The assessment of young children in early childhood special education is a central area of educational practice. The results of child assessments often have significant implications for young children, their families, and the programs that serve them, including eligibility for special education services, instructional planning, and documentation…

A significant number of young children exhibit challenging behaviors in preschool settings. A tiered framework of intervention has documented effectiveness in elementary and secondary schools, and recently has been extended to preschool settings. Although there is emerging research to support the effectiveness of Tier 1 (universal) and Tier 3…

An exploratory case study was undertaken to examine child and caregiver outcomes in a diverse sample of 21 infants/toddlers with severe disabilities who received services from an urban, Part C program where caregiver-focused intervention was emphasized. Purposive sampling and mixed methods were used to collect data on child developmental change,…

A randomized control study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of responsive teaching (RT) with a sample of 19 Turkish preschool-age children with disabilities and their mothers over a 6-months period. RT is an early intervention curriculum that attempts to promote children's development by encouraging parents to engage in highly…

Learning to explore, communicate, and interact with others and the environment through play can be problematic for young children with disabilities, but with parental support, children can learn and interact successfully during play activities. To determine how parents engage their preschool children with disabilities in play and what behaviors…

The purpose of this study was to determine if an intervention consisting of contingently imitating play, modeling expansions of play actions, and describing play actions increased the diversity of object play in young children with disabilities. The multicomponent intervention was introduced in a multiple-probe design across three young children…

Effective strategies to promote social-emotional development and prevent occurrence of challenging behaviors in young children is critical. The "Teaching Pyramid", a framework for supporting social-emotional development and preventing and addressing challenging behaviors, was developed for preschool children. This mixed methods study investigated…

The extent to which the influences of family-systems intervention practices could be traced to variations in parent-child interactions and child development was investigated by meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM). MASEM is a procedure for producing a weighted pooled correlation matrix and fitting a structural equation model to the…

In this study, the authors use data from two states to compare how families participating in early intervention who completed a Spanish version of the Family Outcomes Survey (FOS) (n = 291) compared with Hispanic (n = 486) and non-Hispanic (n = 2,363) families who completed the English version. In general, most families reported positive outcomes,…

Home visiting in early intervention is the primary model for delivering services and building partnerships with children and families. Using interviews with early interventionists and family members, this study investigated the extent to which families' and professionals' emotional needs were met during home visits and what factors contributed to…

This article includes descriptions of a process used to conduct practice-based research syntheses and the manner in which synthesis findings are used to inform and evaluate early childhood intervention practices. The main focus of a practice-based research synthesis is the unbundling of an intervention practice to identify those practice…

National estimates of characteristics of maltreated infants and report of an Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) and an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) 54 months later are presented. The study was based on 1,196 infants from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being. Measures of neurodevelopment, language, and cognition were…

This study investigated the impact of a short-term interaction-focused parenting curriculum on maternal behaviors and child development outcomes. Participants were 94 teen-mother-child dyads; 48 in the intervention group received a relationship-focused curriculum offered in 24, 1-hour sessions. Maternal behaviors during play were videotaped and…

Because more children under the age of 3 years are being diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD), early interventionists face the challenge of identifying appropriate programs to meet the unique needs of very young children with ASD and their families. Project DATA (Developmentally Appropriate Treatment for Autism) for Toddlers is an…

This study investigated families of children with autism spectrum disorders using early intervention and early childhood services, as well as the perceived efficacy and developmental outcomes related to the services and service delivery methods. Results indicated that a variety of recommended practices are not being used by families and…