Leveraging Technology to Build Positive and Effective Teacher/Family Relationships

Leveraging Technology to Build Positive and Effective Family/Teacher Relationships

Patricia WrightVice President, Professional Services: Rethink

Creative ideas for using technology to connect with parents and care-providers

Improved understanding of the basic strategies of active listening and how this applies when using technology to communicate

Specific applications of the current research regarding technology and communication with families.

Webinar Focus

Why is this important?

Higher rates of anxiety and depression• 46% of caregivers need more help managing their emotional/physical

stress• 40% of parents need help balancing work and family responsibilities

Increased absenteeism and work limitations• Up to 250 hours in lost work time per year• $3,000–5,000 in lost productivity

Heavy impact on employment decisions• 53% worked fewer hours to accommodate needs of child with autism• 58% did not take a job• 23% did not take a promotion

What do We Know?

Home visiting + text messages and phone calls increased improved parenting strategies and child engagement and reduced children’s challenging behaviors over home visiting alone (Carta et al, 2013)

What do we know? Cellular Phone

What do we know? Training and Coaching Via Internet

Improved the social communication skills of their children with ASD (Meadan, Meyer, Snodgrass & Halle, 2013)

Increased their knowledge of ABA strategies and concepts and improved their implementation of ABA strategies with their children (Heitzman-Powell, Buzhardt, Rusinko & Miller, 2014).

Increased parent learning and improved child behaviors (Vismara et al, 2013).

What do we know? Phone Calls and Email Follow-up email and phone calls

to support AAC integration at home (Sigafoos et al, 2004)

Increased success with functional communication training (Suess et al, 2014)

What do we know? Video Feedback

The Internet offers a variety of opportunities for sharing peer support and consulting professionals (Nieuwboer, Rukkink & Rubins, 2014).

What do we know? Social Networking

Communication

Validation: Acknowledge the speaker’s key points, pain points and feelings. Listen openly and with empathy, and respond in an interested way — for example, “I appreciate your willingness to talk about such a difficult issue. . .” or “I appreciate you sharing your thoughts with me…”

Restating: Repeat the speaker’s communication— by paraphrasing not parroting, what you heard in your own words. For example, “Let’s see if I’m clear about this…” or “What I hear you saying is…” or “To clarify, you feel…”

Communication: Active Listening

Summarizing: Summarize the facts and key points of the conversation for understanding and clarity — for example, “So it sounds to me as if . . .” or “… is that it?”

Reflecting: Instead of just repeating, reflect the speaker’s words in terms of feelings — for example, “This seems really important to you. . .” “I can see that this makes you feel…”

Silence: Allow for comfortable silences and slow down the exchange. Give a person time to think as well as talk. Silence can be helpful in diffusing or redirecting unproductive interactions.

Communication: Active Listening

Communication: Active Listening

Validation

Restate

Summarize

Reflect

Silence

Specific Applications

Applications: Social Networks

Helpful? Mostly positive/supportive? High degree of interaction?

Applications: Simple Communication

Email addresses? Skype/ live video interaction?

Applications: Video Learning

On-demand video library of best practices

Applications: Video Upload/Feedback

Asynchronous video review

Applications: Web Access to Child Progress

Asynchronous data review

Take Action\

Communication tools that you could add to your repertoire?

Join a social network? Add to your toolbox with video and/or other strategies?

Take Action: What Can You Do?

Creative ideas for using technology to connect with parents and care-providers

Improved understanding of the basic strategies of active listening and how this applies when using technology to communicate

Specific applications of the current research regarding technology and communication with families.

Webinar Focus

National Business Group on Health: Therapies for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders, May 2012. Social Science Journal: Concentration of Adverse Employment Effects on Mothers with Children with Autism, Baker & Drapela, Jan

2010 Carta, J., Burke Lefever, J., Bigelow, K., Borkowski, J., & Warren, S. (2013). Randomized Trial of a Cellular Phone-Enhanced Home

Visitation Parenting Intervention. Pediatrics, 132(Supplement 2), s167-s173. Heitzmann-Powell, L., Buzhardt, J., Rusinko, L. & Miller, T. (2014). Formative Evaluation of an ABA Outreach Training Program for

Parents of Children With Autism in Remote Areas. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 29(1), 23-38. Meadan, H., Meyer, L., Sndograss, M., & Halle, J. (2013). Coaching Parents of Young Children with Autism in Rural Areas Using

Internet-Based Technologies: A Pilot Program. Rural Special Education Quarterly, 32(3), 3-10. Nieuwboer, C., Fukkink, R., & Hermann, J. (2014). Peer and professional parenting support on the internet: A systematic review.

Cyberpscyhology, Behavior & Social Networking, 16(7), 518-528. Seuss, A., Romani, P., Wacker, D., Dyson, S., Kuhle, J., Lee, J., Lindgren, S., Kopelman, T., Pelzel, K., Waldron, D., (2014). Evaluating

the treatment fidelity of parents who conduct in-home functional communication training with coaching via telehealth. Journal of Behavioral Education, 23(1), 34-59.

Sigafoos, J., O’Reilly, M., Seely-York, S., Weru, J., Son, S., Green, V., & Lancioni, G. (2004). Transferring AAC intervention to the home. Disability & Rehabilitation, 1330-1334.

Vismara, L, McCormic, C., Young, G., Nadan, A., & Monlux., K. (2014). Preliminary findings of telehealth approach to parent training in autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 43(12), 2953-2969.

References

Leveraging Technology to Build Positive and Effective Family/Teacher Relationships

Patricia WrightVice President, Professional Services: Rethink

info@rethinkfirst.comrethinkfirst.com