TRANSCRIPT
Early Intervention for Children who are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Deafblind
9-14-26 

>>Mari: All right. Today we're going to talk about early intervention services for children who are -- who have visual impairments. These are some of the resources that I culled information from for this presentation. These are also really good resources if you are working with infants and toddlers who are visually impaired here in Texas, and some of these are also applicable outside of the state. We have an ECI compliance guide, which has both the IDEA rules and the Texas Administrative Code. The Health and Human Services Commission and Texas Education Agency memorandum of understanding. Which was updated just this year in 2026. Of course, we've got the ECC. The Student Attendance Accounting Handbook, which is a TEA document. Then the Texas Administrative Code and the Texas Education Code. All of these links, when you get the handout, all of these links are live links. So let's start with talking just a little bit about ECI. ECI is the state lead agency for birth to 3 services. It has been designated by the governor as the primary agency to handle these services. People coming out of ECI have specialized training to evaluate and assess infants and toddlers who have developmental delays, disabilities, and certain medical conditions. ECI providers also have specialized training in the development of Individualized Family Service Plan, or IFSPs. They are also responsible for monitoring the IFSP and ensuring compliance to all of the plan's services. And ECI provides all of the birth to 3 services except for services for Deaf/hard of hearing, and blind, visually impaired. ECI does provide some services to those children but the specific services related to those children's sensory impairment comes out of school district. So what is the school district's role? The local education agency, or LEA, our role is to provide first a certified teacher of students with visual impairments. And a certified orientation and mobility with visual impairments. And a certified orientation and mobility specialist to provide services to children and their families. Also a TVI, COMS, and a teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing to serve children who are identified as Deafblind. Okay. So let's take a quick look at child find and the referral process. So child find in Early Childhood Intervention, ECI is tasked with locating, identifying, and determining eligibility and offering services to any children ages birth to 3 and their families. If the child is visually impaired, ECI must involve the local district as part of both the evaluation team and the services team. On the LEA side of child find, if the LEA locates or identifies a child under the age of 3 that may be eligible for Early Childhood Intervention services, we have no more than seven days to make the referral to the school district. So how do referrals work? When ECI gets a referral on a child and that child has some sort of documentation, medical documentation that the child has had a vision exam or a vision evaluation -- this could come from the pediatrician, from the physician's assistant, a registered nurse. But if there's some documentation that says, yes, this child has had a vision test and they are visually impaired, that's one way that ECI will make a referral to the school district. Or, obviously, if they get an eye medical form or report from an ophthalmologist or optometrist. Or if the child has a condition with a high probability of resulting from a visual impairment and a developmental delay. So any of those three things starts the referral process from ECI to the school district. When -- something I forgot. When ECI gets any of that information, they have five business days to make that referral to the school district. And within those five days, they are required to notify the family. the family. If the family doesn't respond to them or if the family says, great, no problem. Then ECI will send that referral forward. It doesn't require signed parental consent. It just requires parental notification. So if you get a referral from ECI and it doesn't come with a consent form, the fact that they sent it to you is the consent. So when the school district gets this referral, the first thing they want is for the TVI and the COMS to begin to put together or prepare to provide age-appropriate assessment. You still need to do the Functional Vision Evaluation, the Learning Media Assessment, the orientation and mobility evaluation. And so the TVI and the COMS need to begin to prepare to do those things. You can ask ECI to get consent from the parents for you to go in and evaluate before the team evaluation that ECI will hold or you can just go to that team evaluation and get the information you can. And then you'll write your reports from there. The TVI and the COMS also need to prepare to attend the initial IFSP meeting. It is required if the child has a visual impairment that both of those professionals go to that meeting. Even if we don't have the medical report from the ophthalmologist or optometrist, the TVI and the COMS still must go ahead and complete their assessments and be prepared to report on those at that initial IFSP meeting. 

>>Kaycee: Mari, this is Kaycee. We had a question come in asking in that referral process where the doctor refers ECI, is the doctor following IDEA to determine if the child has a visual impairment based on IDEA definition? Or how is that determined? 

>>Mari: If we get something from a doctor that's not an eye specialist and it says, yes, this baby has had a vision test, that may come through a variety of avenues. It could be that the family told the doctor that and they documented it. It could be that they told the doctor that and they documented it. It could be that they have a copy of results from a test. There's no official -- there's nothing official that says this is where they had to have gotten it or it has to have followed this paper trail. What ECI is saying is if we get something that says this child has had an eye test and has been identified with a visual impairment, their immediate response to that is, regardless of where that came from, is that they need to send that to the school district so that they can get the necessary providers who are experts in that area involved and as part of the team. 

