Consultation and Intervention Planning for Preschool Students
Designing collaborative, evidence-informed consultation plans that integrate executive function development, social-emotional instruction, classroom implementation, and progress monitoring.
Executive Function Consultation Early Intervention Psychologists Working in SchoolsLearning Objectives
Upon completing this lesson, learners will be able to:
- Integrate the social-emotional and executive function recommendations from the assigned practice guide into a coordinated preschool consultation approach.
- Identify observable classroom concerns, relevant developmental factors, task demands, and instructional barriers.
- Develop collaborative, measurable goals for executive function and social-emotional interventions.
- Select developmentally appropriate instructional games, explicit teaching strategies, and opportunities for supported practice.
- Plan implementation, progress monitoring, and generalization across classroom routines.
- Evaluate the ethical, cultural, linguistic, and accessibility considerations associated with consultation and intervention planning.
Reading Assignment
Assigned Resource:
Preparing Young Children for School
Institute of Education Sciences / What Works Clearinghouse (2022)
Required Pages: 7–15 and 18–22
Recommendation 1: Regularly provide intentional, engaging instruction and practice focused on social-emotional skills.
Recommendation 2: Strengthen children's executive function skills using specific games and activities.
Open the Complete IES Practice Guide (PDF) ↗
Pages 7–8: Planning Social-Emotional Instruction
Review Recommendation 1, its strong evidence rating, and the recommendation to use a sequential social-emotional curriculum. Examine the importance of intentional lessons, specific skill instruction, and ongoing opportunities to practice.
Consider how a consultant would determine whether a classroom concern reflects a skill that has not been explicitly taught, a skill that requires additional practice, or an environmental demand that exceeds children's current capabilities.
Page 9: Example 1.1 — Planning Across the Week
Examine the sample plan for providing curriculum activities across several days. Focus on the instructional progression from introduction and modeling to repeated practice, feedback, and review.
Consider how consultation can support consistency without requiring teachers to create an entirely separate instructional period for every skill.
Page 10: Example 1.2 — Puppets and Visual Supports
Study the example involving a turtle puppet and visual reminders. Identify how adult demonstration helps children understand and rehearse an emotional regulation strategy.
Consider the distinction between teaching a coping skill during a calm activity and expecting a child to use that skill independently during significant distress.
Pages 11–12: Repeated and Staged Practice
Examine the recommendation to create frequent opportunities to practice target skills. Review Example 1.3, which describes staging an activity so that children can use and reinforce a previously introduced social-emotional response.
Identify how a consultant could help teachers plan prompts, provide corrective instruction, and gradually increase independent participation.
Page 13: Example 1.4 — Natural Teaching Opportunities
Review the use of an accidental classroom incident to reinforce a social-emotional skill. Consider how adults can help children recognize feelings, understand another person's perspective, and practice constructive problem-solving.
Distinguish immediate co-regulation from subsequent instruction and reflection. Consider how to respond without treating every expression of frustration as intentional misconduct.
Pages 14–15: Family Practice and Implementation
Review Examples 1.5 and 1.6, including caregiver communication and suggested activities for home. Consider how consultation can help teachers communicate target skills and provide optional, accessible opportunities for practice.
Review implementation considerations and identify practical barriers that may interfere with regular social-emotional instruction.
Page 18: Example 2.1 — Executive Function Games
Compare Red Light, Purple Light; the Freeze Game; Drumbeats; and Which Way? Brain Builder. Analyze how the games create demands involving remembering directions, controlling impulses, responding to signals, and flexible thinking.
Consider how teachers might identify a clear target skill rather than interpreting all errors as equivalent indicators of poor regulation.
Page 19: Increasing Instructional Complexity
Review Resource 2.1 and the recommendation to increase complexity after children have mastered the initial rules.
Consider how consultation can help teachers establish starting levels, monitor mastery, introduce manageable challenges, and avoid unnecessary increases in difficulty.
Page 20: Examples 2.2 and 2.3
Examine the puppet game involving reversed rules and the transition from following to leading in Simon Says.
Analyze the overlapping demands of working memory, inhibition, flexibility, attention, and planning. Consider how task modifications can improve access without eliminating the intended skill.
Page 21: Example 2.4 — Classroom Integration
Examine opportunities to practice executive function during literacy, mathematics, outdoor play, and arts and crafts.
Consider how to incorporate repeated practice within existing classroom routines and how to monitor whether improvements extend beyond a specific practiced game.
