MSCD Infancy Concentration

This course is an introduction to different professional service systems that focus their work on supporting infants, toddlers and families.

Each course session will provide readings and information by a specialist from the field on a particular service system thus introducing participants to the scope of work and role of the infant specialist professional.

Service systems covered will include home visiting and home based practice, center based child care and family home care, parenting groups and parent education, child birth support, foster care, early intervention Part C: working with infants and toddlers with disabilities, infants and toddlers in health care settings, infant mental health, adoption and international adoption, advocacy and professional development.

Prerequisite: 30 hours of hands-on, direct experiences with infants and toddlers or consent of Director of Infant Specialist Program.

This course takes a relationship-based developmental approach to observation, screening, and assessment of children from birth through age three. Assessment is viewed as an integral part of the intervention process and as a collaboration between parents and providers.

Students are trained to focus on underlying developmental processes as well as the appearance of individual milestones in cognitive, social/emotional, communication, and sensory and motor development. Students are guided in partnering with parents to assess the child’s strengths and challenges to development, and to identify the family’s priorities for services.

Selected screening tools, standardized tests, and criterion-referenced instruments are reviewed. Students receive introductory training in one screening and one assessment tool, including administration, interpretation, referral, and recommendations for developmental intervention. The rationale and practices for screening, referral, and assessment in various infant/toddler settings (e.g., child care, Early Head Start, early intervention) are examined.

This course is an examination of developmental and behavioral characteristics of infants and toddlers specifically when presented as veering off typical and expected trajectories. Differences will be considered from two perspectives: those with specific diagnoses as well as those with emerging developmental differences. The domains of development will be utilized as an organizing framework. Within each developmental domain, students will learn to identify developmental differences as well as to differentiate variations in developmental pace whether slower or more advanced. Clinical observations, asking relevant questions, interpreting, and determining when and where to make referrals will be highlighted. We will focus on developing skills in communicating with parents around concerns regarding their child’s development. The multi-directional influence of cultural, linguistic, socioeconomic, and interpersonal variables will also be considered.