The purpose of this paper is to describe the process used for identifying recommended
practices in the field of early intervention/early childhood special education
(EI/ECSE). Work groups were established for 14 areas of EI/ECSE. Participants in
these work groups followed a set of 6 criteria in identifying recommended practices
in each area. To validate the practices identified by the work groups, a national
sample of randomly selected DEC members, persons in higher education, and family
members indicated their level of agreement with items representing recommended
practices and indicated the frequency of their current use of the items. Ratings from
the validation questionnaires indicated substantial agreement that practices
identified by the initial work groups would be recommended practices. The discrepancy
between recommended practices and current use of the practices was examined.
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