What Is Special Instruction Anyway?

What is Special Instruction in Early Intervention?

This is a four part series on the components of Special Instruction according to this Position Statement from Division of Early Childhood.

Special Instruction is an early intervention services that focuses on promoting caregiver child interactions and supporting caregivers in learning new strategies they can use to enhance the child’s development and participation in the child’s natural activities and routines of everyday life.

I am a special instructor, and enjoy it immensely. I work with people from a variety of roles, and they each come with their own views and opinions about how early intervention is supposed to be.

Models of Delivery

There are some therapists that operate from the medical model of service delivery. There are those programs that have collaborative teaming and transdisciplinary model, which I could only dream of participating in. Are they even real?

But then reality…

Then, there is my program. The state public health program, that is chronically underfunded and always in desperate need of training. It is easy to get swayed by others when you are under pressure.

I enjoy going back and rereading this position statement and reminding myself what my goals are, what my purpose is, and how I am to do it.

Here is a breakdown of each function of the special instructor and how it looks in my world. How does it look in yours?