>>Kaycee: This is Kaycee. We had another question come in about the FVE and the eye report. As part of the FVE, we need the eye report. Do we still proceed without it? 

>>Mari: Yes. You will proceed to do your evaluation without the eye medical. And once that comes in, you may need to go in and tweak your report to add in that information. But you get as much as you can without that. We're not going to provide any services until we get that but we are expected to do our evaluations. That's actually the documented point behind the referral. It's in that memorandum of understanding that the referral, the purpose of the referral is evaluation. Okay. So let's assume we've gotten this referral based on something that the pediatrician has sent to ECI. Family has not yet seen the ophthalmologist or optometrist. ECI is required to assist the family in getting to that appointment. They assist them in scheduling it. If they need to help the family -- we do have some families that kind of fall in that gray space between Medicaid and insurance. If there is no other way for that family to obtain this eye medical information, ECI is the payer of last resort and they will have to pay for the family to go and get this assessment or this evaluation done, because it is required for eligibility. If the family is still needing to get to the eye specialist, the TVI and the COMS can also provide resources and information, things to help the family understand how important it is to get to the doctor help the family understand how important it is to get to the doctor and get their child's vision status identified. I see there's another question in the chat. So what if the FVE says the child does not qualify? I'm going to ask you to hold that question for just a minute because we are going to talk about qualifying and eligibility for babies, because it is different than it is for school-age kids. I'm going to hold on that because we are going to get there. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about IDEA. So when we look at IDEA, most of us who are coming out of the education system, we were trained in and we are super familiar with IDEA Part B, which is child with a disability. This includes FAPE, legal protections for students and families. It was established in 1975 and it is for children ages 3 through 21. So everything under Part B is for children who have already reached the age of 3 and up. Whoops. Under Part B eligibility, the child must meet eligibility under one of 13 disability categories. At least one of them. They have to have an educational need or specially-designed instruction. There has to be a delay or otherwise some kind of need. The district's going to hold an IEP meeting. Here in Texas, we call them ARDs. And offer a plan designed for that individual student. And the services under IDEA Part B are child focused or child-centered services. IDEA Part C is a separate statute and it has -- it really has a separate function. Part C was determined to -- it was determined by Congress that this was a really -- this was an imperative to look at littles because we want to maximize the potential of infants and toddlers and we want to minimize the potential for developmental delays. Part C really is kind of a preventive statute in that we're trying to ward off or minimize or eliminate developmental delays before these kiddos get to school. It recognizes the critical brain development that happens in the first three years of life and how important that is to the foundation for the child's life going forward from there. It's also focused on increasing the capacity of the family to meet the needs of their child. And its ultimately goal is to reduce the need for special education services when children reach school age. So Part C eligibility is unto itself. It does not connect with Part B. Under Part C, there are two ways that a child can be eligible for services. One, the child has a developmental delay. And they have a developmental delay in one of these five categories. It's cognitive, physical -- which includes hearing and vision. Communication, social/emotional, or adaptive and self-help. Or the child has a diagnosed physical or mental condition with a high probability of resulting in a developmental delay. And in the Part C statute, there's a whole list of different potential conditions that include things like inborn errors of metabolism and fetal alcohol syndrome and chromosomal abnormalities. Inserted in there is sensory impairments. So a sensory impairment means that a child has a high probability of a developmental delay. Because, as we know, having a visual impairment can absolutely impact the child's development. When a child is eligible, Early Childhood Intervention, ECI, holds an IFSP meeting and they do an assessment, determine eligibility, and offer supports to the child and the family. Early intervention is a family-focused service. So we are not just looking at the child but we are looking at the whole family unit. All right. Now, let's take a look at eligibility in Texas. It's very much the same as it is under Part C but we have expanded things a little bit in terms of explanations. So first part is developmental delay due in part to a visual impairment. And this is in our Texas Administrative Code. So this is specific to birth to 3. in our Texas Administrative Code. So this is specific to birth to 3. We're saying if the child has a developmental delay that's due in part to their visual impairment, then they're going to be eligible for ECI and services from the TVI and possibly from the COMS. I do occasionally get questions about, well, how do we know that the child's delay is due to their visual impairment? I think it's safe to say that if a child has a visual impairment, we can safely assume that some part of that has to do with their vision. The second possibility is the child has a diagnosed condition with a high probability of resulting in visual impairment and a developmental delay. Again, remember that the visual impairment can be that condition. It doesn't mean the child has to have CHARGE syndrome, which then means they have a high probability for a visual impairment that can be part of the situation or they can just have that visual impairment without that additional condition. The visual impairment is the condition. All right. So establishing VI eligibility. Here's the piece that the different. We are not determining eligibility for babies, we are establishing it. So if a baby has a visual impairment that is not correctable or is still present after correction, then that child is going to be eligible for some level of service. In order to determine or establish this eligibility, we have to have the