The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Part C (IDEA, 2004) is a federal program that assists states with delivering early intervention services (EIS) for infants and toddlers with developmental delay up until their third birthday and their families (Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center [ECTA], 2019). Through IDEA Part C, EIS are…

It has been well documented that children's development is enhanced within the context of supportive parent-child relationships (Mortensen & Mastergeorge, 2014). Research also indicates that any daily activity of a child holds the potential for multiple learning opportunities if parents and other caregivers are supported in their capacity to…

Early intervention (EI) practitioners are expected to coach families in embedding intervention strategies for their infant or toddler within their everyday routines. EI practitioners use authentic assessment approaches (i.e., observation and discussion) to gain a real-life picture of what the child is good at and what can be difficult to identify…

The IFSP is both a document and process for developing, implementing, and evaluating the supports and services delivered to infants and toddlers with disabilities and their families eligible under Part C of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA; 2004). Recently, researchers have defined IFSP quality based on five…

A critical component for implementing evidence-based early intervention supports and services is the ability to write family-centered, functional, participation-based outcomes. Participation-based outcome statements that are family-focused center on the desires and needs of the parents or other care providers and are based on their interest in…

Parents play important roles as advocates for their child with a disability. Advocacy is the process of striving to improve the quality of life for someone else. The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires parents and professionals to work together to design a service delivery plan for children with disabilities. An…

The individualized family service plan (IFSP) is the cornerstone document that guides supports for infants and toddlers receiving early intervention through Part C of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The outcomes included on the IFSP reflect what everyone in the child's life values as important for the child right now. The…

Although many professionals recognize the importance of identifying family priorities and concerns, it is often more difficult to identify and access family resources. This article discusses the application of the double ABCX model, a family-centered model, to assist in developing meaningful IFSP outcomes based on family concerns and priorities.…

This article reviews literature on the use of interpreters and offers recommendations that will promote effective communication among family members, service providers, and interpreters who speak the family's language, but have not been trained formally as interpreters or special educators. The complexity of the interpretation process is…

Once children have entered into the early intervention system, ongoing developmentally appropriate assessment is crucial. A critical component is monitoring child progress in relation to education and intervention goals or outcomes. For infants and toddlers, whose performance often cannot be documented using traditional assessment and…

The first meetings with a family, including the first Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) meeting, set the tone for the family's emerging relationship with early intervention professionals. The IFSP meeting and document are a vehicle for parents and professionals to partner together to target outcomes that are meaningful to the family and to…

Discussion of the role of play in development of young children with disabilities considers the different forms of play as the child develops, the social nature of play, contexts and play materials, and the value of including play goals and strategies in the individualized family service plan or individual education program developed cooperatively…

In this article, the mother of a young child with cerebral palsy discusses how she worked with service providers to help organize efforts to educate church volunteers so that her daughter could participate in her regular child toddler class along with her sister. Classroom adaptations are discussed. (CR)

When children are young, the activities and routines in which they participate are influenced by family decisions as well as by opportunities for participation. Families report that finding community opportunities for their young children with disabilities can be difficult. Furthermore, ensuring their children's success in these settings requires…

Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) teams are by definition comprised of professionals from a variety of disciplines who are trained to determine recommendations for the services they deliver. Research indicates that when more people are on the IFSP team, families may feel less supported, and diminished child outcomes can result. However,…