feel right. Check with your caregiver if you have one. Ask them what they're seeing. CDC is a term that we're all more familiar with this year than we ever thought we would. CDC the Center for Disease, I just forgot what the other C was for, they have a wonderful early intervention website and you can click on a link there that will go to every state. So no matter what state your listener is in it will tell them what their birth through three program is. Here in the state of Ohio it's called Help Me Grow. So when I go to that link it gives me the one 800 number that I would call and ask for someone to come into my home or right now a virtual evaluation for my child. And if that child does indeed qualify for a developmental delay your service coordinator will provide the appropriate provider to meet with you and help your child overcome this developmental delay or maybe it's something larger. Now I gave the example as a parent when my child was born, it wasn't too long til we all knew that something wasn't right. And he was labeled with a disability that he's always going to have. So sometimes the developmental delay in that birth to three years could just be like a speech thing or maybe your baby was born a little earlier. Sometimes they say they just need jump started to learn how to work their body and these wonderful people come and work with you for a while and then they're like okay everything's good and we're leaving. Other times I might have a child with down syndrome, autism, Sotos syndrome, as my son has, cerebral palsy, maybe there's a physical disability and I know that they're going to need to go have this lifelong journey. So it might start with birth through three through that early intervention but what if my child's already reached their third birthday? Then what do I do if I'm concerned? Then if you are in the United States or any of the territories of the United States you call your local school district. And you tell your local school district that I have a preschooler who I'm concerned with, I would like to have an evaluation. Once again whether it's birth through three or three and older, that evaluation will happen and they'll determine if yes indeed your child has that developmental delay. For you as the parent once you get that information, look for some ways that you can help educate yourself and see if you can talk to some other parents to help you feel comforted within your Journey that you're going to be on to help your child.
Colin:Jennifer, I can't thank you enough for joining me on Circle Time today. You provided us with a trove of information that I know is going to help parents both now but also these tips can be carried out through non pandemic times. So thank you so much for joining me as this episodes' co-host. It truly has been an honor to chat with you.
Jennifer:It's been a true pleasure to be here and thank you so much. And to your listeners for being part of the program today. Made my day.
Colin:What questions do you want to ask our experts on Circle Time? Join the conversation by using the hashtag #CircleTimePod, tweeting us @CircleTimePod or by visiting circletimepod.com. If you liked this episode, be sure to rate and subscribe to the show on Spotify, apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and share this and all of your favorite episodes with others. From South Side Early Learning I'm Colin Page McGinnis and this is Circle Time. We'll see you in the next episode.