From Insight to Action: A Parent’s Journey Through Special Education.

In this episode of Parenting with Passion, we explore how understanding your child’s unique needs can unlock their potential. From navigating diagnoses to setting realistic expectations, we highlight the power of early intervention, the role of the IEP team, and how evidence-based practices and assistive technology can support your child’s growth. This episode is your reminder: you’re not alone, and every step forward counts.

Music by DayFox from Pixabay - Salangseuleoun

Transcript

 SPEAKERS

Cecilia H. , Richard F., Stephanie H.

Cecilia  00:13

Welcome back to parenting with passion, the podcast where we embrace the journey of raising children with heart hope and a whole lot of love. I'm your host, Cecilia Holguin, and I'm so glad you're joining me for season two. I'm so excited for season two. Today's episode is a powerful one. We're focusing on parenting children with special needs and how understanding, advocating and collaboration can make all the difference. We'll explore what it really means to understand your child's unique needs, not just through a diagnosis, but really through a deeper knowledge, daily experiences and meaningful support. We'll talk about how parents can become empowered advocates, how setting high but realistic expectations can unlock surprising growth and how to really navigate challenging behaviors with confidence and compassion. So whether you're listening on your morning walk in your car or during a really rare quiet moment at home, thank you so much for being here. Let's dive into this powerful conversation and remind ourselves we're not alone, and every step forward matters. I'm honored to be joined today by two incredible guests who bring both professional expertise and a personal passion to this conversation. Miss Stephanie Hedberg is our area director for Desert Mountain operations and student services, and Mr. Richard Frederick is here with us, Administrator of student services for San Bernardino County, superintendent of schools. Both Stephanie and Richard began their careers as special education teachers, and they bring a wealth of insight, compassion and real world experience to the table. So thank you so much for being here with me today.

Stephanie H.  01:59

Thanks so much. Thanks for having us. Thank you.

Cecilia  02:03

So I guess our first question, this is something that I hear a lot from our parents. They want to understand, how can they better, I guess, understand their child's specific diagnosis or even their needs? What can they do to really understand that? What does it mean for their development?

Richard F.  02:20

So our parents often start our programs, in our in our school programs, with questions, questions about  their child, about the future for their child, their you know, and we often share their stories, their hopes and their dreams for their child. As a team, we come together to help educate families. So our teams are what we call our IEP team, our individual education program team. So our teachers, our school psychologists, our related and itinerant service providers, our administration, we come together to the table with families to help them, to help children, but to help also families understand their child and support their child in their growth and development. So it's important that families come that they ask questions, they talk to us about their hopes and their fears and about their and their desires for their child,

Cecilia  03:19

right? That's amazing. That's great. I love that parents can come and just ask any array of questions, and that's they shouldn't be afraid to do. So, you know, it's a safe place here. And I love that we provide that opportunity for all parents. So I do encourage all parents, if you have questions, like Rich said, Ask those questions, right, whether it's to the teacher, the principal, and you know, providing those individual supports is important, especially when they're young, right? So it's it. I love that you said it's so important for our families to ask questions, because I think sometimes our parents are a little fearful of asking too many questions, but especially in the beginning, when their  student is being enrolled, or whether they've been here for years, it's so important that they feel comfortable to ask all the questions, because it's a learning experience for everybody,

Richard F.  04:08

and it is a team process, we know, especially in the school setting, we know this journey often starts for parents at the level of you know, they might notice something different about their child. They talk to their physician, they talk to their doctor, and they find maybe a clinical diagnosis for their child. But what does that clinical diagnosis mean? And what does it you know well, how does it impact what's going to happen in the school system? So it's important that when parents begin in the school system, they might begin as young as we actually serve birth through three year olds in some of our programs, but the school, public school programs for students with special needs start at the age of three, and so they could start as early as three. They might not even be recognized as having a disability until they're older, maybe five, six. After they've started in a public school setting and they've been identified, but I think it's very important that we realize that this is a collaborative process. We may not have all the answers that a parent's looking for at the time, but we we work collaboratively to make sure that we can support parents and answer their questions as we gain more and more information, right?

Cecilia  05:22

So what are some common misconceptions parents may have about their child's diagnosis, and how can educators really help clarify that for them?

