A survey of 116 early intervention service providers for young children with disabilities examined their experiences and perceptions of providing services in natural environments such as the home, day-care center, restaurants, play grounds, etc. A questionnaire, "The Natural Environment Questionnaire," was developed which included questions with…

The National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) was appointed in 2002 and carried out its work under the auspices of the National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL). NELP's primary goal was to identify interventions, parenting activities, and instructional practices that promote the development of children's early literacy skills. The National Institute…

The Orthopedic Homebound Program was meant to prevent the institutionalization of orthopedically impaired, mentally retarded children and to involve parents in their training. The program was proposed and managed by the Shawnee Hills Community Mental Health/Mental Retardation Center in rural West Virginia. Each child's developmental needs were…

The guide provides information on procedures used in the Portage Model, an early home intervention program for rural preschool children with all types of handicapping conditions as well as children functioning within the normal range. Following an introduction (which presents the rationale for parent involvement, rationale for home based programs,…

Project Sunrise, a home based parent training model, was designed to serve preschool handicapped children living in rural areas of Montana. Literature was reviewed on when to begin educational intervention, the results of early intervention, the types of intervention most effective, the positive effects of parent education, and the benefits of…

This report documents the activities and outcomes of the 5-year model demonstration project AHEAD (At Home and At Day Care), a Utah program that is designed to deliver services to infants, toddlers, and young children (ages birth-3) with noncategorical disabilities. The program delivers services to the children and their caregivers in their…

This study analyzed the critical features of three delivery modes for Head Start services in order to: (1) compare the effects of different delivery modes on the immediate outcomes for children and parents; and (2) explore the pattern of effects both within and across modes to ascertain how the process works. The first mode represented the most…

The VIISA (Vision Impaired In-Service in America) training model provided early intervention/childhood professionals with training that would help them better serve preschoolers, ages birth to five, with blindness and visual impairment. Materials and procedures for two courses were developed and taught to 344 participants in 9 states over a 3-year…

The first section of the document consists of a questionnaire/survey instrument completed by 80 teachers as part of a study designed to evaluate the quality and efficiency of early education programs serving handicapped children (ages 3-5) in Louisiana during 1985-86. Frequency distribution of responses are shown in the instrument. The second…

The study, involving 15 autistic children (2-7 years old) and their families investigated the short term effects of a treatment model in which parents are trained as co-therapists in teaching developmental skills and behavior management. Literature was reviewed on models for treatment of autism, studies of treatment efficacy with autism, and…

This compilation of checklists was designed to facilitate internal agency improvements by providing a convenient and efficient framework for self-assessment of child welfare services. Checklists in question format are organized into seven sections arranged to reflect the sequence of decisions or activities that occur in an agency offering child…

Recognizing: (1) that home schooling members have increased dramatically in the last decade, with Florida having the highest home schooled population in the country, (2) that home schoolers are among the heaviest users of the public library, and (3) that home schooling needs have not been fully understood, the University of South Florida School of…

A study examined the effectiveness of an immersion-in-literacy program in a first-grade classroom. Six of the 22 students (all six were boys) indicated on a reading attitude survey that they did not like to read books. The classroom teacher set up her classroom so that it fostered literacy development. Some of the experiences and activities she…

Home visiting is the strategy used by the Community Mothers Programme to enhance parenting skills of first-time mothers from economically disadvantaged areas in Dublin, Ireland. The home visitors are all women from the community who volunteer to visit parents in their homes once a month for 1 hour over a 12-month period. In a 1989 evaluation, 232…

This final report describes activities and accomplishments of a federally funded 3-year project in Delaware to improve programming and instructional/vocational opportunities available to students with deaf-blindness. The project expanded the capacity of the state-funded program for the deaf-blind to provide technical assistance and training for…