Are you wondering how to better support certain children in specific routines or activities? Or maybe you are curious how you can help children be more independent, or ways to decrease behaviors that feel challenging? Join us for an interactive workshop on Curriculum Modifications, part of The Building Blocks Framework (Sandall et al., 2024). This workshop will cover a range of different modifications we can easily implement in ANY early childhood setting (including home, center based programs, and in the community!). Curriculum Modifications are small changes that can have a big impact on how young children participate in daily routines and activities. Join us and plan for curriculum modifications in your setting!

There are many children with language delays, differences, or disorders who come from households with other home languages. In this engaging session, we will discuss the importance of equitable language learning by questioning English-centric approaches in supporting children with language delays in multilingual environments. We explore strategies to promote inclusive communication support by better understanding home languages and providing tools and strategies that embrace and support family’s language choices instead of rejecting them. By advocating for language access for all, we aim to empower multilingual families and professionals to provide comprehensive support for children facing language delay, ensuring that every child has the opportunity to thrive in their linguistic development irrespective of their home language.

Join us to learn inclusive strategies for supporting children in engaging and sustaining play with toys and their peers in the classroom. Participants will learn strategies for (1) environmental arrangement and toy selection to promote engagement, play, and responsive interactions (2) facilitating child-led play in the classroom (3) embedding supports for communication and positive peer interactions during play. Presenters will share classroom examples and videos of practices in action, as well as classroom visuals and implementation supports (reflection and action planning tools, tip sheets, materials to share with families). Participants will engage in guided action planning and case based learning to support application to their classroom settings.

Infants/toddlers and young children who are deafblind—that is, have combined vision and hearing issues—have complex needs that require specialized approaches. The role of “touch” is one avenue that often is under-emphasized in supports for these children. Heather Withrow’s third child, Orion, was born totally blind and profoundly deaf. Together with their Deaf son and daughter (who is a CODA—hearing Child of Deaf Adults), the Withrow’s learned how to connect with Orion, support communication among family members, and enjoy adventures together. Heather’s presentation is based on her personal experiences, as well as her professional training in deafblindness and orientation and mobility, and as an ally in the DeafBlind Community. She will discuss considerations and opportunities for using the sense of touch for environmental information and communication. Through stories and media, she will share examples of touch techniques paired with learning strategies that can be used right away, or developed over time at home, school, and in the community. Heather will include her perspectives on how “Protactile,” a language used by DeafBlind people using only tactile channels, applies to deafblind children who are in the process of acquiring communication and language.

Hay muchos niños con retrasos, diferencias o trastornos del lenguaje que provienen de hogares con otros idiomas maternos. En esta sesión interesante, discutiremos la importancia del aprendizaje lingüístico equitativo cuestionando los enfoques centrados en el inglés para apoyar a los niños con retrasos del lenguaje en entornos multilingües. Exploraremos estrategias para promover el apoyo comunicativo inclusivo al comprender mejor los idiomas maternos y proporcionar herramientas y estrategias que abracen y respalden las elecciones lingüísticas de las familias en lugar de rechazarlas. Al abogar por el acceso lingüístico para todos, nuestro objetivo es capacitar a las familias y profesionales multilingües para brindar un apoyo integral a los niños que enfrentan retrasos del lenguaje, asegurando que cada niño tenga la oportunidad de prosperar en su desarrollo lingüístico independientemente de su idioma en casa.

This session centers around the film "Reflecting on Anti-Bias Education in Action: The Early Years," designed to help early childhood educators observe anti-bias education in practice. Unlike a prescribed recipe or model, this approach relies on critical thinking, risk-taking, and a profound understanding of the nuanced issues and their context. It goes beyond mere activities and teaching strategies, emphasizing that while challenging, implementing anti-bias education is achievable.

The goal of my presentation is to guide participants towards concrete information about why young children use behavior, the importance of high-quality play, and how a young child’s daily experiences and interactions can influence their overall behavior throughout their day. Additionally, we will review the fundamentals of managing a specific challenging behavior that a child is using to meet their needs. You will learn how to guide parents, childcare staff, or yourself towards understanding a challenging behavior by discovering its function and trigger(s), ideas to help avoid triggering the behavior, and learn how to replace the challenging behavior by teaching an equally effective but more appropriate new skill. My presentation’s framework will be supported by information from several social-emotional resources including the Promoting First Relationships (PFR) curriculum and the Project ImPACT (PI) curriculum. My intention is for this presentation to be inclusive to early intervention home visitors, educators in a classroom or childcare setting, parents, and caregivers in general. You may find this presentation helpful if you would like an introduction to or review the social and emotional needs of young children, and if you would like to learn about managing and preventing specific challenging behaviors from young children such as dramatic protests and tantrums or the use of self-injurious behavior.

With 1 in 200 children experiencing post-infectious neuroinflammatory disorders, increasing awareness of these disorders amongst those who work with children is imperative in order to prevent misdiagnosis and unnecessary suffering. These children are happy and healthy one day and psychiatrically crippled the next. Most of these children are misdiagnosed as psychiatric or behavioral when they require medical intervention and treatment. Learn how a simple childhood infection can trigger an abrupt onset of obsessive compulsive disorder, tics and/or eating restrictions in children.