Stephanie H.  05:33

I think there are a lot of misconceptions I think about diagnosing their children with a disability. I do have children with disability in my family, and so I kind of see it from both sides, right? I see it from the educator viewpoint, and I see it from the family viewpoint as well. And so a lot of times the parent might feel that was their fault, right? They did something wrong. What was wrong? You know? They always try to look back at what happened during, you know, when they were pregnant, did they do something wrong? They want to say, you know, their child is broken. They feel that way. You know, we went through all that when, when we were a family member of a child with a with a disability. You know, we went through all those fears. You know, the family, you know, talks about it, and then, you know, was the diagnosis, their fault. You know that guilt. They feel that guilt, right? And we want to take away that guilt. We want them to know that it's no one's fault, right? And so we want to reassure that parent in many conditions that you know they didn't cause anything that early identification is the strength, right? We want them to identify those students or children as early as possible, so that we can bring them in and help them to, you know, have the best possibility of progress as early as possible. So we want to help them. And then a lot of times, they often think that their child will outgrow it, right, or that they'll mature into something else, right? Can they outgrow it? And I don't know if that is true or not, nobody knows, right, if anything will happen. But the best is early identification, and

Richard F.  07:05

we're all about building those skills right in students, right? So if this child has a disability in our school programs, we're building skills and abilities and students to overcome, to achieve whatever they can achieve, the greatest that they can achieve.

Stephanie H.  07:20

We never know what will happen, right? We want to set those high expectations. We want them to reach those high expectations. We don't know what the ceiling is going to be, and we don't want to set a ceiling, right? We want those high expectations. We don't know what will be in regular education or what may not be in regular education, right? We want those ceilings to be high, and we don't want that stigma, right,

Richard F.  07:42

exactly. And we have, we have a lot of we work a lot on accommodations, modifications and supports for students, and that's, that's what we're skilled at as our as educators, right? And working with this particular group of students, or this particular population is really, you know, understanding what the child's experience is, what the family's experience is, and how we can make accommodations, modifications and supports

Stephanie H.  08:08

when they come to us with referrals in our county programs. Right now, they're usually more moderate to severe disabilities. However, our goal is always to get them back to the district and into their general education settings, right? We have many students that have done that, right? That is our goal. That's our goal for all of our students, right? And so we don't want students to think or families to think that that is not our goal, right? That's our goal for all of our students, right? And then we also want parents to realize too, that medication isn't the only solution, right? Some parents think that medication is the only answer. Some thinks that they want to avoid it entirely. That isn't our role is to say medication, that's the physician, right? So we want to be in collaboration with the physician, the parent and the IEP team, right? We want to collaborate. We want to give the information to the parent to then take to the physician and to take all that information and then to be part of a team, right? Exactly, to make that information available to everybody, so then he has he or she, the physician has all the information as

Richard F.  09:12

well, right? And I also believe that one of the one of the key things that we do is connect parents, right? So they connect with the school system, but we're also connecting them with other agencies in the community that could support them so they can make they also create bonds with other parents. They connect. They have a community in which they feel safe to ask questions, in which they feel that they can be supported in this journey that they weren't expecting, but that that they are now on, right?

Cecilia  09:44

It truly takes a village, you know, and so that's so amazing to hear all the great things that we can do for families. So parents, you know, providing realistic expectations for your child. It's it takes a village. Talk to your teachers, the principals, your family. Physicians. It's a group effort, as you heard here today, so that's amazing. What are some small daily routines that parents can implement to build their child's independence?

Richard F.  10:12

So one of the things that we really focus on in our education system is using what we call evidence based practices. These are routine strategies that have proven to be very successful for students that may have autism, intellectual disability, any, any type of disability, but they have been referred to as evidence based, because they're they've been researched, right so first then schedule, visual schedules, assistive technology, timers, timers, a large number of things that we use, reinforcements, right token, economies, those types of things, the structure that you see in the classroom is, is they is built around these evidence based practices. And often those evidence based practices, we try to break it down so it sounds very technical, evidence based practice, but we try to use wording that makes sense to families and is more commonplace language and so but using those same techniques in the home environment, using we parents are sharing with us. They find great success with their students, with their children, that's great a home environment, to have a visual schedule, to have a way to a first then, or a prompting understanding prompting

Stephanie H.  11:34

levels, right? There's verbal prompts, there's physical prompts, there's gestures, there's all different types of prompting and actually, when they when the parents learn about some of these things, they're doing it already. They just don't know that language behind it. They're doing first. And then first you pick up your room, and then we can go out and do something that they want to do that's a first. Then right? First you get this, and then you get that, right? Then you get a reward, right?

