The next seven blog entries will address the international
implementation of the Routines-Based Model (RBM). The seven parts are
- The Model
- How the Model Became of Interest, Internationally
- Why International Implementers Were Interested
- Adopted Practices
- Implementation Challenges
- Implementation Successes
- Conclusions
The following people contributed to the information in
these posts:·
- Tânia Boavida, CIS-IUL, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Portugal
- Kerry Bull, Noah’s Ark, Australia
- Margarita Cañadas, Catholic University of Valencia, Spain
- Ai-Wen Hwang, Chang Gung University, Taiwan
- Natalia Józefacka, Słoneczna Kraina, Cieszyn, Poland
- Lim Hong Huay, Singapore
- Marisú Pedernera, Teletón Paraguay
- Tamara Sergnese, The Regional Municipality of York, Ontario, Canada
- Julia Woodward, New Zealand Ministry of Education
They would want me to point out that many of them have
colleagues who helped them. Indeed, the number of people involved in
implementation of the RBM is humbling.
In Minga Guazú, in the hot eastern side of Paraguay, where
many of the families in early intervention (birth-6 years of age), are
indigenous Guaraní, a young occupational therapist (OT) welcomes a family to
the early intervention center. The center is for children with physical
disabilities. This OT has been trained in the Routines-Based Model (RBM) and,
today, she will talk to the family about 2 or 3 of the 12 goals on the child’s
and family’s intervention plan. 
In Cieszyn, Poland, workers are still hammering nails, as a
dorm on a university campus is being remodeled to become a preschool
(“kindergarten” in Polish parlance) following the Engagement Classroom Model.
This model demonstration site will show how you can run a classroom to promote
child engagement.
In this article, we discuss the Routines-Based Model; how
it became of interest, internationally; what practices implementers adopted;
what challenges they faced; what successes they had; and our conclusions about
what has to happen to improve early intervention around the world.
The Model
McWilliam
and colleagues developed the Routines-Based Model over many years (McWilliam, 2016a; McWilliam, Trivette, & Dunst,
1985). The model has three main components: needs assessment and
intervention planning, a consultative approach, and a method for running
classrooms.
Needs
Assessment and Intervention Plan Development
In
the RBM, nothing good can happen unless we have a list of goals meaningful to
the family and other caregivers spending time with the child. To develop an
intervention plan, which goes by different names in different countries, we
conduct an ecomap and a Routines-Based Interview, from which the family chooses
functional goals and family goals.
Ecomap. The ecomap is a picture of the
family’s ecology (Jung, 2010). Most
important, it identifies the family’s informal supports. In most early intervention
services, they don’t find out the extended family, friends, and neighbors the
family might be able to count on for support, before resorting to formal
supports.
Functional
goals. Goals
for child functioning are written to emphasize the child’s participation in
routines, such as, “Jared will participate in breakfast time, hanging out time,
and outside time by using single words” (Fleming,
Sawyer, & Campbell, 2011). Furthermore, we write the goals with
criteria for acquisition, generalization, and maintenance, such as, “We will
know he can do this when he uses five different single words, in two of these
three times of day in one day, over four consecutive days.”
Family
goals. As a result of the RBI, the family
chooses goals for other members of the family. The most common goal is time for
oneself, such as, “Diane will have two hours for herself every two weeks, for
10 consecutive weeks.”
Consultative
Approach to Early Intervention
A
principle of the RBM is that all the intervention occurs between visits, so the
point of visits with caregivers is to build their capacity to meet child and
family needs when the professional is gone (i.e., during all the other hours of
the week).
Family
consultation. Family
consultation involves the professional, usually a home visitor, working with
the family to identify (a) why a child isn’t doing something, (b) what might be
a viable solution, and (c) whether the strategy worked. This involves the
professional’s asking many questions to find out what’s being going on so far
before making a suggestion (McWilliam, 1995,
2010b; McWilliam, Wolery, & Odom, 2001). He or she also asks the
family whether they would like to try it out during the session and whether
they think it is feasible.
Collaborative
consultation to children’s classrooms (CC2CC). Similarly, when professionals see
“a child” in child care or preschool, they actually go to visit the teaching
staff. Again, they jointly decide why a child isn’t doing something, what the
strategy might be, and whether it has worked. This practice is based on seven
years of research on “integrated therapy” (McWilliam,
1995).
Engagement
Classroom Model
The
RBM include procedures for running classrooms to promote child engagement,
which we have dubbed the Engagement Classroom Model (McWilliam & Casey, 2008). Implementers focus on five
components:
- Conducting RBI to establish functional, routines-based goals;
- Incidental teaching to address all goals in all routines, by following the child’s lead and eliciting higher order functioning;
- Integrated therapy, meaning specialists work with teachers in the classroom and never pull the child out;
- Zone defense schedule to arrange the room in zones, to organize the adults, and to decrease nonengagement time during transitions between activities;
- Incorporating Reggio Emilia concepts to promote children’s exploration, to encourage creativity in art, and to make the environment “provocative” and beautiful.
Next post: How the Model Became of Interest,
Internationally
Write to me for references: robin.mcwilliam@gmail.com
