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Routines-Based Early Intervention (RBEI)

The mission of Routines-based Early Intervention is to promote the growth and development of infants and toddlers with disabilities, ages birth to three years, by helping families build upon activities they do every day to meet their own needs and support their child’s learning.

Nebraska’s RDA plan requires each PRT in the state to ensure that early intervention providers and services coordinators in their region receive professional development (PD) and technical assistance (TA) focusing on evidence-based practices in early intervention. The Nebraska Part C Co-Leads offer Routines Based Early Intervention PD and TA opportunities, as outlined in the Part C Professional Development Opportunities. The PD and TA opportunities were developed to help PRTs plan their training for key points in time and building on each other so as to allow for integration of implementation of RDA evidence based strategies into the EI process.

Nebraska promotes a Routines-Based approach to Early Intervention (RBEI), which includes three improvement strategies, based in regulations 92 NAC 52 and 480 NAC 1:

(1) Using the Routines-Based Interview (RBI) as a child and family assessment tool,

(2) Writing functional child and family outcomes resulting from priorities identified through the interview process, and

(3) Providing quality routines-based home visits, grounded in the current Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP).

If you are interested in technical assistance or information about training on any of these 3 strategies, contact the TA provider in your region.

RBI

The Routines Based Interview (RBI) is a semi-structured interview used with families, teachers, and childcare providers in order to obtain a rich description of child and family function in everyday routines and activities. Child and family strengths, challenges and priorities are identified during the assessment.  The information gathered during the interview captures assessment data that guides the writing of functional outcomes for individual children and their families. The RBI is the tool used in Nebraska to gather information for child and family assessment.

Functional IFSP Outcomes

Goals that relate to real life situations are important to families; important to teachers; and vital to children. Families, caregivers and teachers will see the value of working on relevant, specific and measurable IFSP/IEP outcomes.

Routines-Based Home Visits

Providing services in natural and inclusive environments means using the learning opportunities in everyday routines and activities in which children and families participate at home and childcare.

RDA for Families

The goal of the Results Driven Accountability (RDA) system is to improve educational results and functional outcomes, and demonstrate growth over time for all infants and toddlers with disabilities.

Service Delivery/Teaming

Nebraska does not require a specific model of early intervention (EI) service delivery. However, it has become evident that the most effective way to implement evidence based practices is as part of an infrastructure of teaming, based on the recommendations of national professional organizations and the best literature available. Studies show that “involvement of multiple practitioners in a family’s life on a regular basis has been found to negatively impact family functioning” (Rush and Shelden, 2022).

RDA Research Studies

Evaluations and summaries that measure impact and effectiveness of Nebraska's early intervention improvement strategies.