Richard F.  11:57

I do think it takes some more conscious thought in the home, and then, you know, so we build these strategies in our in our students, but also with our families as they as they walk along with us in this educational journey.

Stephanie H.  12:12

So we sound like them with the visuals, right?

Cecilia  12:15

Like that, exactly. It sounds like the best course of action for a parent to take is really to sit down with the teacher, understand what the teacher is implementing in the classroom, to then work with the teacher and collaborate the same type of teachings into the home that would help the child structure throughout their

Stephanie H.  12:33

day and vice versa. We want to know what's going on in the home so that we can bring it into the classroom as well. What do you need help with in the home? You know, what things in the home are you struggling with? So that we can help in the in the educational setting that will carry over into the home and help you as well. We want it to be back. And I think

Richard F.  12:53

really wanted, like on the reverse side of that as well, it's what works at home, what works for what works for your child at home so that we can incorporate that in the school environment too. So it's a give and take, right? It's, it's a, it's very much a collaborative

Stephanie H.  13:07

that's the best point. You know, we ask that in the meetings and  we mean it because you know your child better than anyone. You are the expert. The parents are the expert on the child. We are, you are the expert, and you need to bring that expertise into the meetings. And you need to let us know what your child likes and what they do not like. You know what they like and you know what they prefer Exactly.

Cecilia  13:31

That actually brings me right to my next question, managing challenging behaviors. You know, sometimes, especially for our nonverbal kiddos, the behaviors that even let's just stick with the classroom for a moment. You know, the teachers can see behaviors, right, and they try to calm the child down. But what can a parent do when they are trying to manage these challenging behaviors or outbursts from their children who may have a disability of some kind? What's the best course of action there? Well,

Stephanie H.  14:00

I I'm starting to use different language instead of nonverbal. I'm now using non speaking, okay, okay, because nonverbal does have a connotation that they don't, aren't able to communicate, and that is not the case, and so I use non speaking. And so we have changed our thought process around the use of nonverbals, so we're using non speaking now, because this is one of our success stories, right? Is that our students, especially the more moderate to severe students, they're just non speaking. And so we are using our assistive technology to have them speak in a different way, right? And

Richard F.  14:39

Stephanie, can you explain some of that assistive technology that is

Stephanie H.  14:43

absolutely, yeah, absolutely. So it is a continuum. We have a continuum. Just like our students are on a continuum, our technology is on a continuum. And so they go as simple as those visual schedules or visual items like we talked about. They could be pictures where we. Show pictures. Oh, we need them to sit down. And so we might show a picture of a student sitting down, or we might even take pictures of them doing the items or the things that we want them to do. And that's the prompting of visuals. And so it could be as simple as that, or we could have individual schedules, and then it can go all the way up to more aggressive technology, or more technology things as of eye gaze, machines where they're talking with their eyes. So it is a full continuum. We have iPads with communications that that they speak when they touch something. We have buttons that communicate a cause and effect, like a yes or no. They can push a button. If they can use their hands, they can push a button. We have multiple buttons that can communicate with different items. We have a full range of continuum of assistive technology and your speech pathologist, your teacher. They go through a process of observing and including the parent and all the other itinerant service providers, to determine what would be the best device for the child, not what they want to use, but they go through different devices, use different devices to see what the child wants to use,

Cecilia  16:15

customizable. Love that

Richard F.  16:17

and really what we focus on when we look at behaviors, we'll call it behaviors, but we're really looking at what is the child trying to communicate exactly. That's a different way to think about, you know, I know it can be very challenging in the home environment with your child. It's not doing what you want your child to do or then you think, Oh, they're just being, you know, for a better word, naughty or not following what, not doing what I'm asking them to do. But really we turn that around. In the school environment, we say, what is this child trying to communicate to us? Do they not want to participate in this activity? Maybe that's what they're communicating. Do they need something? Are they uncomfortable? What are they trying to communicate to us? And so, so first we look at what is the communicative intent of the behavior, and then we try to once, we try to once we can determine that, or work together as a team to try to determine what they're trying to communicate. Then we teach what we call functionally equivalent replacement behaviors, like what, what will work better for this child? And so the example of the assistive technology or the AAC devices, like we're teaching them a strategy to use to communicate in a more appropriate manner, in a way that is not going to alienate people from them, but actually support them in getting their needs met.

