Recommended Practices in Early Childhood Special Education

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to describe the process used for identifying recommended practices in the field of early intervention/early childhood special education (EI/ECSE). Work groups were established for 14 areas of EI/ECSE. Participants in these work groups followed a set of 6 criteria in identifying recommended practices in each area. To validate the practices identified by the work groups, a national sample of randomly selected DEC members, persons in higher education, and family members indicated their level of agreement with items representing recommended practices and indicated the frequency of their current use of the items. Ratings from the validation questionnaires indicated substantial agreement that practices identified by the initial work groups would be recommended practices. The discrepancy between recommended practices and current use of the practices was examined.Since the late 1960s, early intervention/early childhood special education (EI/ECSE) has clearly emerged as a specialization within the field of special education. An active professional literature, specialized professional training programs, teacher credentialing in many states, and an active professional organization (Division for Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional Children-DEC) all exemplify a profession in emergence. This professional ization of EI/ECSE has been pushed by the recognition of the need for services for young children with disabilities and their families. Indeed, services are now mandated for children with disabilities in all 50 states, and an accessible service system for infants with disabilities and their families exists in many states (Safer & Hamilton, 1993).With the increase in services for young children with disabilities and their families has come a concern about the nature of practices employed in the profession. That is, if El/ ECSE is a profession or specialization, are there specific practices that experts, professionals, and families agree are exemplary? If so, identification of such practices could serve as the basis for guiding the development and delivery of early intervention services to children

Applying Q Methodology to Investigations of Subjective Judgments of Early Intervention Effectiveness

“…A. McWilliam et al, 1995;Minke & Scott, 1995;Murphy, Lee, Turnbull, & Turbiville, 1995;Odom, McLean, Johnson, & LaMontagne, 1995;Sexton, 1993). Responding to this challenge, various professionals have developed a number of instruments designed to measure the extent to which early intervention service providers engage in family-centered, and therefore recommended, practices (e.g., Bailey, 1989;P.…”

Literacy, development and disabilities: are we moving in the right direction?

“…Setting early intervention goals for language development and including emergent literacy skills as a priority for preschoolers with disabilities is widely accepted by professionals (Bailey & Wolery, 1992;Katims & Pierce, 1995;McBride et al, 1995;Odom et al, 1995;Wallach & Butler, 1995). In the words of Ramsey Musselwhite et al, (2003): 'Students are in the very beginning stage of literacy.…”

Measuring the Quality of Early Intervention Services for Infants and Toddlers: Problems and prospects

“…Instead, we need to focus on what works or, in other words, on how variations in early intervention services in uence outcomes for children and families. This need is re ected in recent efforts to de ne quality or best practice in early intervention (Aytch et al, 1999;Bailey & McWilliam, 1993;Graham & Bryant, 1993;Odom & McLean, 1996;Odom, McLean, Johnson, & LaMontagne, 1995).…”

“…The process undertaken by DEC resulting in the document titled DEC Recommended Practices (DEC Task Force on Recommended Practices, 1993) is described by Odom et al (1995). Fourteen areas of best practice were addressed, not all of which involved direct services to children (i.e., personnel competence and program evaluation).…”