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…

The Study of Monitoring and Improvement Practices under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) examined how states monitored the implementation of IDEA by local special education and early intervention services programs. State monitoring and improvement practices in 2004-05 and 2006-07 were the focus of the study. Prior to the…

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…

California's approach to developing programmatic and administrative models for the implementation of Individualized Family Service Plans (IFSPs) in providing services to young handicapped children is discussed. The models focus on implementing recognized best practices as well as changing state policy and administrative structure to enhance…

Used focus groups with 23 Head Start staff from 5 urban programs to identify naturally occurring strategies to cope with children's inappropriate behavior. Found that horizontally managed centers used a more collaborative approach, whereas vertically managed centers required that teachers consult with a gatekeeper before consulting with others.…

This study examined the variety of service delivery models being used to provide services to infants and toddlers with disabilities in nine communities across three states (Colorado, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania). Information was derived primarily from focus groups and interviews conducted with community early intervention program…

This book provides an introduction to early intervention programs, focusing on programs that reflect a transactional model of family-centered services employing collaborative and interdisciplinary techniques. Chapter 1 presents the historical context of early intervention services. Chapter 2 defines the various disabilities and risk conditions.…