April 2024 - Sparkler

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April 15, 2024 by Admin 0 Comments

Using Sparkler to Follow Up With Families After Screening

Let's Focus on Follow Up

The most important thing in screening is the follow-up: Making sure families get the answers/support/referral they need. If a young child is facing a challenge, we ALL want to identify it and help the family to access early intervention or other supports as soon as possible!

Steps of the Follow-Up Process

1. Review Results

Providers have the important responsibility of following up with parents/caregivers after they complete screening. The results don’t go to families immediately upon completion because it’s important to answer families’ question and provide clear next steps.

The educator, home visitor, healthcare provider or other person responsible for following up with a family will receive an email letting them know that a family has completed screening and it’s time to follow up with them.

2. Review the Results

If you get receive an email like this, it’s time to review the screening results. To do this, please sign into Sparkler’s Dashboard and go to ASQ Dashboard in the navigation. You can search for the child by name or Sparkler ID. By default, you’ll see the most recent ASQ completed. If the child might have aged up into the next age bracket, you should uncheck the “only show most recent” checkbox to see the previous (completed) screening.

You can see the results on the screen by clicking into the child’s name and using the accordion to see the scores or you can download the family-facing report wherever you see the symbol circled below (on the ASQ Dashboard or from the child’s ASQ detail page on Sparkler’s Dashboard). Look at the summary scores — and be sure to note whether the parent has expressed concern.

3. Reach Out to the Family

The family completed the screening using their Sparkler app, so you can send them a message via Sparkler messaging — which might be the best initial way to get in touch. We also encourage you to email them and text/call — using the information they have shared in the app. You can find this under the Adults tab in the Dashboard.

4. Complete the Follow-Up Form in Sparkler's Dashboard

As soon as a parent or teacher/provider completes an ASQ-3 or ASQ:SE-2, the follow-up form will pop up on the ASQ dashboard in the column all the way to the right. Filling out the form will help you track what you recommend to parents following screening. It will also help us bring consistency to the follow-up process, ensuring that parents/caregivers are receiving results/next steps — and it will kick off the “re-screening” process: If you recommend re-screening on a particular date, Sparkler will nudge the family and you to re-screen on that date.

You’ll see one of these three options:

Start New Follow-Up Report
View or Edit Follow-Up Report
Pending (No Screening Completed)

When you click into the report, you’ll see a series of questions that you can answer as you talk to a family following screening.

After completing the form, remember to press save!

5. Share Results & Your Recommendations With the Family

Here are a few tips to keep in mind as you follow up with families:

Be timely!
Be clear about confidentiality: Make sure they know the conversation is confidential & decisions about their child are theirs.
Share the WHY: Use language like: “Screening helps YOU as the parent/caregiver to learn about your child’s development and become more knowledgeable about developmental milestones in the early years. It can show if your child might need further assessment but does not diagnose.”
Listen: What are the parents’ concerns or questions? Be open to parents’ ideas and perspectives on their child’s development.
Highlight the positives: As you review the results, highlight the child’s strengths.
Be sensitive and positive: Use positive language.
Be clear and precise: If there are areas of monitor/refer/concern, be clear with the family and explain what the score means.
Talk about the next steps of development: All parents are interested in what’s coming next. Talk with them about what skills to expect next. Provide learning activities they can try at home. Let them know when they can next rescreen (Sparkler will provide next screening when it becomes available.)
Collaborate & discuss: We are on a team with parents/caregivers, working together to help their children. Plan out next steps together.
Offer guidance/support: If a child scores at refer or monitor and/or the parent has concerns, offer clear recommendations for next steps.

Here’s more information from Brookes, the publisher of the ASQ, which can help you get ready to follow up with the families you serve.

6. After Your Conversation

After you speak with the family, here are the steps to follow:

Record your follow-up recommendations in the follow-up form on the Sparkler Dashboard.
Send the parent a message — either using a template in Sparkler or in another way — to summarize your conversation and next steps. You can find the templates when you click into a child’s name on the dashboard.
Send the parent their results electronically. They will receive an email where they signed up for Sparkler with a secure link so they can download their results.
If the parent had questions/concerns, use Sparkler’s dashboard to send them some age-appropriate activities that would help them to spark their child’s learning in areas of concern.
Follow up in a few weeks to check in on the family and see if they have additional questions/concerns or want new activities to try at home.

