Pre-Recorded Videos

Originally presented on January 27, 2022 by Ann Kremer, Emily Ropars and Jackie Marino.

Building the executive function component of Inhibitory control lays the foundation for self-regulation and availability for learning. Play is the vehicle where adults can support handing over regulation skills to the child.

Participants will be able to: - Identify the steps to self-regulation. - Review how make-believe play builds self-regulation. - Construct ideas for using play as a teaching tool for self-regulation.

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Originally presented by Gina Musielski on January 12, 2022

Soon your child will be turning three! Are you ready? Join us for this webinar to help you prepare for your child’s transition from Early Intervention services to preschool.

We’ll cover:

• Differences between EI and Early Childhood services
• Transition steps & timelines, and why they are important
• Eligibility for school based services
• Parent rights under the law
• Exploring your options
• Sharing what you know about your child, and
• Preparing to be an active participant in the educational planning for your soon-to-be preschooler!

Originally presented by Dr Steven Kurtz on January 31, 2022

Finding the right treatment and the right therapist for your child and your family can be a daunting task, especially in the pandemic era. Dr. Steven Kurtz, an international authority on effective treatments for children, youth and families will help parents understand the process, from identifying the most well-supported treatments to making sure the fit with the therapist is a good one. Dr. Kurtz also will discuss interesting and novel treatments that are "not ready for prime time" in terms of research support even though they sound like they should work. Using anxiety, ADHD, disruptive behaviors, ASD and selective mutism as examples he will show us how to navigate the maze of potential treatments and therapists.

Participants will be able to:

• Search for research-supported treatments for a child mental health problem.
• State why research support is important in choosing a treatment.
• State the characteristics of a provider most likely to help their child and family.
• State at least one type of treatment that is popular but has not enough support to be considered highly effective.

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Originally presented by Jac McBride on June 21, 2021

Teaching basic social interaction skills is foundational to creating a respectful and positive classroom community. This workshop uses puppets to specifically teach getting a peer’s attention, sharing toys, requesting, turn taking and giving a compliment. When these basic social skills are taught intentionally and are expected when initiating all peer interactions, classroom conflict is reduced. Teachers will collaborate and prepare a small group lesson with puppets using one of the peer interaction scripts as foundation to teach another positive social skill. Be prepared to share your creativity and strategies with colleagues to expand your student’s prosocial skills.

Participants will be able to:

• Examine the Pyramid framework for teaching social emotional skills for creating respectful classroom communities.
• Investigate how to use puppets supports and strategies successfully in the preschool classroom.
• Analyze social scripts to intentionally teach how to initiate interaction with peers for: getting a peer’s attention, sharing toys, requesting, turn taking and giving a compliment.
• Construct a small group lesson using the social scripts presented as foundation to teach an additional peer interaction skill.

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Originally presented by Dr. Paul Shawler on April 4, 2022

Fears in childhood are the rule, not the exception. Sometimes these fears rise to the level of phobias, where the worries and avoidance actually interfere with the child's functioning. Join child psychologist expert Dr. Steven Kurtz for a developmental walkthrough to learn what's typical or "normal" at different stages, how to spot when the fears are becoming excessive, and what to do. We will share supportive and practical strategies.

Participants will be able to: - State the difference between a fear and a phobia. - State the difference between accommodating and enabling. - State supportive strategies that avoid unnecessarily reinforcing the child's fear.

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Originally presented by Nancy Kind on November 7, 2022.

This webinar will provide you with information on the Illinois Early Childhood Outcomes system and assist you to accurately determine outcomes ratings for preschoolers with IEPs. Content will include a review of the three outcomes areas, determining ratings using the Child Outcomes scale, the importance of team discussion including families and decision making based on the child’s functioning across settings. The review of these practices across all team members will help lead to good outcomes for children.

Participants will:

• Investigate the purposes of the child outcomes system

• Examine the outcomes areas, and utilize the rating system and scales used to rate progress

• Analyze key considerations related to accurately completing the Child Outcomes Summary

• Identify the role of the family in the rating process

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Selective mutism (SM) is a failure to speak when speaking is expected (e.g., school and public settings) despite having the ability to speak. Children with selective mutism are often very chatty at home and then become uncharacteristically quiet in school or in public. Conceptualized as an anxiety disorder, SM is essentially a fear of speaking in specific settings. Exposure tasks (e.g., speaking exposures) can be effective in reducing mutism and increasing speaking across people, places, and activities by activating extinction learning. Extinction learning is a process whereby a new association between the expectation to speak and the absence of the feared aversive outcome is formed, weakening the association between speaking and fear. When working with your child with selective mutism, it may help to understand the extinction learning process behind doing speaking exposures so that, as a parent, you can understand how to maximize extinction learning and keep the new learning accessible for your child’s continued growth and generalization of speaking across people, places, and activities.

