Family-Centered Practice in Early Intervention: A Comparison.
Early interventions programs should offer a wide range of services to cater to the diverse needs of families and encourage parents to be more involved.
What was this report about?
Many early intervention programs have a family-centered philosophy, but this doesn’t always translate well into practice, or as well as it could.
This report is based on a study of parental involvement in early intervention programs for deaf and hard of hearing children and their parents. The study involved 120 mothers and 60 professionals at six educational centers in Israel. It examined the level of collaboration between professionals and parents during early intervention programs.
What were the key findings?
- Mothers and professionals perceived the programs were good at providing family centered services and being supporting and caring towards families. It also found that the programs had room for improvement.
- Mothers in this study expressed a strong desire to be more actively involved in their child's program, with more teamwork between professionals in different areas, greater professional guidance on decision-making, and increased support from a cooperative team.
- Family- centered early intervention programs could do more to empower parents to become leaders in decision-making processes about their child.
Where can I read more about this report?
Actual versus desired Family-Centered Practice in Early Intervention for Children with Hearing Loss.
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