Evolving Practices in EI: Embracing New & Old Perspectives

As professionals in intervention and therapy, continuous reflection on our training and practices is paramount. I’m remembering several key insights from Dr. Meg Roberts and Bailey Sone’s C2C interview in 2021, where they discussed the traditional focus on child intervention and the imperative shift towards a more holistic approach considering the dyad—both parent and child. Dr. Roberts was so excited to find our community of coaches knowing that our philosophy matched hers. You can see her joy and feel encouraged about your coaching work in her video above 💕. 

Together Dr. Roberts and Ms. Sone shared some of the insights from their 2021 research on caregivers’ outcomes: 

• Challenges in Building Trust with Families: We cannot automate the process of building trust with families. We need a nuanced approach that considers baseline levels of caregiver engagement. For some families, our goal may strictly be to observe caregivers’ current level of engagement and problem-solve how to elevate that level as trust builds. 
• Coaching Strategies for Adult Learning: Coaching strategies, including caregiver practice with feedback and guided practice, empower parents to actively participate in the intervention process, leading to higher levels of satisfaction and self-advocacy. Often, what we perceive as coaching may actually be "hopeful modeling" or "couching." By enhancing our self-efficacy in coaching, we align our efforts to effectively facilitate adult learning.
• Considerations for Professional Development: Incorporating coaching strategies into our practice thrives when backed by supportive teams, supervisors, trainings, ongoing reflection, and scaffolded learning.This doesn’t exist for all EI professionals, who have identified as being a “lone wolf” or alone on an “EI Island”. Others do have supportive teams, but still find themselves benefiting from the ongoing community support and learning that Coach2Coach has offered to many of us, myself included. 

One of my biggest takeaways as I re-watch this interview is the importance of “Observation” and the camera part of our coaching framework. If we’re not observing (hands-off) we don’t really get a chance to identify caregiver and child baselines. 

For more support on observation, you can take a look at these two blog posts:

1. Observation in Early Intervention
2. Lights, Camera, Action, & Wrap

Watch the full interview with Meg Roberts, PhD and Bailey Sone, PhD candidate,  in module 1 of our Early Intervention Expert Insights here if you are already enrolled in this series. Or if you’re interested in enrolling in this series, you can learn more and sign-up here.  

Research Citation: Sone, B. J., Lee, J., & Roberts, M. Y. (2021). Comparing Instructional Approaches in Caregiver-Implemented Intervention: An Interdisciplinary Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Journal of Early Intervention, 43(4), 339–360. https://doi.org/10.1177/1053815121989807