Participants will:
- Be able to recognize selective mutism as an anxiety disorder

 - Be introduced to the concept of exposure tasks to reduce mutism and how extinction learning will support the child's ability to speak in a variety of settings

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Originally presented by Becky Handler on November 14, 2022. What are the diverse learners in your preschool classroom really learning with traditional circle time? This time together should be a fun and engaging, intentional teaching experience related to your objectives, standards and studies. Social emotional competence will also be a focus of the presentation. Be inspired to switch things up to meet individual needs with developmentally appropriate tips, strategies and activities to make your large group 15 minutes of engaging fun learning. Participants will: 1. Apply developmentally appropriate expectations for large group time in early childhood. 2. Analyze appropriate activities that should be focused on during circle time 3. Apply knowledge of alternative ways children can participate during circle time.

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In this session, participants will explore strategies for working around common barriers to engagement for multilingual families with children receiving IEP services. We will discuss and share experiences around building authentic relationships with diverse families in early childhood programs. In addition we will review stages of immigrant parent involvement in schools, and how they impact our efforts for engagement in the special education process. Participants will: Explore strategies for working around common barriers to family engagement Share experiences around building authentic relationships with all families Review stages of immigrant parent involvement in schools, and how they impact our efforts for engagement

A comprehensive approach to literacy for children who may have communication challenges includes robust and repetitive access to literacy experiences. Share Reading is an approach that educators and families can use daily to help build their child's literacy and language skills. Pairing this technique with core vocabulary, an evidence based method for providing functional communication to people developing their communication skills couldn't be easier! This webinar will provide participants all they need to begin using Core Based Shared Reading, as well as to teach others the power of this practice.

Join us for the first in this 3 part series with Erin Barton. This workshop will provide strategies to support the inclusion of individuals with autism spectrum disorders and other developmental disabilities in preschool. Participants will learn the rationale for inclusion for children with autism and dispel myths related to inclusion. Participants will also explore the links between the indicators of high quality inclusion and effective instruction.

Particpants will be able to:

1. Learners will list the rationale, myths, and Quality Indicators of preschool inclusion. 

2. Learners will describe effective classroom practices including how to teach to the entire learning cycles. 

3.  Learners will describe how to embed instruction across the day for all learners.

Phonological awareness skills are the foundation of beginning reading. Explore the developmental trajectory of phonological awareness to design activities that engage all learners in recognizing spoken sounds. Integrate movement, music, and play to support differentiated instruction to make phonological awareness skills accessible for all students. Using picture books as a spark, make playing with words and sounds a regular part of your classroom routine.

Particpants will be able to:

1. Describe the developmental trajectory of phonological awareness.

2. Identify picture books that can build phonological awareness.

3. Create three activities to build phonological awareness from a picture book.

Join us for the second event in this 3 part series with Erin Barton.  This workshop will provide strategies to support the inclusion of individuals with autism spectrum disorders and other developmental disabilities in preschool. Participants will learn effective classroom practices to teach the entire learning cycle and how this relates to Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) principles. 

Particpants will be able to:

1. Learners will list the rationale, myths, and Quality Indicators of preschool inclusion. 

2. Learners will describe effective classroom practices including how to teach to the entire learning cycles. 

3.  Learners will describe how to embed instruction across the day for all learners.

This workshop will discuss and illustrate play facilitation strategies with challenging children. Sometimes following the child's lead and presenting interesting materials is not enough to get the child engaged in play activities. Dr. Linder will provide suggestions for working with children who are shy, angry, perseverative or have other concerns that need a specialized approach.



Participants will be able to:
-- Identify traditional play facilitation strategies.
-- Discuss different ways to involve team members in play facilitation.
-- Implement strategies to facilitate children with challenging behaviors.

Dr. Linder will provide strategies for communication with families with regard to various roles of the family facilitator. Strategies to use before, during, and after the TPBA2 will be presented.

Participants will be able to:

- Name the various roles of the family facilitator

- Demonstrate responsive communication strategies for obtaining and providing information to family members

- Practice carrying out sensitive interactions with culturally and linguistically diverse families to inform assessment

This training is for teams who have been conducting TPBA2 and would like an opportunity to review best practices, raise issues, and consider solutions to problems encountered by their teams. Each of the phases of the TPBA2 will be considered. Dr. Linder will design the training based on a survey of teams using TPBA2 prior to the training.

