You want to provide the best early intervention care possible.
Perhaps you’re a director seeking to share the latest early intervention research and practices with your staff. Or maybe you’re a practitioner that needs to fulfill early intervention training hours.
Where do you find the highest quality evidence-based training? What’s the best platform for practicing newly acquired skills and building on what you’ve learned?
Research is constantly evolving — and there are excellent research-based early intervention training opportunities available to you.
If you’re ready to learn more about early intervention training, we can help.
We share more about early intervention training, how to implement what you learn, and how to find the best resources available for professional development.
Table of Contents
- What Is Early Intervention Training?
- Understanding the Need: The Importance of Early Intervention Training
- Which Professionals Benefit from Early Intervention Training?
- When Is Training Offered to Early Interventionists?
- How to Find the Best Training and Professional Learning Opportunities for Early Interventionists
- Supplement Early Intervention Training by Implementing Coaching With TORSH Talent
What Is Early Intervention Training?
Early intervention training uses research-based strategies to enhance a professional’s knowledge of:
- Child development
- How to best partner with families to provide child-specific early intervention strategies
- Screening and assessments tools
- Different intervention and educational plans
Early intervention training requirements depend on the type of provider you are, your role in the program, and your state’s educational guidelines.
Understanding the Need: The Importance of Early Intervention Training
Learning doesn’t end when an educator or practitioner graduates or completes the required early intervention training for certification. Professional improvement through early intervention training is a continuous, career-long process that allows practitioners to learn new skills, enhance what you already know, and share their knowledge with others.
Research Is Continually Evolving
Technologies and best practices continue to evolve and progress. That’s why, to provide the best care possible, it is crucial for professionals (both new and experienced) to keep up with evidence-based learning.
It’s likely that what you learned in college or previous training over the years about early intervention best practices has changed in some way.
Through early intervention research, we continue to learn more about:
- Children
- Development
- Disorders
- Autism; and
- More
For example, with new insight and experience, there may now be a better way to:
- Teach a child to go up stairs
- Practice social skills
- Encourage eye contact
- Coach caregiver involvement
Training Can Help Improve Teaching Practices
Caregivers and educators can experience a lot of stress and uncertainty, in both the classroom and home environments.
What are some ways early intervention training can help practitioners build their skills, confidence, and self-efficacy? Consider these examples:
- An educator is uncertain how to handle a child’s new, troubling behavior. Getting a refresher on what is typical and what is not typical in early childhood development and behavior can reassure educators when dilemmas occur in their classrooms.
- A teacher fresh out of school may not have had a lot of real, hands-on experience. Early intervention training creates an opportunity to refresh what they learned and discuss how to best implement new practices and procedures in the classroom.
- A director attends training on the early identification of autism. They can then share what they learned with their team , ensuring everyone is up-to-date on the latest research and practices.
Better Equipped to Adapt to Ever-Changing Societal Challenges
Society is ever-evolving. Children today face different challenges than they did ten years ago — or than they will ten years from now.
Continuous learning, through early intervention training, helps interventionists adapt to new challenges and acquire the tools they need to help young children develop a solid foundation of skills that will help them be successful in school and in life.
Continuous Learning Increases Professionalism
Investing in continuous professional improvement demonstrates the importance of the work you are doing in an often underappreciated field.
Early intervention training and professional learning help early intervention professionals feel more confident in their abilities and more positive about the rigors of early childhood development and education.
Child Engagement May Improve
Early intervention training and professional development can help practitioners learn how to engage better with children of varying abilities and backgrounds.
With early intervention training, practitioners and educators will learn ways to draw a shy or hesitant child into learning activities or how to calm a highly active child so they can focus.
Improved Support for Every Unique Family Situation
Professional learning helps practitioners develop their skills so they are better equipped to support diverse families in their communities.
Possibly the family is multigenerational, and the interventionist will learn how to coach family members of varied ages.
Or maybe the child has a very small window of time when they will be “at their best“ for learning. The interventionist can learn techniques for how to teach the family to optimize those teachable moments.
Which Professionals Benefit from Early Intervention Training?
Any professional working with infants and young children can benefit from early intervention training.
Some common fields of study that profit from early intervention training include:
- Occupational therapy or occupational therapy assistant
- Physical therapy or physical therapy assistant
- Social work
- Speech-Language pathology or audiology
- Preschool education
Directors looking to provide professional development to their staff can also benefit from early intervention training.
The TORSH Talent platform is packed with everything you need to drive results with a comprehensive suite of professional learning tools. Request a demo today!
When Is Training Offered to Early Interventionists?
Early intervention training is offered throughout the year and through many different platforms.
How Is Training Typically Offered to Early Interventionists?
Early intervention training is offered to professionals in several different ways, including:
- Live online
- Self-paced online
- In-person
What Should Early Interventionists Expect from Training?
Early intervention training will vary by state, the training platform used, and the training’s subject.
Larger professional learning conferences may have an overall theme for the year with many topics to choose from, such as:
- Writing effective early intervention reports
- Valuing the insight of parents
- Navigating challenging conversations
- Language development in infants through preschoolers
- Literacy assessment and intervention
How to Find the Best Training and Professional Learning Opportunities for Early Interventionists
To find the best early intervention training, you will want to start with your accrediting institution.
For example …
If you’re a speech pathologist, you’ll likely begin with the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) website.
An occupational therapist will find the best training information with the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA).
Early intervention training centers at some universities may also be valuable resources, depending on your field.
These resources can provide you with information such as:
- Upcoming conferences and events
- Continuing education courses and workshops
- Current research trends
- Early intervention professional learning online opportunities; and
- Much more
Supplement Early Intervention Training With TORSH Talent
TORSH Talent offers the most comprehensive platform to support early intervention training — including online training, on-demand training, and a host of other training resources.
TORSH Talent supports training using:
- Live synchronous online meetings
- A resource library filled with on-demand and self-paced courses
- Accountability through tracking engagement with on-demand courses
- Discussion forums
Invest in your staff with this cost-effective, all-in-one platform that puts …
- Observation
- Training
- Professional learning; and
- So much more
… conveniently at your fingertips, no matter where you are.
Streamline, simplify, and increase opportunities for early intervention training with TORSH Talent. Request a demo today!
