Friday October 19, 2007
9:00 AM - 4:00 PM (registration begins at 8:00 AM)
Adelphi University
Ruth S. Harley University Center, 2nd Floor

T. Berry Brazelton. M.D.
View T. Berry Brazelton's Bio

Touchpoints in Development: A Model for Early Intervention
Dr. Brazelton's concept of "touchpoints" represents opportunities for clinicians to help parents and children through difficult and predictable phases of development.   With delayed children, developmental growth spurts become opportunities for hope and confirmation for parents.  As a child approaches a spurt, he often experiences periods of frustration and disintegration or regression. This is likely to be an anxiety-laden time for parents.  If parents understand the underlying reason for their infant's regressive behavior, they can support and comfort their frustrated child, and not just be baffled by him. Since there is a predictable map in each developmental line, clinicians can join with parents in their struggle to understand by sharing with parents the concept of the next spurt, how powerful it is, how critical it is and why it leads to a child’s unwanted behavior.  Each biobehavioral shift or "touchpoint," which occurs just before a new spurt in development, becomes a powerful opportunity for entering into the system of the parent and infant. There are six of these in the first year, four in each subsequent year.  Using the child’s behavior as the language between parents and therapist is a powerful way.

Touchpoints can be integrated into a multi disciplinary family center that is designed to provide preventative health care to children and families as well as education and peer support.  Visits to the center are planned to fit into a developmental model of touchpoints that offers anticipatory guidance in the first three years.

The participant will be able to:

• Understand development as containing periods of biobehavioral shifts accompanied by frustration, disintegration and growth;
• Describe several predictable touchpoints for each stage of development as they relate to crying, sleep, feeding, autonomy, etc.
• Identify specific opportunities to provide education and intervention for parents. 

Joshua Sparrow, M.D.
View Joshua Sparrow's Bio

Infant and Toddler Emotional Competence: The Basis of Learning from the Beginning of Life
Using videotapes and slides, the characteristic features of emotional competence in infants and young children will be illustrated and the factors affecting the development of this competence will be discussed. Emotional competence at all ages is indexed by a child’s ability to express and to control a wide range of emotions in order to achieve their goals of communicating with people and acting on objects and ideas.  

From the beginning of life, parents and professional caregivers can support the efforts of infants and young children to master the challenges of self-regulation, sensory processing, and social interaction–understanding themselves and others. These most basic building blocks for successful learning can only be constructed within the context of children's relationships.

Brain research over the past 30 years has called attention to the unique opportunities and critical responsibilities for the care and education of young children. We now recognize the central importance of human interaction for the developing brain. Research on emotional development (Brazelton, Emde, Linnert, Stern, Tronick, Weinberg, and others) demonstrates the early opportunities for learning in human interaction, as well as the emotional basis for learning from the beginning of life. State regulation, sensory threshold, face-to-face interactions and the model of mutual regulation, social referencing, symbolic thinking, and theory of mind are among the concepts that organize our current understanding of the role of human interaction in early emotional development, and, in turn, of early emotional development as the underpinning for social and cognitive development.

The participant will be able to:

• Understand the development of the normal range of emotional expressions in infants and  young children.
• Understand how the different factors affect the child’s emotional competence.

Who Should Attend
Early childhood educators, child care providers, pediatricians, psychiatrists, social workers, nurses, psychologists, obstetricians, family therapists, school counselors, child life specialists, educators and students and others who professionally impact the lives of families and children.

Scholarship funding to participate in this training my be available through the Educational Incentive Program (EIP). For more information, visit www.tsg.suny.edu. You may also contact EIP at eip@tsg.suny.edu or 800.295.9616.

Credentialing Information and Continuing Education:

• Social Work
• CASAC
• Psychology
• Nursing
• Education
• Medical
• ASHS

Social Work CEU’s (4)
are given through the  New York State Chapter of the NASW.

CASAC training hours (4)
Program information has been submitted for approval to the New York State Office of Addiction and Substance Abuse Services Education and Training for credits toward earning or recredentialing.

Psychology CE credits (4)
Adelphi University is approved by the American Psychological Association to offer continuing education credits for psychologists.  Adelphi University maintains responsibility for the program and its content. To apply for CE credits, contact Ms. Marge Burgard at 516.877.4835 and present your Certificate of Attendance.  There is a $10 processing charge.  Attendance at the entire conference is required.  No partial credit is given.

Nursing Contact Hours (4)
Adelphi University School of Nursing is an approved provider of continuing nursing education by the New York State Nurses Association’s Council on Continuing Education in Nursing by the American Nurses Credential Center’s  Commission on Accreditation.

Education Hours/Credit
May be received at the discretion of your school

Winthrop-University Hospital designates this Continuing Medical Education activity for up to 4 credit hours in Category 1 credit towards the AMA Physicians' Recognition Award. Each physician should claim only those hours of credit that he/she actually spent in the education event.

Category 1 CME's sponsored by Winthrop-University Hospital

Continuing Education Certificates:
Certificate of Attendance will be issued at the end of the conference.

*Should you require disability accommodations, please email the Office of Disability Support Services at dss@adelphi.edu, giving notice of 72 hours before the event. Should you require ASL interpreting, 7 days notice is required.

**Winthrop University Hospital relies upon planners and instructors in its CME programs to provide education information that is objective and as free of bias as possible. In this spirit, and in accordance with the guidelines of the program sponsor, participants are expected to indicate any commercial relationship that could be perceived as a real or apparent conflict of interest.


Contact
For additional information about this workshop, please contact:

Marcy Safyer, LCSW-R
p - 516.877.3060
e - msafyer@adelphi.edu

The Institute for Parenting
Adelphi University
1 South Avenue
P.O. Box 701
Garden City, NY 11530-0701

f - 516.877.3845

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