Study assessed the current status of prereferral practices in Michigan. Directors of special education responded to surveys addressing issues such as whether prereferral intervention was required and so forth. Results indicated that most districts encourage prereferral practices and that academic and behavior management strategies are equally…

Examines the degree to which states' political climates, resources, policies, and interagency services predict progress in the implementation of Part H of Public Law 99-457, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). (Author/BB)

This study of 86 children (ages 30-67 months) attending a community screening clinic found that 2 factors--parents' concerns about speech, language, or cognitive skills, and parents' ratings of the child's activity on a temperament scale--accounted for 27% of the variance in the likelihood of referral to early intervention services. (Author/JDD)

This commentary on EC 605 442, which indicated long-term gains for children with autism who experienced intensive behavioral intervention as preschoolers, questions the magnitude of the student changes and their significance, because of concerns about the representativeness and comparability of the sample group and the failure to measure skills…

This commentary on a study reported in EC 605 442, which indicated long-term gains for children with autism who experienced intensive behavioral intervention as preschoolers, criticizes the outcome measures used in the study as inadequate in determining whether normal functioning in cognitive, emotional, and adaptive functioning was achieved as…

Mothers in the Mother-Infant Communication Project (MICP), designed to facilitate caregivers' uses of communicative interaction strategies with their high-risk infants, scored better than comparison mothers on caregiving environment quality. Children of MICP mothers who received a group experience in addition to home visits performed better on…

This article discusses the family systems framework and its implications for understanding families with developmentally disabled infants/toddlers from diverse cultures. It presents guidelines to assist home visitors in becoming sensitive to culture's effects on family values, beliefs, and practices, and describes the phases of a home visit and…

Twenty-seven toddlers identified as showing specific expressive language delay (ELD) were studied and followed through the preschool period. Findings indicated that home-based intervention accelerated vocabulary skills, but did not decrease the likelihood of later phonological problems. ELD was also seen as a self-correcting condition. (PB)

Interdisciplinary and social-developmental approaches for prevention of juvenile violence are explored. Twenty-one recent works are reviewed and their approaches compared. At issue are early identification of juvenile delinquents who go on to careers of serious violence, and interdisciplinary application of modern scientific knowledge to the…

Examines the effects of poverty on parenting, noting the work of the Kennedy Center at Peabody College and discussing parenting as a process, how parents are influenced by poverty, how parenting in poverty influences children's development, how children are directly and indirectly influenced by poverty, and factors that mediate the debilitating…

Examines issues, especially definitional issues, in the practical application of effective naturalistic instructional (NI) practices in the instruction of young children with disabilities and their families. Suggests guidelines for describing independent and dependent variables in the procedural and contextual features of research into NI. (DB)

Describes the development, implementation, and evaluation of an innovative preservice teacher-education program in elementary education in the Inclusive Early Childhood Education Unit at the University of Tennessee. The program includes a three-phase training model, alternative approaches to instructional delivery, local school mentoring, and…

Explores why mental health has been a contested issue in Head Start and describes recent efforts to bring mental health closer to the center of the program agenda. Describes areas of challenge and innovation that might further the program goal of improving the well-being of parents and children in poverty. Concludes with recommendations for…

Notes that early childhood intervention is receiving renewed national attention and presents highlights of the Chicago Child-Parent Center (CPC) program. Notes that the center-based CPC features a structured and diverse set of language-based instructional activities, lower than average child-to-teacher ratios, multifaceted parent participation…

A study evaluated the effects of supplemental reading instruction for 256 students in kindergarten through Grade 3 (158 Hispanic). Children who received the supplemental reading instruction performed significantly better on measures of word attack, word identification, oral reading fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension after 15 to 16…