Journal of Early Intervention

Young children with special needs and their families often experience transitions across multiple environments in the early childhood years. Many transitions are identified as stressful for children and families. In the present study, a series of focus groups involving administrators, practitioners, and family members were held around the United States to identify transition practices that have been implemented effectively for children, families, staff, administrators, and communities. Two major themes emerged from the data: critical interagency variables, defined as strategies that support an interagency process involving multiple parties; and transition practices and activities, defined as practices that address child, family, staff, program, and community-specific activities. Outcomes from these focus groups included identification of transition strategies for young children with special needs that are considered valuable by parents, providers, and administrators and that are consistent with theoretical frameworks described in the transition literature.

This study examined relationships between antecedent classroom factors and the disruptive behaviors of five elementary-aged students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). A descriptive analysis was conducted to determine the influence of four types of molar antecedent classroom factors (i.e., instructional setting, instructional activity, availability of materials, and adult proximity) occurring within the general education classroom on target children's disruptive behavior. Sequential analyses were conducted to identify possible influences of these factors on the relationship between adult directives and subsequent target child disruptive behavior. Results showed different antecedent classroom factors influenced the occurrence of and the strength and direction of the sequential relationships between teacher directives and child disruptive behavior across participants. Although idiosyncratic findings occurred, for the majority of participants, specific antecedent factors decreased the rate of disruptive behavior including: a group setting, academic adult-directed activities, no materials present, and no adult proximity. Implications for practitioners and future research are discussed.

We surveyed a sample of the membership of the Division for Early Childhood (DEC) of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) with the Social Interaction Program Features Questionnaire-Revised (SIPFQ-R) to determine their judgments of the acceptability, feasibility, and current use of contemporary peer interaction intervention tactics and strategies. We analyzed resultant information descriptively and with MANOVA procedures. In addition, we collected respondents' perspectives about barriers to the implementation of social interaction interventions and the proportion of preschool children they believed could benefit from peer interaction interventions. Results indicated that DEC members judged a majority of social interaction intervention tactics and strategies as acceptable but members rated many of those interventions as less feasible and reported them to have relatively lower rates of use. We believe the findings indicate that a continuing research to practice gap exists for peer interaction interventions in early childhood special education (cf. Brown & Conroy, 2001). Given that gap, we call for targeted professional development activities focused on a range of social interaction intervention tactics and strategies and renewed research efforts to refine and develop teacher friendly intervention strategies for practitioners who work in community-based preschools.

The effects of e-mail feedback with written verbatim examples and frequency counts of expansions on pre-service teachers' verbal behaviors were examined in two studies. In Experiment I, e-mail feedback on the use of expansions was evaluated in a multiple baseline design across 3 undergraduate early childhood special education students. Results indicated a systematic relation between the e-mail feedback and the participant's use of expansions. Experiment II was a systematic replication of Experiment I. E-mail feedback on the use of expansions and specific praise was evaluated in a multiple baseline design across 3 student teachers. Results were similar to Experiment I. Student teachers' use of expansions displayed more variability than the practicum students. Implications for (a) the identification of effective practices for university supervisors, (b) the use of e-mail to communicate between supervisors and pre-service teachers, (c) future research on feedback, and (d) methods for conducting systematic replications are discussed.

In the current context of accountability, analysis of early intervention program costs can help decision makers allocate resources. This paper describes a cost analysis approach, known as the ingredient method, and demonstrates its applicability for evaluating the costs of a universal home visiting program designed to reduce child abuse and neglect. Results of the cost analysis showed the average cost was ,$4,970 per family per year (in 2005 dollars). This included, on average, 2 visits by the public health nurse and 29 home visits by paraprofessional family visitors. The cost of enrolling a new family in the program, consisting of 1 initial visit by the nurse followed by weekly visits by family visitors, was $7,835. Families with the most risk for abuse and neglect were more likely to take advantage of family visitor services and enroll in more intensive services. Implications for conducting similar cost analysis studies in early intervention using the ingredient method are discussed.