Dr. McWilliam releases new book

Even though early intervention for infants, toddlers and preschoolers with disabilities has been in existence since the 1970s, little guidance has been available to the thousands of professionals working in that field. This month, the first comprehensive approach to early intervention, using recommended and evidence-based practices, will be published.

“Routines-Based Early Intervention: Supporting Young Children and Their Families” describes what might be considered a radical yet compellingly commonsensical method of helping young children with disabilities. The author, R. A. McWilliam, Ph.D., has led a quiet revolution across the United States and overseas, shifting the emphasis from professionally delivered interventions to “caregiver”-delivered interventions.

Traditionally, early intervention involved professionals evaluating children, designing intervention programs for them and working with them directly. This modus operandi is still commonplace. McWilliam and other leaders in early intervention have pointed out, however, that it under serves children and families.

“The professional-centered approach means that children receive one to two hours of service a week,” said McWilliam. “Meanwhile, families have attributed their children’s progress to those one or two hours.” McWilliam has demonstrated that families have been led astray by this approach.

The real intervention for children occurs between visits to a professional, he says. “Very young children do not learn in lessons or sessions. They learn throughout every day, which means they learn from their natural caregivers, not episodic professionals.”

Regular caregivers are the child’s parents or other adult family members and, if the child attends child care or preschool, the child’s teachers. Essentially, caregivers are those who spend enough time to make a difference in the child’s development and learning.

The new book, “Routines-Based Early Intervention,” shows how child and family functioning can be improved by focusing on the daily events and activities in their lives. “It’s all about empowering families and teachers to be confident about their competence when early intervention professionals are not there,” McWilliam says.

This means early intervention professionals have to retool themselves to become consultants and educators of the adults in a child’s life. They have to maintain a large number of strategies to apply with diverse children, families and classrooms.

They also have to support the emotional well-being of parents more than ever before. The research on the effectiveness of social support, according to McWilliam, means that “we have to fill parents’ buckets so they have enough to fill their children’s buckets.”

McWilliam is the director of the Center for Child and Family Research at Siskin Children’s Institute and a professor of Education at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Previously, he has been a professor at Vanderbilt University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His early intervention model is being implemented in hundreds of communities across the United States and in parts of Europe.

“Routines-Based Early Intervention” is McWilliam’s fifth publicly published book and his second in 2010. The book is for sale online at http://www.brookespublishing.com/store/books/mcwilliam-70625/index.htm.

ABOUT SISKIN CHILDREN’S INSTITUTE
Siskin Children's Institute makes life better for children with special needs and their families. Founded in 1950, the non-profit organization achieves its mission locally and nationally through four initiatives: education, outreach, health care and research. The Institute provides early childhood education where children with and without disabilities learn together; family support and professional development programs; developmental behavioral pediatric health care; and innovative research in early childhood development and special education. For more information about Siskin Children's Institute, visit www.siskin.org.