Stephanie H.  17:35

Because all behavior is communication. It is all behavior is communication, whether it be negative or positive, right? Miscommunication, right? Well, we've

Cecilia  17:43

certainly gone a long way with technology, and that's so amazing that we have that capability now for our kiddos. So that's amazing to hear. We do know that school attendance is important for all students, but can you explain why regular school attendance is so critical for our students with moderate to severe needs, even when the process may progress, really may be a little slow.

Richard F.  18:06

And I think attendance, attendance is so very important for our students with moderate to severe disabilities. Our students learn at a much different rate than typically what we what we refer to as typically developing peers. They need a lot of repetition. They need opportunities to practice, to repeat what they're what they're doing. And so when they when they have large when they miss school because of what you know, different reasons. When they have large gaps in their attendance, they're missing out on that daily repetition, that that familiarity that comes with the repetition, right, and that routine is so very important to start over. It's almost like you

Stephanie H.  18:51

have to start over each time, sometimes with a lot of students, right, not all, but a lot of students, almost has to start over each time, right? That routine and that skills and that repetition structure, it's harder, right? They forget, or they might forget one step of it. You know, they have one

Richard F.  19:07

of the things we look at, especially in determining things like participation in extended school year, one of the things we have to consider is, what is the what is the learning, the recruitment, the recruitment factor in our students when they when they're out of school for, say, an eight week period or a 10 week period over the summer, right? We have to consider why that would be too long of a period for students to be out of school. And so, because I always use that as an example of what you know that's, that's where we're looking at it, specifically for participation in extended school year, but it's also helps us understand this idea that, you know, missing school, they're missing out right? They're missing out on that retention and repetition, and so

Stephanie H.  19:53

we know it's hard. We've talked to our families about it. We've had interviews with our family about chronic absenteeism, because we know that our student. Parents are out, they are. They do get sick more. We also know that they don't sleep at night, and it's very difficult. They might go to bed really late, and so when they finally get to bed, the parents really don't want to wake them up, right? You know when they're finally getting to sleep at four or five in the morning? We've heard that, and we've talked to

Cecilia  20:17

them about it. So what are some ways that if a parent is going through that process where it's a health related absence, or, like you said, they just are simply not sleeping. What are some ways that we can help our parents keep the students connected to classroom routines?

Stephanie H.  20:32

I think first and foremost, they need to talk to us. I think they need to come talk to us. And we need to have that communication, that open communication, that this is happening at home. We need to know about it, and we need to be able to come together as a team, an IEP team, and discuss it. If this is going on at home, where they're not sleeping, or they're going to bed really early in the morning, and they don't want to wake them up to come to school, then we need to have that conversation on an individual basis. And then also bring in their position too, right? Or, you know, they need to go back and talk to their physician, not bring them in, but talk to their physician about it as well, right? Okay, and so then we need to have some conversations about, is this going to be long term? Is this going to be short term? What is this going to be? Because we can always adjust the school day hours as well. We can talk about that. We can have those conversations about modifying the school day if needed. It's going to be short term, long term. You know, each individual case is different and can be discussed in an IEP team way, right? We can also talk about accommodations, accommodations, right? We can look at modifications and accommodations in an individual way. But that's where that communication piece comes in, and that teamwork comes in between the parent and the IEP team. So we need to know what's happening and what's going on, right? And if it's just simple though, appointments, which we know they go to a lot of appointments, right? Or they have to go do things really work with us and try to do them later in the day, so maybe they only miss like an hour or so at the end of the day, instead of doing them in the beginning or at the middle of the day. Or try to do extended appointments, maybe when they're off, when we have breaks, you know, our fall breaks, or Christmas breaks or Thanksgiving breaks or summer breaks, when they have longer appointments, try to schedule them, you know, during that time. But you know, just communication is, is