Particpants will:

1) Implement strategies for teams to reach fidelity on TPBA2

2) Provide examples of solutions to challenges in TPBA2 implementation

3) Share ideas across teams for “what works”

Universal practices are often suitable to promote the development of social competence in the majority of children in the classroom, however, educators and professionals may find that there are preschool age children whose lack of social and emotional skills or whose challenging behavior requires more focused attention.   Ms. Maguire will demonstrate how modeling and scaffolding for young children with level 1 Autism, ADHD and other learning challenges will increase the child’s ability to develop the key social skills they need to understand their emotions and the emotions of others, handle conflicts, problem solve, and develop relationships with peers.  Coaching “The 4 Steps to Understanding Emotions in Ourselves and Others” to children with or without an IEP or 504 plan may require additional supports to focus their attention such as pairing directions with gestures, visuals, social stories, and verbal models.   

The 4 Steps to Understanding Emotions in Ourselves and Others:

•        Emotional awareness

•        Labeling emotions (Name it-to-Tame it)

•        Expressing emotions - How? When?

•        Regulating emotions

A parent webinar to train parents how to really teach their children social skills. Parents will find out how they can use simulation and other methods to develop social skills and continue social emotional learning at home.

Learner Objectives:

1) Help parents identify emotions and implement techniques to promote social and emotional growth in early childhood.

2) Promote play coaching by building the skills that encourage children to join in, cooperate with playmates, take turns, understand the social expectations of peers, meet play mate expectations, and recognize inappropriate behavior.

3) Create visual and auditory cues to promote social emotional growth and to help children find strategies to support emotional regulation

Join us for the third event in this 3 part series with Erin Barton. This workshop will provide strategies to support the inclusion of individuals with autism spectrum disorders and other developmental disabilities in preschool. Participants will learn effective classroom practices to embed instruction throughout the routine of the day.

Particpants will be able to:

1. Learners will list the rationale, myths, and Quality Indicators of preschool inclusion.

2. Learners will describe effective classroom practices including how to teach to the entire learning cycles.

3. Learners will describe how to embed instruction across the day for all learners.

Build a foundation for writing in your classroom. Using read alouds as a starting point, engage your students with and without disabilities in writing activities across daily routines. Help children develop the understanding that print carries a message as they create written texts through scribbling, drawing, or writing letter-like forms based on their ability level. Engage all students in creating classroom books!

Particpants will be able to: 1. Describe three ways to integrate writing into daily classroom routines. 2. Engage all students in creating shared texts and classroom books. 3. Provide differentiated writing opportunities.

Originally presented by Kathy Slattery and Megan Carlson on July 18, 2023.

PLEASE NOTE: STAR NET Region II is unable to award credit for viewing this recording.

Selective mutism is a childhood anxiety disorder characterized by a child’s inability to speak in one or more social settings (e.g., at school or in public places, with adults or peers) despite being able to speak comfortably in other settings, such as at home with family. This condition is often first noticed by preschool or early primary classroom teachers and it can have a significant impact on the student’s ability to fully participate in classroom and school activities both academically and socially. Attend this webinar to gain a better understanding of this complex and often misunderstood condition and learn resources and strategies which can be crucial in supporting the child in overcoming selective mutism.

Participants will:

1. Understand selective mutism as an anxiety disorder

2. Identify signs and symptoms to support early identification/understanding of selective mutism in children and the impact of selective mutism on a student's school participation

3. Learn classroom strategies to increase comfort and success and decrease accomodations and anxiety

4. Know where to access additional evidence based resources and information to support children who have selective mutism and their families

Originally presented by Katie Suchy and Becky Handler on August 21, 2023.

PLEASE NOTE: STAR NET Region II is unable to award credit for viewing this recording. This workshop will review the importance of play in all early childhood classrooms and what developmentally appropriate play should look like. We will discuss how to integrate play into your daily schedule and how you can address all objectives (both classroom and IEP) in a natural inviting way for kids to learn.

Originally presented by Nancy Kind on August 22, 2023.

PLEASE NOTE: STAR NET Region II is unable to award credit for viewing this recording.

This webinar introduces the Pyramid Model framework to participants and is a great way to learn about the framework. Introduction to the Pyramid Model is a preliminary overview and participants can not consider themselves trained in the Pyramid model by attending this webinar. This webinar is strongly encouraged for teachers, paraprofessionals, administrators or related service staff who are considering participation in the Pyramid Model of Social Emotional Support Cohort Series. The Topics include: the relationship of the Pyramid Model to prevention science, equity, inclusion, trauma-informed care, anti-bias practice and the use of data for decision-making, understanding child behavior, and the research that provides an evidence-base for the use of the Pyramid Model.

CLICK HERE for a link to the handouts folder. 

Originally presented by Nancy Kind on August 29, 2023.

PLEASE NOTE: STAR NET Region II is unable to award credit for viewing this recording.

Continued from Part One.