This book is a guide for early intervention practitioners who are working with families from diverse cultural backgrounds, which aims to help users to develop cross-cultural skills. The volume is organized into three parts. Part I provides an introduction to issues surrounding working with families from diverse backgrounds. Part II, the core of the book, introduces several of the major cultural and ethnic groups that make up the population of the United States, with each group described in terms of its history, values, and beliefs with particular emphasis on issues related to the family, child rearing, and disability. The groups covered include the following types of families: (1) Anglo European; (2) Native American; (3) African American; (4) Latino; (5) Asian American; (6) Pilipino; (7) Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander; and (8) Middle Easterner. Part III synthesizes the information presented in earlier sections and provides recommendations for interventionists working in service delivery systems with the intention of enhancing the sensitivity and awareness of service providers to issues of variability across families in childbearing, health care, and communications. Chapters include extensive references and, frequently, appendices. (JB)