eye medical report. It's got to show that uncorrectable visual impairment. If possible, we would love to see visual field acutie, diagnosis, prognosis, all of those other pieces. But it's really hard to get that on a young child, especially an infant or a young toddler. And so if we get something that just says after correction, this child has a visual impairment, we are golden. If you have a copy of the Texas eye report, on the second page there's actually a little box that they can check that says cannot be determined because the child is under the age of 3. Which basically says we can't get all of this detail yet because the child's too says we can't get all of this detail yet because the child's too young. And then we have to have the FVE, LMA, and O&M reports. And these need to be based on age-appropriate evaluation and data. These evaluations and the reports that go with them are not going to be as long as the ones you do for school-age kids because these are littles. They are at a different point in development. These pieces together are how we establish eligibility. No one piece of this can say a child is not eligible. So back to your question, what if the FVE says that the child doesn't qualify, if you have an FVE that shows that child is typical development but we have an eye medical that says after correction this baby has a visual impairment, then that baby is going to qualify. We have to put all the pieces together and determine that that baby is eligible, really based upon that visual impairment itself. So the FVE and the LMA and O&M may show development but that baby is still eligible for service. Educational need is not a consideration for VI and O&M when we're talking about children under the age of 3. There is no educational need in the statute anywhere. Services from the TVI and COMS cannot begin until we have the eye medical and we've completed those three evaluations. We have to have done those three pieces and then have that eye medical in hand, the one from the ophthalmologist or optometrist. If we have documentation from the pediatrician, that is not sufficient to complete the establishing of the eligibility for that child. Deafblind eligibility and ECI is a bit of a different story. Currently ECI does not have a disability code for Deafblind. And so they can't code a code Deafblind. They typically will code the child under what they consider the primary disability, which for some of our Deafblind kiddos is going to be whatever that overarching medical condition is that's also had a hand in causing the DeafBlindness. What we do on our end from the school district is make sure that within that IFSP that we write all over it or have the service coordinator write all over it that this child is in fact Deafblind. We also want to make sure that the child is included on the VI census and the Deafblind census. It's really important though to note that ECI is finally in the process of rectifying this. So they are going to be adding Deafblind to their list of disability categories. It's in process right now. It's actually public comment is currently open as they are preparing to add this. Our hope is that it will be added by the end of the year. Oh, got a good question in the chat. Am I understanding this correctly? If a child has some vision loss based on aeye report but the evaluations show no deficits, they still need some level of ECI services? Yes. They still are eligible for some level of ECI service. Again, it goes back to IDEA Part C is preventive. We are trying to ensure that if a child has a delay that we are doing our best to close the gap before they turn 3. Or if a child is at risk for a developmental delay based on their condition, that we are providing services to hopefully keep them from getting that developmental delay. So yes. That child will be eligible for some level of service. There's lots going on now on the chat. We've got a comment that says the FVE, LMA, and COMS evaluations give us the data we need to figure out the appropriate level of service and help inform the IFSP goals. That is correct. Okay. Back to Deafblind. ECI is working on this but currently there is no code for Deafblind in Texas. Okay. So the new ECI referral. When we get an ECI referral from them and it is a brand-new referral to ECI, this child is not currently getting any infant toddler services, everyone on the team has 45 calendar days from the date that ECI got that referral to complete their evaluations and be prepared to have the IFSP and add services. We can only do our part. We may still get to that initial IFSP and we still don't have the eye medical. We can't make the doctors move faster. We can't necessarily move the family up in the line to get in to see the doctor. There are some areas of Texas where there is -- there are significant waiting lists to get in to see the eye professionals. We have no control over that. All we can do is have our part done and be ready to go to IFSP. Hopefully we'll get everything in by that 45-day timeline and be able to go on the service grid. If ECI has a child that's already getting ECI services and they either have a suspicion that there is a visual impairment or they get some information that says yes this child has a visual impairment, they'll make that referral to the school district. For those kids, the TVI and the COMS are the ones who set the evaluation timeline. Because the child is already getting services, that 45-day timeline no longer applies. So we need to be able to say, you know, it's going to take me three weeks to get this done. So from today this referral, in three weeks I will have this completed. We want this to be done as fast as possible. Again, remember these are very young children. Especially with VI, sometimes we are getting these kids a little later than we would like to. We need to get them into services quickly. And so we really want evaluations from the school district to take no more than 30 calendar days. That's best practice. That's not in the statute. That's not in a rule but we really want them to be done in 30 calendar days if at all possible. We do have to get ECI to have signed consent from the family before we begin. All of the paperwork comes from ECI. So we are not using our school district consent forms and getting consent. ECI has to get that consent and then we can begin our evaluations. When ECI sends us that referral, we want to make contact with them and give them our timeline right away so that they can go ahead and schedule the IFSP meeting for us to add our services at the tail end. And that will be a periodic review IFSP. It's not going to be another annual, it's just a review and they'll add that new service at that time. 

