Partnerships between Early Head Start (EHS) programs and child care providers strive to improve access to high-quality, comprehensive services for infants and toddlers whose families have low incomes. Early Head Start-Child Care (EHS-CC) Partnership grants provide a dedicated funding stream to support some of these partnerships. In 2015, the…

There is a national shortage of early intervention (EI) providers for young children with disabilities or developmental delays. This needs assessment study employed in-depth semi-structured interviews to explore the perspectives of EI program directors (N = 27) across a large U.S. state on provider retention efforts. Through a qualitative…

Early Intervention (EI) aims to lessen the effects of developmental delay by providing services to infants and young children. Newborn screening (NBS) is a public health program that identifies infants with treatable conditions, although many conditions put children at risk of developmental delay even after medical intervention. The purpose of…

Head Start is an essential part of the programs and funding streams that provide early care and education (ECE) services to young children in the U.S. Head Start focuses on supporting children and families with low incomes, but also contributes to the broader effort to expand access to high quality ECE for all young children. Programs and…

A survey was distributed to Part C early intervention (EI) service coordination (SC) stakeholders in one state in order to gain a deeper understanding of service coordinator knowledge, skills, and motivators for professional growth and recognition. Survey participants (N = 107), including dedicated service coordinators, program managers, social…

The Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation-Strong Start (MIHOPE-Strong Start) is the largest random assignment study to date to examine the effectiveness of home visiting services on improving birth outcomes and infant and maternal health care use for expectant mothers. The study includes local home visiting programs that use one of…

State coordinators of early hearing detection and intervention (EHDI) programs were asked to complete a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, or SWOT, analysis that consisted of 12 evaluative areas of EHDI programs. For the interdisciplinary area, 47 coordinators responded with 224 items, and themes were identified within each SWOT…

State coordinators of early hearing detection and intervention (EHDI) programs completed a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, or SWOT, analysis that consisted of 12 evaluative areas of EHDI programs. For the EHDI program infrastructure area, 47 coordinators responded with a total of 292 items, and themes were identified in each…

Response to intervention (RTI) can be both a system for providing early interventions to struggling students and a special education diagnostic tool for evaluating and identifying students with specific learning disabilities. Contributing to the very limited literature on state-level approaches, this report describes how nine states define and…

A study examined parent involvement in decision making in the Smart Start early childhood programs in North Carolina. Data were collected through observations, interviews, and surveys. Findings indicated that both the interested public and the Smart Start board members agreed that having parents involved in decisions about how Smart Start money…

Focus groups of early intervention therapists, nontherapist professionals, administrators, and family members were interviewed to determine challenges to providing specialized therapies to young children with disabilities. Results indicated a perception that policy/administrative constraints and a shortage of pediatric therapists caused services…

Returned questionnaires of 440 early intervention specialists in Bavaria, Germany, were analyzed to evaluate the organization of early intervention programs, goals, attitudes, functions of interdisciplinary teams, time utilization, referrals, and special centers for children with attention deficit disorders. Six recommendations are offered.…

A study explored the perceptions of 397 parents and 26 service coordinators on early intervention program practices that affected collaboration. Factors included program philosophy and climate, service delivery (including options for service delivery), teaming approaches, administrative policies and practices (including quality of program…

This report provides information about state monitoring practices on the implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Part C program that provides early intervention services for infants and toddlers with disabilities. The findings reported summarize responses from 10 states with a variety of Part C lead agencies. In five…

An era of substantial growth in investment of resources, program development, and research has led to tangible gains in the scope and quality of early childhood education programs. However, the system of early childhood education programs is plagued by unequal access and inconsistent, inadequate levels of quality. Additionally, the focus of…