Assessing the Home Environment to Promote Infant-Toddler Learning within Everyday Family Routines

Early intervention (EI) practitioners are expected to coach families in embedding intervention strategies for their infant or toddler within their everyday routines. EI practitioners use authentic assessment approaches (i.e., observation and discussion) to gain a real-life picture of what the child is good at and what can be difficult to identify individualized intervention strategies targeting the family's Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) outcomes. The resulting intervention strategies are expected to "fit" or be tailored to the family's routines, rather than generic strategies that can result when assessing children outside those everyday routines. To conduct a comprehensive assessment, EI practitioners analyze both the child "and" the environment. Assessing how the environment impacts a child's participation in routines and learning of IFSP outcomes results in potential strategies for adapting that environment. The purpose of this article is to share the importance of social, physical, and temporal environments to child learning in home routines and ways to assess environmental strengths and needs respectful of individual family strengths, priorities, and culture.