Video part 1

I found this video quite informative and interesting.  The overall theme that stood for me was that of collaboration among all the people involved in the life of the individual being assessed.

The speakers expressed the importance of the role of the medical professionals regarding the initial diagnosis as well as the educators and parents who come into daily contact with the child.  I really liked seeing the graphic shown by the second speaker in which one person, the child's parent, said "I know my child, but she know how to teach (referring to his child's teacher)" and another person, being the teacher, saying "I know how to teach, but he knows his child".  It makes a very simple statement.  But I think it illustrates the idea that there are various people who are involved in the child's life, each having a unique point of view and set of strengths regarding the situation.  And all of these points of view should be taken into consideration when developing education or behavior plans for these children.

The second speaker also discussed the various experts and professionals who will be involved in the assessment and intervention process.  These include teachers, behavior analysts, speech pathologists, occupational therapists, developmental specialists, and others.  I think it's important for children with ASD to be assessed in all of these areas and recieve the necessary interventions.  From my own experience, I've seen this to be true.  I've worked with a number of children in early intervention.  And the ones who have made the most progress have been the ones who received a wide variety of services including ABA, speech, OT, and playgroups.  I've worked with children who had received maybe 10 hours of ABA per week while receiving only 1-2 hours per week of speech and no other services.  These children typically do not make nearly as much progress as the ones who see a wider variety of specialists.

Another interesting graphic that was shown was the three adults each walking with a child down different paths.  I believe this was meant to represent what we don't want from a child's education plan.  We want all the professionals involved to collaborate and be on the same page in terms of developing the best intervention plan for our students.  And to me, that was the most prominent message I took away from the video.