Page 22: Implementation Obstacles
Review the panel's recommendations for simplifying games when children become confused or overwhelmed. Focus on returning to successful rules, using visual reminders, and adjusting challenge and activity duration.
Examine the importance of maintaining clear instructional objectives when integrating executive function practice and social-emotional learning.
1. The Role of Consultation in Preschool Intervention
Consultation provides a collaborative process for understanding educational concerns, identifying appropriate goals, developing instructional supports, and reviewing outcomes.
Psychologists working in schools can contribute expertise in development, learning, assessment, behavior, and intervention design. Educators contribute important knowledge about classroom routines, instruction, child participation, and practical implementation.
Effective consultation should integrate these perspectives rather than simply deliver recommendations without considering classroom feasibility.
Why Consultation Is Especially Important in Preschool
Preschool children's skills are emerging rapidly and are influenced by development, experience, instructional opportunity, environmental demands, and responsive adult support.
A concern such as difficulty waiting, following directions, or handling changes in activities may reflect several interacting factors.
The consultant's role is to help identify the specific concern, examine the context in which it occurs, and select supports that improve meaningful participation.
Five Questions That Guide Consultation
- What observable behavior or learning difficulty is interfering with participation?
- What skills and environmental demands are involved?
- What instruction or support has already been provided?
- Which intervention practices are appropriate for the child's development and classroom setting?
- What evidence will indicate that the plan is working?
2. Defining the Consultation Concern
Teachers may initially describe preschool concerns using broad terms such as impulsive, distracted, inflexible, oppositional, or emotionally reactive.
These descriptions may communicate meaningful concerns, but they do not specify the observable behavior or explain why it is occurring.
From Description to Observable Behavior
Rather than defining the concern as "poor self-control," a consultant might document whether the child continues an activity after a stop cue, begins responding before instructions are completed, or needs multiple prompts to move to another routine.
This makes it easier to establish a baseline, identify relevant antecedents, select intervention procedures, and evaluate progress.
Identifying the Relevant Skill
Working Memory
Retaining and using instructions, rules, or sequences while completing an activity.
Inhibitory Control
Stopping or withholding a response when the situation requires it.
Cognitive Flexibility
Shifting behavior when rules, routines, or task expectations change.
Social-Emotional Competence
Recognizing emotions, communicating needs, cooperating, and responding to interpersonal challenges.
Distinguishing Related Concerns
A child who becomes upset when a preferred activity ends may be experiencing disappointment, difficulty anticipating the transition, challenges with flexible responding, limited communication strategies, or a combination of these factors.
An intervention that addresses only one assumed cause may be ineffective if other important demands remain.
Functional Impact
Consultation priorities should reflect educational significance. A difficulty that prevents a child from participating in classroom routines may warrant more immediate support than an occasional error during an unfamiliar game.
Relevant areas include access to instruction, independent participation, social interaction, communication, emotional safety, and engagement in learning.
3. A Structured Consultation Process
The following process is a practical application of the reading's instructional principles. It is not presented as a separately validated protocol from the practice guide.
Step 1: Establish a Shared Understanding
Meet with the teacher to clarify the concern, identify relevant strengths, and review situations in which the child participates successfully.
Ask about prior instruction, available supports, classroom routines, and the teacher's preferred methods for implementing new strategies.
Step 2: Gather Baseline Information
Collect a manageable amount of information that describes the target behavior before intervention changes.
Depending on the concern, observations might involve the proportion of directions followed, successful responses to a stop cue, or prompts needed during transitions.
Step 3: Analyze Task Demands
Identify which executive function and social-emotional skills are required by the routine.
Consider whether the difficulty is related to remembering directions, inhibiting actions, shifting expectations, managing frustration, or accessing the instruction.
Step 4: Select a Teachable Target
Choose an observable goal aligned with educational participation rather than attempting to improve every aspect of regulation simultaneously.
Step 5: Plan Instruction and Practice
Use explicit modeling, visual reminders, repeated practice, and appropriately challenging activities.
Schedule opportunities to use the target skill during ordinary classroom instruction and routines.
Step 6: Define Implementation Responsibilities
Determine who will provide instruction, who will record data, what resources are needed, and when the team will review progress.
Step 7: Review and Adjust
Use intervention data, teacher observations, child participation, and relevant caregiver input to determine whether to continue, modify, or expand the plan.
4. Integrating Executive Function and Social-Emotional Instruction
Recommendations 1 and 2 are complementary, but they address distinguishable instructional targets.
