>> Gigi Newton: -- information. >> Ann Rash: I think it's interesting, too, on the process, one of the things Lilli says, and this is in your hand out on page 2, and it says, "gather 60 to 7 (sic) objects for play." And I don't think -- >> Sara Kitchen: How many? >> Ann: 60 to 70 objects for play at different levels. And so I think that gives us an idea of sort of her process, and that is quite different than the process that we might approach it if we're coming in to do something. >> Right. >> Ann: Or in the classroom, because 60 to 7 (sic) objects to play at the level the child is, that's a lot. And that's -- that's not the way we -- you know, we usually have our little bag -- >> Yeah. >> Ann: -- that we take in. ^M00:00:57 [ Overlapping comments ] ^M00:01:00 >> Ann: Right. So to me it is -- it's that us waiting and giving the time. >> Kate Hurst: Well, and I liked -- now that you've mentioned the process, let's jump back to that for a minute. She talks about that the very first thing she does is she interviews the parents. And I think that's another thing, especially in school settings, in part because we oftentimes have difficulty in getting access to parents for one reason or another, but I do think that that is a really important step, is to look at and to talk to the parents about what they're doing at home, what they interact with at home, what's familiar to them, what might be an unfamiliar object. And quite honestly, as a teacher in a classroom, I don't think I ever went to that great a degree to really sit down and talk to parents and do that level of interview. And it -- and, again, I'm going to acknowledge it's a hard thing to do. >> Cyral Miller: Well I will say, I did do that, but I don't see current teachers being given that opportunity or permission. I see current teachers having a very hard time going to parents' homes, which was kind of routine for me at the time when I was active. But, you know, there are a whole lot of reasons for that; parents who aren't home, some unsavory neighborhoods that maybe it's not even safe to go to. But mostly, I think it's about parent not being home and teachers having other lives outside of work. So the timing, it just becomes -- and, of course, if you have a large caseload, how many parents can you really -- >> Ann: Well, and I even noticed some fear that perhaps the questions that you might ask that the parents would feel like you really didn't know what you were doing or didn't know their child, and so -- and I think we're just in a litigious, you know, world, and people are afraid of lawsuits and that type of thing. So -- but I do -- I do think that that parent interview, and for those of us who do onsite, our school consultations, we usually have the opportunity to go into the home and talk with parents, and it's very helpful. So -- >> Kate: So I do think we have to find some way around that. I hear some people wanting to say something, so jump on in. >> Remote responder: Okay. This is C. C. Just a going forward it might be good for some of the teachers to have a sample grab bag for the different stages. If there're indeed 60 to 70 objects, I kind of wonder if some of the teachers would have a problem just coming up with 60 to 70 objects. >> Ann: Isn't that the truth? >> Kate: Well, and I will tell you guys -- - it's not easy, but I will tell you that there's some really good ideas, and I actually think I have posted them on the Active Learning page, but if not, I will double check and post them under today's date what -- she has a suggested treasure chest of stuff that's really good, and there's several -- actually, several things that I can put up and share with you guys that might give you some ideas. But, again, a lot of it is really looking at the child and what they're doing with their hands, what they're doing with their mouth. So one of the things I would suggest, and there are actually some forms up on the Active Learning page, but, again, I'll double check make sure we've got everything good that I can find up there, Stacy and Gigi and other people have come up with forms for documenting things, behaviors with kids, and I think that that's a really, really good thing to do when you get a kid is get some videotape, get just as much stuff as you can out there and watch what they do and try to think about in terms -- and, again, I'm going to steer y'all back to the functional schemes assessment, if you don't have it, even just looking at these pages where I put the social, emotional, and their play stuff, and try and just see if you see -- if you can kind of map out where that child is, because that's going to guide you to the types of materials you're going to put in. If they're only clutching or if they're scratching, you're probably not going to give them a lot of -- if that's all they're doing is scratching, you're not going to give them a lot of things that they have to hold in their hand. You're going to give them textures and things that they can rake their hands over or whatever. If they're interested in long cylindrical objects, ribbons and beads, strings of beads and things like that maybe, what or chains, you may want to look at that. But you really got to do an awful lot of just looking at that kiddo. >> Cyral: And the other part that I think is hard about this, I mean, get the observation piece, but if you're observing a kid in a room with nothing there -- >> Kate: Yeah, you're not going to get much. >> Cyral: -- you're observing a kid who has only seen three objects and they have their favorite and that's it, then it's hard -- it's sort of like when you do the LMA and you say, well, they're not tactile and that's because they've never been given that opportunity. I guess you have -- it seems like you have to start by observing them but by also creating some opportunities for them to develop new preferences if they haven't been given very many. >> Kate: Well, and, again, I think when you get a student in, you know, you do have to spend quite a bit of time of just