Richard F.  22:16

what it's all about. I think one of our challenges is our families often feel conflicted with we have compulsory attendance laws in the state of California, and it's for all students, whether students have a disability or whether they don't have a disability. We're all held to those same compulsory attendance laws and compulsory education attendance laws so but that doesn't mean that we can't work as a team to try to resolve or address an issue that you may be having with your child. That's why it's so important that you talk to us, that families talk to us, let us know what the struggles are that they're having. We very likely have experienced it with another child or with another family, and we've come up with a solution to try to address that, as well as working within the guidelines of Ed code and compulsory education.

Cecilia  23:04

What are like maybe one of the most effective ways a parent can start to collaborate like that with their teacher or support staff. How do they get that conversation started? Are they calling the school? Are they calling the teacher? What's the first step for the parent?

Stephanie H.  23:18

I think it would be emailing the teacher and asking them, and if they if they feel that they need some more information, they can always call an IEP meeting, or they can always talk to the principal as well. You know, I think that first is just that that really basic. Just, hey, I'm struggling. Can you help me? Right? I think that is as simple as it has to be. I need your help. Do you have a time that we can talk after school is out. Can we talk before school? You know? Can we talk after school? I think it's just as simple as that. I need to talk to you about what my child's going through right now. Can we have a conversation?

Cecilia  23:52

So what would you say to a parent who maybe feels overwhelmed or discouraged by their child's situation?

Richard F.  24:01

Well, I think it is important to you know, we've repeatedly said it this morning, but it's to reach out for assistance from others. So working with your school team, working with your community team, maybe with your other family members, realize that it does take a community to it does take a village to raise a child, any child in this in this society, but especially children that have a unique needs, right related to their disabilities. So we have a number of agencies, like the Inland Regional Center that has support for families outside of the school environment. But it's not just like the Inland Regional Center, your doctors, your medical professionals, can put you in touch with a number of different support groups. There's groups that start working with children as young as zero to three years of age, that come into your home and support you in understanding what you. Or infant needs, and then what your child needs as they age up into the school,

Cecilia  25:05

right? That's great.

Stephanie H.  25:06

 Don'  be, don't be scared to ask for help is, is the big one, right? So like in the high desert, we have a group called Rock and our disabilities, and they get parents and children together so that they can have community together, and they do fun things together, and they do social aspects together, and then the parents get to know one another as well and that they're not alone. And I think that's the most the biggest takeaway that parents need to know is that you're not alone, right? There are other parents that are going through exactly what you're feeling as well. You are not alone. And that's what we learned our family learned when this happened to us as well, is that you're not alone, and respite care too is very important that you need a break too. You need a break, right? It is very, very difficult, because it's 20, 477, days a week, right? And it is very difficult, and it's very hard on you, and it's very hard on you and your partner, or your husband, or whoever you have, or if you are alone, it is very, very difficult raising a child with special needs of any kind. Okay, and so it's very important that you reach out for help, because it is very taxing and very difficult, and you do need breaks as well, so that you can fill your cup as well. Yeah, right. So you need that opportunity, so reach out for help. And if you know we can't find something, we will try to reach out. Cecilia, you're a great resource. You have great resources all up and down the high desert, down here in the Inland Empire, you have great resources. And so we reach out to you to help us as well, too. And so, you know, we're just we're all in this together.

Richard F.  26:45

And our partner agencies like the desert modern SELPA, which the SELPA stands for the special education local plan area, but they're an advisory group that oversees the delivery of special education services across all school districts in in the high desert, we have the east valley SELPA down here in the Redlands, Yucaipa, Colton, Rialto area. And then we have the West End SELPA, which is our Chino Hills, all the way up to Etiwanda, central Chafee district,

Cecilia  27:13

absolutely and parents, don't forget to always ask your teachers, your principals, if your district has a community liaison. You know the community liaisons are there for you to help find all the resources and supports that you need. There are support groups out there. You don't have to live even in California to be part of a support group, an online, virtual support group, so just reach out, and we can definitely find a support group or any support community resources that families need. So can you share a story of maybe a student's progress that surprised even their parents or their teachers?

