The best therapist in early intervention might be… you

When families picture therapy for a young child, they often imagine a specialist working one-on-one with the child while the parent waits outside. But modern early intervention increasingly flips this: the therapist spends the session teaching the parent, not just treating the child. This is called the coaching model, and it's now considered best practice for kids under three.

The logic is simple math. A speech or occupational therapist might see your child for one hour a week. You are with your child for dozens of waking hours. Skills stick when they're practiced often, in real settings — at bath time, in the grocery cart, during snack. A therapist who shows you how to weave a language or motor goal into those everyday moments effectively multiplies an hour of therapy into a whole week of practice.

Good coaching isn't a lecture. It usually follows a rhythm of watch, try, reflect: the provider models a strategy, hands it back to you to try while they observe, then talks through what worked. Over time, the goal is that you feel confident embedding the strategy without them there — a concept called generalization, where a skill shows up across people and places, not just in the therapy room.

If a program only ever works with your child behind a closed door and sends you home with no strategies, it's fair to ask how the learning will carry into daily life. Coaching doesn't mean you're doing the therapist's job — it means their expertise travels home with you.