>>Kaycee: Mari, this is Kaycee. We had a question come in about providing service. About what happens if the child is in a daycare setting. And so the TSVI isn't coaching parents. How does that work? 

>>Mari: Let me hold on to that one, Kaycee. Don't let me forget that question because we're going to talk about coaching in a few minutes and I would like to wrap back around and address that then. Okay. Let's talk briefly about the IFSP. So the required IFSP participants are obviously the parents or caregiver. The ECI service coordinator or case manager. Different programs call that person different things. A second ECI provider who is typically a different discipline than that case manager or service coordinator. The TVI and COMS, if the child has a suspected or confirmed visual impairment or is Deafblind. And then a teacher for the deaf and hard of hearing if the child has a suspected or confirmed hearing difference or is Deafblind. ECI must provide the LEA with a minimum ten-calendar day written notification of all IFSP meetings. We, as school district personnel, the TVI and the COMS have to go to the IFSP meetings. And so it is critical that we get this information as soon as possible. Our hope is that we find out about these children way before the ten days prior to the meeting. But at minimum they have to give you a ten-calendar day notification. The rule does say it has to be written. Personally, I will take it any way I can get it, I just want to know in advance. If we do get this ten-day notification in time, we need to do everything within our power to be able to be at that meeting. Again, it's important that we have the visual impairment professionals at that meeting to help support the child, the family, and the other providers. So what happens at an initial or an annual IFSP? There's going to be a discussion and documentation of the child's birth history. Current health and any other medical history. The child's hearing and vision and functional terms. The child's nutrition status. And then any identified needs. And this is all done through informal conversation. Typically the whole team sits in the house at the dining room table or on the floor in the living room and just chats with the family. Then the big discussion is going to center around the family's routines and how the child is functioning within those routines. We're looking at things like bathing, dressing, diapering, mealtime, playtime, bedtime, or naptime. And any other routines or activities that the family and the child regularly engage in. And so the team will ask the parents, not just what their routines are, but how the child participates in those routines and what kind of participation the parent would like to see that the child is not currently able to do. And this is the beginnings of us starting to determine what goals we are going to help the family create. 

>>Kaycee: Mari, we had a great question come in. Are the COMS required at the IFSP meetings after the initial IFSP meeting, even if this child did not qualify for O&M? 

>>Mari: Yes. So the COMS is required at any meeting that is going to establish eligibility. And in ECI, we re-establish eligibility annually. Obviously, for a child with a visual impairment, their eligibility for VI services is going to continue. But the COMS does need to plan to attend each of the annual IFSPs. If the COMS is not currently providing services, they certainly can talk with the service coordinator and the family about whether or not they can attend the meeting virtually or by phone. not they can attend the meeting virtually or by phone. That is always an option, especially if you're not looking at potentially evaluating that child for orientation and mobility services. The periodic review IFSP is the TVI is the primary person who is mandated to attend those. So yes. The COMS is expected to be at these IFSP meetings, at the initial and the annual. Okay. So after we talk about all of the routines and the child's participation, then we move into the family piece of the IFSP. So then we're going to talk about the child and family resources and case management needs. And again, family-focused program. So we're looking at needs and resources related to the family's ability to enhance their child's development. So if the family is struggling to provide food for their family or they're struggling to pay their rent and keep a roof over their head, those sorts of desperate needs for the entire family really keep a parent from being able to provide the support and the enhancement that their child needs to continue to make progress. So ECI works with local, state, and even federal resources and organizations to try and help connect families with what they need so that that sort of stuff can be taken care of and families can really put the time and the effort into their children that we would like to see happening. 

