Deborah Hirschland, MSW and Loretta Wieczner, MS, CCC-SLP, instructors

Teachers, early childhood specialists, and mental health practitioners can feel stumped by three- to six-year-olds who have trouble connecting with ease, communicating with success, and engaging and playing comfortably with their peers. Some of these children seem on the quirky, rigid, or disengaged side, some appear to be extremely cautious, and some have difficulty with language processing issues. In many cases, adults may wonder whether an assessment is in order.  Whether or not these children go on to receive special services, they are each unique and are frequently challenging to understand and help. This case-based workshop, co-presented by an experienced special educator and a long-time early childhood mental health consultant, offers a sensible framework for understanding these puzzling youngsters and many practical approaches to supporting them in their classrooms and families.

Upon completion of the program the student will be able to:

·         Describe the range of underlying causes for a child's struggles to communicate, connect, socialize and play successfully.

·         Use their understanding of a child's strengths and challenges to create a unique profile of his style of functioning and challenges in learning.

·         Use a range of practical and creative strategies to support growth, including ways to support and extend communicational skill and to use play as a primary vehicle for offering developmental scaffolding.

·        Describe how to assess the effectiveness of the approaches to intervention they try and how to alter and/or augment those approaches as needed.

Program Code: FF40 
4 CE Credits
Location: at MSPP, Newton

Deborah Hirschland, MSW, is an early childhood specialist who has been working with young children and their caregivers for over thirty years. A frequent presenter on early childhood issues, she mentors teachers, parents, and clinicians through her work with early care and education programs and elementary schools in the greater Boston area. Currently a senior consultant to and trainer for the Head Start programs of Communities United Inc. and the Cambridge Human Services Preschools, she is the author of Collaborative Intervention in Early Childhood: Consulting with Parents and Teachers of 3- to 7-Year-Olds.

Loretta Wieczner, MS, CCC-SLP, is an educational consultant to a variety of early childhood programs in the greater Boston area, working closely with teachers and parents to help develop successful learning strategies for individual children as well as entire classrooms.  She is currently the Inclusion Facilitator for Cambridge Human Services Preschools and shares the director position at the Newton South Preschool Program. She has experience as a speech and language therapist, and has taught early childhood through grade two, both special education and integrated classrooms.   She has presents trainings to educators and clinicians focused on aspects of language, play and curriculum development, as well as puppetry and pro-social behavior.