Richard F.  27:48

Well, I wanted, I was I thought about this, and I wanted to share some of the success that we were having in our special education programming in the county office. So a number of years ago, we adopted an assessment system called the sandy which is student annual needs determination inventory. And it's an it's an inventory or an assessment that we do in the fall when a student begins the school year, or when they come to us, and then we do it at the end of the school year, and it gives us what we call us. It gives us formative information. It gives us data to look at where the student is starting, and then it gives us information where they're finishing the school year, and so we can see growth. And it's specially designed for students with moderate to severe disabilities. And this is a first assessment of this type, and I've worked in this field for almost 30 years, or over 30 years, and this is the first assessment that I'm aware of that is specifically geared to understanding students with moderate with moderate to severe disabilities. So we've been implementing the sandy and it's longitudinal, so we have data that goes from year to year as well. So it's not just within one school year, but it's over multiple years. And so we've been implementing the sandy since 2018, in our programs. Now we have 6567, years worth of data on students, and then we've implemented standards, a standards aligned curriculum as well, which was new to us, so we're implementing what we call teach town now. It's a it's a curriculum that we're implementing, this specially designed for students with severe and profound or moderate to severe disabilities. They kind of go both the assessment and the curriculum go hand in hand, in hand, because the assessment tells us where students are at and what we need to teach and where we need to where students are and where we can take them. The curriculum gives us those tools to be able to take them further along, just implementing the sandy and having that assessment data, principals are coming back. Teachers are coming. Back and sharing experiences that they're having, sharing that data with family. So we had a student, one in particular, an 18 year old, been in our programs for a number of years. Parents have been coming to annual IEPs for a number of years, and they were a little discouraged, I'll be honest. You know, they come to the IEP meetings and they think, Oh, I'm going to hear what my child can't do again. I'm going to hear more areas where they're struggling, and the sandy assessment and really being able to share all the strengths that a child had, that this particular child had turned this family's life around, and the teacher and the principal were relating to me that it brought tears to the parents eyes. They just started crying during the IEP meeting. I've never been given this type of positive information about my child. I didn't realize how much my child, my son, could do. And you've now summarized it in a way that I can understand, and I'm so she said, I see my child in a different light now, the strengths that my child has and so and how much he can do not how much he is unable to do still. And so it was. It was life changing, almost. It gives me chills when I talk.

Cecilia  31:17

So because you collected all of that data using those programs, you were able to show the parents a progress of all of their student successes. That's beautiful,

Richard F.  31:28

and we even have the Sandy in particular, even has an assessment that's designed for students with more severe and profound disabilities. So even though the growth is at smaller increments, it still shows growth, and we're able to share that with families. And we're so excited about the positivity of that and being able to share those experience, you know,

Stephanie H.  31:51

which we've never had before, right? That's what's exciting. Yeah,

Richard F.  31:55

wonderful. And to see the work that our teachers and our staff are doing with standards aligned curriculum, and bringing giving that access to our students is just, I'm so excited about where we're going in in special education. And, you know, as a I was a teacher in the classroom for 15 years, and these are, you know, I wanted an assessment piece like the sandy now provides. I wanted a specially designed curriculum that really was geared towards the students that I that we never had, that we never had, but now we're able to provide that to our families. And so, you know, it's a learning process for us as well, and it's a continuum where we, you know, we started in one place, we've continually made improvements, and now we're, you know, we're so excited about what we're going to be able to offer in the future. That's amazing.