A comprehensive preschool consultation plan may include both types of instruction without treating them as interchangeable.
Social-Emotional Instruction
Recommendation 1 emphasizes a coherent sequence of lessons, adult modeling, repeated opportunities to practice, and reinforcement of skills during meaningful interactions.
A classroom plan might teach children to identify frustration, request assistance, practice a familiar calming strategy, and participate in supported problem-solving.
Executive Function Practice
Recommendation 2 emphasizes intentional games that require children to remember instructions, control responses, and adjust when rules change.
A freeze game, for example, provides opportunities to practice stopping movement after a clear signal.
A puppet rule-switching game places additional demands on remembering the current rule, inhibiting a previously learned response, and adjusting behavior.
How the Two Approaches Work Together
Consider a preschooler who struggles when a preferred activity ends.
Social-emotional instruction may help the child identify disappointment, communicate a need, and practice an appropriate coping strategy.
Executive function activities may offer structured practice with stopping an action or responding to changed rules.
The classroom transition itself provides an opportunity to support functional use of both sets of skills.
Analyze a Preschool Consultation Case
Review the fictional consultation information and select the most defensible professional response to each question.
This activity emphasizes interpretation of functional data, identification of instructional priorities, and collaborative decision-making.
Jordan's teacher reports difficulty during transitions, multistep directions, and games involving rule changes.
Jordan participates successfully during familiar block-building activities and often uses appropriate communication when an adult provides a prompt.
The teacher requests consultation because transitions frequently interrupt learning and require substantial adult support.
The psychologist examines performance across several classroom conditions.
| Condition | Hypothetical Observation |
|---|---|
| Transition without advance warning | 2 of 10 transitions completed without additional prompts |
| Transition with visual schedule and adult reminder | 8 of 10 transitions completed with the planned support |
| Three-step verbal directions | 4 of 10 completed independently |
| Directions with picture sequence | 9 of 10 completed with the visual support available |
| Familiar stop-and-go game | 9 of 10 appropriate responses |
| Game after two rules change together | 3 of 10 appropriate responses |
These observations are fictional, are based on limited opportunities, and are intended for instructional interpretation rather than diagnosis.
5. Selecting Activities Based on Instructional Targets
The choice of activity should be guided by the target skill rather than by the activity's popularity or familiarity.
For Inhibitory Control
Structured stop-and-go games can provide opportunities to practice pausing, withholding, or stopping an action in response to a designated signal.
The teacher should ensure that the cue is accessible and that the child can perform the required motor response.
For Working Memory
Activities requiring children to remember and carry out a short sequence can offer opportunities to practice maintaining information.
Teachers should begin with manageable instructions, provide demonstration, and increase information demands gradually.
For Cognitive Flexibility
Games involving rule changes or switching between leader and follower roles can create opportunities to adjust a familiar response.
New rules should be explicitly introduced and practiced before demanding rapid switching.
For Emotional Regulation
Planned lessons using stories, puppets, visual supports, and role-play can introduce coping and help-seeking strategies.
Adults may need to provide co-regulation and prompting before children can demonstrate independent skill use.
| Target | Instructional Activity | Possible Progress Indicator |
|---|---|---|
| Response stopping | Freeze or stop-and-go game with clear cues | Correct stops across valid opportunities |
| Working memory | Modeled movement or action sequences | Steps completed with documented support |
| Flexibility | Guided rule-switching or changing roles | Accurate responses after a taught rule change |
| Help-seeking | Explicit modeling and staged practice | Appropriate requests during relevant opportunities |
| Social problem-solving | Stories, puppet demonstrations, and guided peer interactions | Use of taught responses during classroom situations |
6. Planning for Implementation Fidelity
An intervention plan is only useful when its procedures are sufficiently clear and feasible for educators to implement.
Psychologists working in schools should collaborate with teachers to develop practical implementation routines rather than creating overly complicated plans.
Define Essential Components
A plan may specify the instructional target, materials, modeling steps, practice opportunities, feedback procedures, and conditions for increasing complexity.
Use Existing Classroom Routines
The IES guide encourages embedding opportunities to practice executive function skills during literacy, mathematics, outdoor play, and other activities.
Integrating instruction into familiar routines may reduce the burden of implementing separate programs.
Support Teacher Decision-Making
Educators should know what to do when children make errors, when the activity becomes too difficult, and when children demonstrate consistent mastery.
A practical rule is to reduce complexity and provide additional modeling when repeated confusion indicates the current demands are too difficult.