>>Kaycee: Mari, this is Kaycee. We had another question about the COMS. What does the paperwork look like if the COMS and the rest of the team agree that the child does not need O&M or does not need a new O&M evaluation? 

>>Mari: What does the paperwork look like? I'm not sure I understand the question. What does what paperwork look like? 

>>Kaycee: I wonder if he means the service grid. I'll let Michael respond. We'll come back to it. Go ahead, Michael. Type what you're thinking. 

>>Mari: I'm going to move on. Okay. So early intervention service delivery. Services in birth to 3 have to be appropriate for the needs of the child. Research-based as much as possible. Provided at an individualized frequency and duration. They have to be provided in the presence of either a parent or a caregiver and the child. And we have to provide them as they are written on the IFSP. What this means for us as school district employees is that we will need to be providing services or providing makeup services yearround. Services for ECI are written on a 12-month calendar basis and all services have to be provided as they're written on the IFSP. So if we are off for two weeks for Christmas, we need to offer the family makeup sessions for those two weeks that we miss, assuming the child is getting weekly services. The family can decline the makeup, and that's totally fine. We just document that. But we are responsible for ensuring that we have done our part to provide services exactly as they're written on the IFSP. 

>>Kaycee: This is Kaycee. We got some clarification from Michael. He is asking how those conversation and agreements are documented? If a team decides they don't need this service, O&M in this example, or don't need an updated evaluation but it was discussed, how is that documented in an IFSP? 

>>Mari: Good question, Michael. That is documented in the IFSP itself. There's a section where they will put in notes and other information, discussions that occur. And so that would be documented within the actual IFSP document itself. That conversation with the family, the discussion of the fact that the child isn't currently showing any sort of needs for orientation and mobility. I do want to just -- a quick shift related to O&M. When I say doesn't show a need for orientation and mobility, that would be a child who is using their vision in such a way that they are able to function. They are able to move around safely in their environment and they don't need extra support. Children who are multiply involved and perhaps aren't showing purposeful movement, those children are going to be eligible for orientation and mobility services because that's part of what we're trying to do with these littles is help their families learn how to try and get those purposeful movements from that child. So if we're talking about a child who's not getting O&M, those are going to be those kiddos who really have a lot of functional vision. 

>>Mari: Thank you. Somebody else mentioned it would be very rare for an infant not to get O&M. All right. Okay. So service provision. When we're working with infants and toddlers and families, we are coaching. We are not providing instruction to the child. Even for orientation and mobility. Our job is to go in and coach the family because they need to be the ones who are providing this support and these strategies and these activities with the child every single day. We're focusing on daily routines. So whichever daily routine -- the parents will choose a daily routine that will be connected to the goal but we can move out and branch out from that and address other daily routines through our services. We're looking at natural environments, whether it's the home, daycare, the library, the park. We can even go into the grocery store, any place that that family goes consistently is considered a natural environment for that child. And our instructions or our coaching is parent-led interactions. So we are there coaching the parents and they are the ones who are actually leading the work with the child. We may do some modeling with the family so that they can see how some of these new activities or new strategies look in the moment. But ultimately we are turning all of that back over to the parents because we want them to become comfortable with how to add in whatever pieces are necessary to help their child get the most out of their daily routines and activities. It is really important that we always work within daily routines and not just bring in something and work sitting on the floor in the living room. Because with daily routines, it's something that's familiar with the child. It's something that the family is already doing. We're not adding to their plate of things to do, we're just offering strategies and some different ways of approaching things that they are already doing. Okay. Back to the daycare question that we had earlier. Daycares are probably the most challenging and sometimes frustrating environments to try and coach in. You cannot get the attention of any of the daycare workers for more than a few minutes because they have an entire room full of children that they are responsible for. There are a lot of ways to try and go about working in a daycare. One of the ways can include something that sort of looks like push-in services where we make sure we go when there is an activity or group activity that's happening. We sit with that child who has a visual impairment. And as the teacher is guiding or going through the activity, we are calling their attention to the things that they can be doing to ensure that our child, who is VI, is getting to participate fully in that activity. It's a challenge. Daycares are not my favorite. I don't think daycares are anybody's favorites just because of the way they're set up. I really strongly encourage teachers who are working with families who have said go to the daycare, to work with that family and try to see that family for half of the month and the daycare for the other half. Whatever that looks like. 00:42:53.000 --> 00:43:07.000 We can do hybrid services at ECI here in Texas. So talk to the families about, you know, if it's too much for you to come to the house, you can Zoom in and work with that family through Zoom so that you are having that ongoing contact. Because if we have no contact with the parents other than the IFSP, that child isn't getting everything they need because the parents aren't getting all the information they need and they're not able to ask questions and go through that coaching process if we never see them. If we only see the daycare workers. The thing that I ask that you work hard at not doing, if you're going into daycare, is don't just get frustrated and pull the child and work one-on-one with that child. It's not going to be sufficient. It won't be enough to really help support that child and their development. I don't have time to get into a lot more about daycares. If you have questions about daycare services, I will put my e-mail in the chat -- and it's also in the handout. Please feel free to contact me and we can go through some of those ideas. So back to coaching. Coaching really keeps the focus on the parents being empowered so that they can meet that child's needs. We go into the home once a week, twice a month. If you think of the number of hours in a child's day, we see that child almost nothing compared to the rest of the hours of their day and of their week. And so it is critical that the parents are the ones who are learning how to and practicing these different activities and strategies with their child so that that can be done on a daily basis. Okay. I mentioned this earlier. Services have to be provided as they are written on the IFSP. They're written for a calendar year. In the summer, someone is responsible for providing services to these families in the summer. The burden is on the school district to find a certified teacher of students with visual impairments. And, if necessary, a certified orientation and mobility specialist to provide those services. services. Because we are required to provide the services as they're written on the IFSP, there is no compensatory service model in ECI. The service model is they get the services. Our preference is always that we have that continuity of care where the service provider who works with the child during the school year is also the service provider who sees them during the summer. However, teachers are off contract in the summer and so if you are unavailable, let your supervisor know as soon as you know you are unavailable so that they can begin trying to figure out how they are going to get that child's services provided during the summer months. 

