Joachim Dattke describes a holistic approach to supporting the needs of the family when a child has a disability. The parent and child benefit from a two-pronged approach: working with doctors, psychologists, and therapists in clinic-based settings, and working with educators in schools and parent-child groups. He defines the importance of…

Within the United States a significant population of foster care infants and toddlers access early special education services under the parameters of the "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act" (IDEA)-Part C (United States Congress 2004). A dearth of literature exists about special education interventionists' services for this…

The purpose of this study was to determine in what ways the quality of individualized family service plans (IFSPs) would be affected by adding written prompts to an IFSP form and instruction manual. Two IFSPs were collected from 94 service coordinators before and after adding written prompts to the IFSP form and manual targeting three areas: (a)…

This study examined the efficacy of parents roles as active and discerning members of their childrens Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) through the use of a large randomly selected sample with a high respondent rate. Families were selected from the special education roster in an urban district. Of the 95 families selected, 83 parents completed…

This review of the literature on assistive technology (AT) assessment strategies for infants and toddlers focuses on taking cultural differences into account while developing individualized family service plans. Topics covered include current practices and issues, including the value of a team approach and the need to consider child factors, AT…

This paper is a preliminary report on the development of alternate forms of an attitude scale to assess parents' and professionals' views toward the Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) process, a process evolving as a result of Federal regulations regarding early-intervention services. Development of the set of attitude scales is unique in…