Document Implementation
A brief checklist may indicate whether the teacher provided modeling, used the planned cue, offered practice opportunities, and delivered the intended feedback.
These data help distinguish limited intervention effectiveness from inconsistent implementation.
7. Using Data to Guide Consultation Decisions
Progress monitoring should answer whether the target skill is improving and whether the improvement contributes to meaningful educational participation.
Define Observable Outcomes
Select measurable behaviors linked directly to the consultation goal.
For example, a transition goal could involve the proportion of classroom transitions completed following a designated cue.
Record Support Levels
A successful response completed after repeated adult prompting is different from one completed independently.
Record whether visual cues, demonstrations, verbal prompts, or physical assistance were used when relevant.
Maintain Comparable Conditions
When interpreting trends over time, note changes in activity complexity, cue presentation, classroom setting, and opportunities to respond.
Otherwise, changes in scores may reflect different task demands instead of changes in skill development.
Assess Generalization
Compare performance during structured instruction with performance during everyday routines.
A child may demonstrate strong inhibitory responding during a familiar movement game but still require support during transitions or emotionally demanding peer interactions.
Review Data Collaboratively
Teachers and psychologists should examine whether the intervention is being implemented, whether the child's participation is improving, and whether additional supports are needed.
Build an Executive Function Consultation Plan
You are consulting with a preschool teacher who reports that several children have difficulty transitioning between activities and responding when classroom expectations change.
The teacher currently gives repeated verbal reminders but has not implemented a consistent sequence of direct instruction or progress monitoring.
Construct the plan by selecting the most appropriate professional action at each stage. Your choices will be evaluated with explanations for appropriate and less appropriate responses.
8. Ethical and Inclusive Consultation
Consultation plans should reflect children's developmental levels, communication methods, cultural and linguistic experiences, sensory needs, motor abilities, and individual strengths.
Developmental Appropriateness
Expectations should align with children's current abilities and the instructional opportunities available to them.
A lengthy, passive group activity may create different attention demands from a brief, engaging movement game.
Language and Communication
Children may require directions presented through pictures, demonstrations, gestures, or accessible communication systems.
The consultant should distinguish difficulty understanding instructions from difficulty performing the underlying skill.
Motor and Sensory Access
Movement games should be adjusted when necessary so that motor demands do not unnecessarily prevent participation in the intended executive function task.
Cultural Responsiveness
Families and educators may differ in expectations regarding emotional expression, communication, independence, and social interaction.
Consultation should respect these differences while supporting meaningful access and participation.
Assessment and Intervention Decisions
Improvement with instructional support provides information about conditions that facilitate learning.
It does not independently establish or rule out a disability.
Significant or persistent concerns may warrant additional evaluation while appropriate supports continue.
9. Bringing the Plan Together
A concise consultation document should provide enough information for educators to implement the agreed intervention consistently and review outcomes.
| Plan Component | Illustrative Example |
|---|---|
| Target concern | Difficulty transitioning after a designated classroom cue |
| Observable goal | Increase successful transitions with progressively less adult prompting |
| Baseline | Document current transition success and support levels across opportunities |
| Direct instruction | Model the routine and use a visual sequence with guided practice |
| Executive function practice | Use a structured stop-and-go game and introduce manageable rule changes |
| Social-emotional instruction | Teach communication and coping strategies for changes in activities |
| Generalization | Practice the skill during actual classroom transitions |
| Implementation | Teacher delivers instruction and records agreed-upon response data |
| Consultation review | Psychologist and teacher examine response patterns, fidelity, and support needs |
| Decision process | Continue, modify, intensify, or consider additional assessment based on evidence |
This example is a planning framework rather than a prescribed schedule or validated intervention package. Goals, review intervals, and instructional methods should be individualized to the learner and setting.
Lesson Synthesis
Consultation and intervention planning for preschool children requires a coordinated approach that integrates developmental understanding, instructional evidence, classroom context, and meaningful educational outcomes.
The assigned reading provides complementary recommendations for strengthening social-emotional and executive function skills through intentional instruction, repeated practice, and developmentally appropriate activities.
Connecting Pages 7–10 to Consultation
Recommendation 1 emphasizes systematic social-emotional instruction rather than relying entirely on reactive behavioral correction.
The examples involving planned lessons, puppets, visual aids, and calming strategies demonstrate the value of explicit instruction before children are expected to use a skill independently.