building environments, putting them in it -- >> Cyral: Seeing what happens. >> Kate: -- seeing what happens. It is a lot of experimentation. >> Ann: Well, if they have -- and if they have a favorite toy, then you look at why is it -- what is it about this favorite toy that they really like and you give them more of that. Just recently I was in a district and a little girl loved chains, and so we put a lot of different things like that on a position board, and the vision teacher said, "You know, should we put a chain there because I think she's just going to want to do that chain and nothing else," and I said, "Well, this is an opportunity to try." And so she did play with the chain but she was comparing with other things, she let the chain go and she -- so we can't always predict. We have to give them valid opportunities. >> Right. >> Ann: And if she had only played with the chain, that would have given us information as well. >> As to where she was. >> Kate: Well, and, you know, that brings up a good point, because Lilli does talk about familiar and unfamiliar objects. And that whole notion of making a connection from a familiar thing to an unfamiliar thing, you know, is real important. I mean, that's how you build understanding. That's how you begin to develop categories and stuff is that you base it off of what you know, and you see what's the same and what is different. >> Right. That's how you learn. >> Kate: And for us as teachers, and I'm thinking back to a kiddo Gigi and I saw, he was really into a pie pan. And the first thing we thought, oh, it's shiny and bright. That's what he's liking about it. And then we thought, oh, no. It's the sound that he can make. That's what he's liking about it. And then what we finally came up with, after quite a bit of time of looking at it is, it was the fact that it could change shape. He could bend it and it could change shapes, and, yeah, I think he was somewhat interested in the shiny and maybe somewhat interested in the noise, but what was really motivating to him was that it changed shape. And the only way we figured that out is, we began to offer him other objects that whose main thing was that they were shiny but they couldn't change shape, and he was somewhat interested but that wasn't it, you know. And it was just by putting -- trying to think, what is it about this object that's interesting him and offering objects that had that property that we were beginning -- we began to tease out what it was that was motivating to him about it, you know. >> Cyral: I'm wondering when we're working with local teams, how people assign -- oops, our time is almost up -- but it's something to think about is, what is the role of each team member in this, you know. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Cyral: Because it's complicated. >> Kate: It's a very complicated thing. And I would think, you know, one, PT and OT, I think, play a critical role in looking at motor development and what can that child do with their body, you know, because that's going to be a big -- >> Cyral: Factor. >> Kate: -- a big factor of it. TBI for sure. We've got to know what kind of vision, what kind of tactile stuff and OT / PT's are going to play a part in that. If the child is hearing impaired, there's going to have to be some input from the teacher for deaf and hard of hearing, because if we can get an audiogram and say, we think he hears high frequency sounds, then we're going to want to focus on them; or no, he can't. He hears low frequency sounds only -- >> Right. >> -- then we're going to want to focus on those sorts of things. And then, like you said, the parents. Holy smokes. Just asking them, what are their favorite toys? Do you think they'd like a specific color? Is there something that you do that -- around the house that they seem to respond to in terms of touch or movement or whatever? I think -- >> Remote: Kate? >> Kate: -- doing that is important. Yes? >> Remote: This is Peggy at TSD. I just want to add to that, too. I know there's something that we always say is great, which is team meetings, but when you talked about the roles, I think my experience in our team experience and our team experience with our new toddlers has been that, when everyone is able to get together, even if it's just once a month and it's nine people and it seems overwhelming, the information that's shared between team members is so important. And our roles aren't that clear cut. You know, working with an O&M person on the team, it's brainstorming together, and it may not even look to traditionally like I'm doing what I would do in my role. And PT and OT has some more clear cut defined goals; however, with Lilli Nielsen's work and what we know about Active Learning, there's a heck of a lot of education that has to happen in sharing and being open minded about looking at what's needed for the child. And those meetings have been really helpful for our team. >> Peggy, I agree with that. I think that, you know, with these kiddos, if people can't sort of step outside of their own individual ownership of a child and realize that it's like no one person can know everything they need to know, you know, that it really takes collaboration to come up with this, it just is almost impossible. Other thoughts from people? We're really -- it's time for us to cut off. ^M00:11:47 [ Inaudible ] ^M00:11:50 >> Remote: Good talk. >> Kate: I will post everything I can lay my hands on up on the Active Learning site today and share it -- share these notes up there in case you had trouble them getting them off of our webinar. I don't know that we will do a webinar in December, but we will set a date in January, and I'll let you guys know that as soon as possible. In the meantime, I want to really thank you guys for joining us. And if you have questions, you can e-mail me or anyone on our team and we'll try to get back to you about it. And we'll just take it from there. >> Thank you, Kate. >> Thanks, guys. Bye-bye. >> Bye. >> Thank you. >> Bye. ^M00:12:39