Early Interventionists' Ratings of Family-Centered Practices in Natural Environments

Abstract

Part C early intervention services should be family centered and occur in the context of families' natural environments and daily routines; yet research suggests that many early interventionists continue to work directly with the child and lack a full understanding of how they can implement best practices in the community. To help improve this implementation gap, discrepancy tools can be used to identify early interventionists' perspectives of their typical and ideal practices and gain knowledge of early interventionists' understanding of family-centered practices. The purpose of this study was to examine early interventionists' typical practices, ideal practices, and family consultation beliefs prior to one state's adoption of a family-centered early intervention model. Ninety-nine early interventionists completed a questionnaire examining their practices and beliefs. Results demonstrated that ratings of typical practices, ideal practices, and family consultation beliefs were relatively high overall, and early interventionists rated their typical practices only slightly lower than ideal practices. Item-level analysis, however, revealed a large discrepancy between typical and ideal ratings for the item related to working with the child versus the caregiver. Implications of our findings and recommended future directions are discussed.