Questions? Please email support@playsparkler.org

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April 9, 2024 by Meaghan Penrod 0 Comments

The Power of Early Intervention: A Q&A With Dr. Marianne L. Barton

In honor of World Autism Month (April), a Sparkler family & community engagement specialist, Meaghan Penrod, spoke with Dr. Marianne L. Barton, Clinical Professor and Director of Clinical Training at the University of Connecticut Ph.D. Program in Clinical Psychology. Dr. Barton is a licensed psychologist and has worked for more than 30 years providing evaluation and treatment to young children and their families in multiple settings. Dr. Barton is one of the authors of The Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers-Revised, (M-CHAT-R/F) and the Working Model of the Child Interview, as well as the Activity Kit for Babies and Toddlers at Risk.

Sparkler: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do in the field?

Dr. Barton: I am a Clinical Psychologist with specialized interest in Early Childhood. At UConn, I am the director of our training clinic, the Psychological Services Clinic and I oversee Clinical training for our PhD students. I supervise treatment and assessment services, complete assessments with students, consult to local Birth to Three programs, teach graduate courses and engage in research. My research is closely tied to my clinical interests. For example, because of our frustration at not seeing children with suspected Autism until they reached school age, several years ago my colleague Deb Fein and I developed the M-CHAT, a screening tool for young children that is now completed across the country at well-child pediatric visits. We are currently working on a series of videos that would help parents teach and engage with young children with autism.

Sparkler: How would you explain autism to someone who doesn't know much about it?

Dr. Barton: I think of Autism as a neuro-developmental disorder that interferes with a child’s ability to build reciprocal social relationships. Young children with ASD struggle with all of the behaviors that allow them to initiate and sustain social interaction, such as making eye contact, following someone’s attempt to direct their attention, showing things to others or pointing to direct attention. Some children develop communication skills, including language, others struggle to communicate. Children also develop repetitive behaviors, and sensory interests such as spinning toys, watching things fall or spin etc. Repetitive behaviors or restricted interests are required for a diagnosis of ASD. Beyond those two characteristics, there is enormous variability in children diagnosed with ASD. Some have comorbid intellectual disability or ADHD; others do not. Most develop functional communication skills; a small percentage remain minimally verbal.

Sparkler: What are some common misunderstandings people have about autism?

Dr. Barton: I think that people rely more on atypical behaviors, such as hand flapping, to identify children with autism, rather than the difficulties with social interaction. Children with many kinds of difficulty engage in atypical behaviors (for example, ADHD, Intellectual Disability, sensory concerns); unless they also have significant social deficits, they would not be considered autistic. I think people also under-estimate the extent of the progress that individuals with autism can make with intensive early intervention. A small number of children (15-20%) make so much progress that they no longer qualify for the diagnosis. Some of those teen-agers and young adults are indistinguishable from typically developing individuals. In recent years, the diagnostic criteria have been loosened to permit the diagnosis of individuals with less severe impairments. That has allowed for the identification of more children and the provision of services earlier.

Sparkler: How does early intervention support young children with autism?

Dr. Barton: If we can identify children early and provide intervention most children will make significant progress. Services typically focus on improving functional communication skills and developing skills at social interaction. When necessary, intervention may also focus on teaching adaptive skills and reducing atypical behavior. Over many years, we have learned that children with autism can learn many of the skills that typically developing children acquire on their own; children with ASD may require specific teaching to acquire those skills. Early intervention will allow children to address the social difficulties associated with autism and develop more typical friendships and social relationships. It also supports brain development which remains flexible in our youngest children. Finally, intervention provides greater support to families, teaches parents the skills they need to engage their children and reduces some of the stress and isolation that family members experience in raising a child with special needs. We have a great deal of evidence that early intervention results in significant gains in skills, healthier developmental trajectories, improved outcomes for both children and families and markedly reduced costs over the course of a child’s life.