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Team Based Early Intervention

Key Principles, Acronyms, and Key Terms

The Arizona Early Intervention Program (AzEIP) supports families using team-based early intervention services. Team-based early intervention services provide every family with a team of early intervention professionals who work together to support your child’s learning within everyday routines and activities. Your team of professionals will use what they know about early childhood development to help you and your child participate in everyday activities and routines.

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Your family’s team will include a service coordinator, developmental special instructionist (DSI), occupational therapist (OT), physical therapist (PT) and a speech-language pathologist (SLP). Psychologists and social workers are also available to be on the team, when they are needed. The support and expertise of a hearing and/or vision specialist may be added to the team, if needed.

 

Which team member(s) works with you and your family will depend on what is important and of interest to you. Your Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) team, which includes you, will decide which team member will be the Team Lead for your family. Your service coordinator will assist you in accessing any other early intervention services on your IFSP.

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The following is an example of how the team might work together and with a family:

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Early intervention is designed to support parents and caregivers in their everyday routines. By working together, your team of professionals will use what they know about early childhood development to support you and your child during everyday activities and routines that matter most to your family. Here is an example of Team-Based Early Intervention:

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Katie and her family develop an IFSP outcome to have more successful mealtimes. The IFSP team (which includes the family) decides that Joan, an Occupational Therapist, will be the Team Lead for Katie and her family and will have 16 one hour visits over the course of three months with the family.

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Joan visits the family during a mealtime or snack time to observe, ask questions and coach the family to help make mealtime successful. As the Team Lead, Joan, together with the family, comes up with ideas and strategies to support Katie’s participation in mealtime and include all areas of development that occur during this activity.

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At the start of the next session, Joan asks Katie’s family how things have been going since their last visit, she asks if the family has tried any of the ideas or strategies that they talked about at the last session. This is an opportunity for Katie’s family to share any new or continuing challenges. Joan asks Katie’s family if they have any of their own suggestions or things that they want to try. Joan and Katie’s mom are wondering about the way Katie sits in her highchair.

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At the weekly team meeting with the other team members for Katie’s family, Joan receives coaching from the Physical Therapist to help her think about the needs of Katie when she sits at the table during mealtime. Joan and the physical therapist decide it might be helpful to ask Katie’s family if they could visit the family together. The service coordinator, team lead, and the family review and revise the IFSP to include a joint visit with the physical therapist. During their Joint Visit, the Physical Therapist provides support to the family as well as to Joan, the Team Lead. The Team Lead continues to visit the family and together, they work to support Katie’s participation in mealtime.

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