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Coaching is becoming a common professional development strategy to support early childhood (EC) professionals to use evidence-based practices. However, most of the research on coaching professionals in EC settings has been conducted in classroom or center-based EC settings. The authors of this review sought to summarize the current empirical literature on coaching of EC home visitors. Seven studies were identified and coded to determine common factors. Additional research is greatly needed to identify whether coaching home visitors is an evidence-based professional development strategy and the effective components of coaching in home-based programs.

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A review of the literature shows that racial and ethnic minority children (eg, African American, Asian, and Hispanic) received diagnoses for developmental concerns later in life compared with their age-matched white counterparts. Research has also documented disparities in access to and receipt of health care services among children with developmental concerns as compared with children with other disabilities. Objectives: We examined health care providers' (HCPs') responses to parents' developmental concerns about their children. We looked at the association with race, ethnicity, gender, rurality, and time to diagnosis. Methods: All data were secondary and derived from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Survey of Pathways to Diagnosis and Services. Participants consisted of 1321 parents of children who had received early intervention services as reported by respondents' data collected in 2011. Results: From a nationally representative sample of families receiving early intervention services, 76% were white, 10% were African American, 3% were Asian, 5% were Native American, and 9% were Hispanic. Families who were Hispanic were more likely to have received only a delaying response from HCPs. The average time to a developmental delay diagnosis was 5 months longer for families who received a delaying HCP response. Conclusions: Families who were Hispanic or who were from rural areas were most likely to receive a delayed HCP response; for parents who received a delayed HCP response, a developmental delay diagnosis took 5 months longer than for families from the other groups listed.

Part C early intervention services should be family centered and occur in the context of families' natural environments and daily routines; yet research suggests that many early interventionists continue to work directly with the child and lack a full understanding of how they can implement best practices in the community. To help improve this implementation gap, discrepancy tools can be used to identify early interventionists' perspectives of their typical and ideal practices and gain knowledge of early interventionists' understanding of family-centered practices. The purpose of this study was to examine early interventionists' typical practices, ideal practices, and family consultation beliefs prior to one state's adoption of a family-centered early intervention model. Ninety-nine early interventionists completed a questionnaire examining their practices and beliefs. Results demonstrated that ratings of typical practices, ideal practices, and family consultation beliefs were relatively high overall, and early interventionists rated their typical practices only slightly lower than ideal practices. Item-level analysis, however, revealed a large discrepancy between typical and ideal ratings for the item related to working with the child versus the caregiver. Implications of our findings and recommended future directions are discussed.