For consultation, this means asking whether the target skill has been clearly taught and rehearsed, rather than assuming children already know the expected response.
Connecting Pages 11–15 to Generalization
The reading emphasizes repeated opportunities to practice and reinforce social-emotional skills.
Staged activities provide predictable opportunities to rehearse, while naturally occurring classroom interactions allow educators to support skill use in meaningful situations.
Family communication can extend instructional continuity without requiring families to reproduce the entire classroom curriculum.
Consultation can support these practices by helping educators identify when and where the target skill should be practiced.
Connecting Pages 18–20 to Executive Function Instruction
The movement and rule-switching games demonstrate how classroom activities can provide opportunities to practice inhibition, memory, and flexibility.
The consultant should identify which process the activity is intended to strengthen and examine whether unnecessary task demands interfere with participation.
When rules become more complex, children's performance may reflect several interacting processes.
Therefore, consultation should include clear modeling, appropriately sequenced challenges, and careful interpretation of errors.
Connecting Pages 21–22 to Implementation
The guide emphasizes incorporating executive function opportunities within existing classroom activities and adjusting difficulty when children become confused or overwhelmed.
These principles support consultation plans that are practical, adaptable, and responsive to child performance.
They also reinforce the importance of examining instructional conditions before attributing limited performance solely to child characteristics.
Implications for Psychologists Working in Schools
Psychologists working in schools contribute to effective consultation by translating broad concerns into observable behaviors, identifying relevant developmental processes, and collaborating with educators to develop appropriate instructional responses.
Assessment and observation should clarify functional concerns, instructional opportunities, support needs, and the conditions under which children demonstrate success.
This information can help teams select interventions that are more closely aligned with the actual concern.
Implications for Intervention Design
A defensible consultation plan should specify the target skill, expected response, instructional procedures, required materials, implementation responsibilities, and progress measures.
Developmentally appropriate instruction should incorporate modeling, repeated practice, visual supports, and graduated task demands.
Social-emotional and executive function instruction may operate together, but each should retain a clear instructional purpose.
Implications for Progress Monitoring
Progress should be evaluated using observable child outcomes and information about intervention implementation.
The team should consider whether improvement occurs with reduced support and whether skills are used across meaningful classroom situations.
When progress is limited, the psychologist should examine whether instruction was delivered as intended, whether the activity was appropriately challenging, and whether important barriers remain.
Implications for Ethical Decision-Making
Consultation should account for developmental, cultural, linguistic, communication, sensory, and motor differences.
The process should promote educational access without assuming that all children must demonstrate learning through identical behaviors.
Psychologists should communicate the limits of available evidence and avoid unsupported diagnostic conclusions.
Appropriate intervention may begin before a formal disability determination, while further evaluation should be considered when meaningful concerns warrant it.
Key Concepts to Retain
- Consultation should begin with specific, observable educational concerns.
- Executive function and social-emotional skills are related but require clearly identified instructional targets.
- Assessment of classroom performance must consider task demands, prior learning, and available supports.
- Evidence-informed instruction includes modeling, structured practice, and gradual increases in complexity.
- Teachers and psychologists should collaborate on realistic implementation procedures.
- Progress monitoring should examine both intervention fidelity and child outcomes.
- Generalization to meaningful classroom routines should be planned and evaluated.
- Consultation should remain culturally responsive, accessible, and developmentally appropriate.
- Additional evaluation may be appropriate when functional concerns remain significant or suggest broader needs.
Professional Reflection
Consider a preschool classroom in which children demonstrate difficulty following multistep directions, transitioning between activities, and adjusting when familiar routines change.
A strong consultation approach would begin by defining observable concerns, examining instructional demands, and identifying current strengths.
The team would then select specific instructional targets, establish manageable practice opportunities, and monitor whether children demonstrate increasing independence.
Consider how the plan would be modified when children respond differently to the same instructional supports, and what additional evidence would be needed to determine the next appropriate professional action.
Reference
Burchinal, M., Krowka, S., Newman-Gonchar, R., Jayanthi, M., Gersten, R., Wavell, S., Lyskawa, J., Haymond, K., Bierman, K., Gonzalez, J. E., McClelland, M. M., Nelson, K., Pentimonti, J., Purpura, D. J., Sachs, J., Sarama, J., Schlesinger-Devlin, E., Washington, J., & Rosen, E. (2022). Preparing Young Children for School (WWC 2022009). National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.
Required reading: Recommendation 1, pages 7–15; Recommendation 2, pages 18–22.