Stephanie H.  32:46

Well, I had one success story that I wanted to share was a little bit different that I that I can never forget, and it is a little bit odd, but I'm going to share it anyways, because it has to do with behavior that we talked about earlier in the podcast. Okay, so ready, I know. So I was, when I was a first, I think was a first year principal with San Bernardino County, and I was at a preschool center, and this was a little preschooler who had the behavior of spitting. And so I don't know if any of your listeners can relate to that, but I was a student with autism, and he liked to spit. And so I had a first year teacher and some newer para educators that it was very difficult for them to be in the classroom with this little guy, because he spit a lot, and he would spit a lot in their face. And that's very hard to be around, right? It's just difficult. It is very hard. And so they were taking data on him, and he would spit up to over 100 times a day in their face. And so that was very difficult, and I get that right, and the parents really didn't know what to do. It was very difficult. And so I would go in there, and I would watch the student, and I couldn't figure out what was going on. And so finally I just said, Okay, I'm going to work with this student for a day. And I took this trash can with me, and every time he went to spit at me, I said, No, in the trash can. No in the trash can. And that's that replacement behavior that they talk about, that evidence based practice that Rich was talking about earlier. And I just kept telling him to spit in the trash can and hold the trash can really up close to my face, so he would spit in the trash can instead. And he got it really quickly, right? And I was very surprised that he got it very quickly, like within an hour or two. But I would carry the trash can around everywhere we went, in between each center right that he was going to and he got it very quickly, but it was, it was very often that he was spitting into the trash can very quickly. And then I brought in my occupational therapist to watch and observe this little guy as well, and what she was able to notice is that there was something going on in his mouth every time, you know, he had to spit. And I thought, wow, that was something I didn't notice, but I was able to give a replacement behavior, but she was noticing there was something going on with his mouth every time that he needed to spit. And so, long story short, we got. We were able to get him to do replacement behavior of the trash can, but there was some sensory going on with the saliva he wasn't able to swallow, and the occupational therapist was able to figure that out, that he had a swallowing issue because of his autism. It was a sensory issue. He wasn't able to swallow this bit and didn't know what to do with it. So it was a communication behavior. He didn't know what to do with this, but he was a preschooler. He was a little guy, and so he didn't know what to do with it. So it was more of a communication like, I don't know what to do with this. Like, help me out. I can't verbalize this to you. And it wasn't, it was like, help me, you know, I don't know what to do. It wasn't necessarily, I'm going to spit at you because I don't like you. That wasn't what it was. It was a communication something's going on. And so long story again is that it was we were able to help this little guy and figure out that he had a replacement behavior, and to spit it into the trash can until he could go to the doctor and figure out this swallowing sensory issue, and it did get all taken care of, and he was able to stay in the classroom. And so that was a success story of having your related service providers come in and help other people come in a replacement behavior at the same time that that behavior was a communication, although it wasn't pleasant at first, you know, but there was something going on there, right, right, right? And to my village to figure it out. The mom was like, help me right. The teachers like, help me right? And I wasn't sure exactly what was going on, but the OT, right, but that something was going on, then we had to send it to the physician too. Well. That's really a sensory thing with the mouth, right? And that saliva, he didn't want to swallow it. 

Cecilia  36:37

That's amazing. You guys were able to work as a team and correct something that the child needed, and that's exactly what we're here to do for all of our family. So I love hearing those stories. What type of advice would you give parents about recognizing and celebrating their small milestones that they see at their home?

Stephanie H.  36:57

I think that's one of the most important things. You need to focus on the positive, right, and not the negative. The negative is going to be there, and throughout the world everywhere,

Richard F.  37:05

my example of using the sandy and really us being able to show families the success of their child, one of the things that we often talk about and we realize, is there's certain life milestones on when your child, when you as your child ages, right? They start school, usually at kindergarten, but if they're receiving special education services, they would be eligible at the age of three. Then they go, they finish at an elementary school level. They transition to a middle school or a secondary school, and then the transition to high school, and then to transition from high school to the work world, and all those transitions have important meanings for families, and it can be often very different when you have a child with significant disabilities or a child with moderate to severe disabilities, but we can help you working together as a team. We can help you see the successes of your child, and those transitions might be a little different than you expected, or some of the behaviors or expectations during those transitions might be different than what you were expecting, but they're still important transitions, and we can help you recognize the success and see the value of recognizing your children's successes. 

Stephanie H.  38:24

I think it's important to stop comparing to other children, right? It's important for all of us to stop comparing our children to other children. Your child is unique and wonderful just the way they are 

Cecilia  38:38

exactly and that's the perfect way to wrap up today's episode. So thank you so much. I hope this conversation gave you not just information but inspiration, because every step you take, no matter how big, how small, the step towards growth, connection and hope, I would like to thank my guests for this amazing, informative conversation. Of course, if today's episode resonated with you, please share it with another parent who might need this encouragement, and don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode and remember parents, you are doing better than you think. You are never, ever alone on this journey until next time. Keep parenting with purpose. Keep parenting with love, and always, keep parenting with passion. See you next time