>>Kaycee: This is Kaycee, Mari. We had a question come in. How would you approach coach families who interact very little with their child during visits? 

>>Mari: So there's a really long answer to that question that I don't have time to go through. But there could be a lot of things that are impacting that. It could be cultural. It could be how the family culturally interacts with their child. It could be that they are feeling intimidated. Because a lot of parents see us as the experts and so they feel like they don't really want to do things in front of us for fear we judge them. It could also be that we are not following the coaching model, and there are five points to the coaching model. A big one is called joint planning. Everything we do with a family, we plan jointly with them. We don't set up a lesson plan and come in and teach our lesson plan. We sit down with the family and say here's the goal that we wrote during the IFSP. We is the operative word. We write the goal with the parents. So what routine would you like to tackle this goal in and what activity within that routine are you interested in working on? It helps the parent have buy-in. It helps them be a part of that process. Everything we do with families should be a collaborative process collaborative process between equals. Because parents are also experts. They're experts on their child and their family and their lives and their culture. And so we have to work collaboratively with them and help them see that we see them as experts and that their expertise and their input is critical. I think one of the ways to help with that is asking a lot of openended questions of the parents. Get to know them. Get them talking to try and figure out kind of where they are with things. But also don't jump in when they're not doing things and start doing all of the activities with the child for them. But continuing to remind them we're here. We're coaching. Here's why we're coaching. We've talked about doing this activity. I would love to see you do it. Some parents are still unwilling. If you've got families that are just like, nope, not going to do it in front of you, you can always talk with them about other ways. Would you be willing when I'm not here and maybe videotape it so we can talk about anything that you struggled with or things that you changed that you felt really good about? Some families are willing to do that piece. Sometimes they're still not. In which case we ask them to practice these things when we're not there. Practice the things we've talked about and we've modeled. And then when we come back for the next visit, we'll just ask them to tell us how did it go? What worked? What didn't work? And we take the parent report. Our preference is always going to be to see it happening but we have families who aren't going to be willing, for various reasons. And so then we try to come up with alternative means of seeing what it is they're doing with their child. And if we can't, we just let them tell us about it and we give them feedback from there. I am going to throw in a shameless plug. On October 28 I'm starting a three-part workshop series. The first one is ECI and eligibility. The second one, which is about two weeks later in November, is The second one, which is about two weeks later in November, is coaching families. It's a lengthy workshop on the coaching process. And then I do another one about two weeks after that about writing IFSP goals. Those are open to anyone. They are statewide so there is no cost. They're virtual. And I can get the information to Kaycee to send out to everybody, in case you would like to sign up for them. You can find them -- if you go to the Education Service Center Region 11 website and look in our professional learning section and put in "best practices in early intervention" they will come up. And you can register for them through our website here. You do have to set up a free account but you can register and there's no cost.