The goal of this book is to assist families and caregivers in the early intervention, care, and development of the toddler and to be instrumental in reaching the child's potential. By drawing attention to the ways in which some children with disabilities have been excluded from public education, these families and caregivers become aware of the importance of understanding the law, its content, and its implications. It is also important to be aware of the laws that have been tested through litigation. The author provides a comprehensive yet easily understandable background on these laws and includes basic insight into various examples. Main topics include: (1) Federal legislation and state compliance, child find and screening, evaluation, determination of eligibility, the IFSP, service delivery, and reimbursement of the early intervention process; (2) co-treatment and assisted intervention, counseling, limiting services, the efficacy of early intervention; (3) professional responses, consumer satisfaction, and knowledge of risk versus at-risk challenges; and (4) socioeconomic and cultural diversity and how professionals view each other as team members, including their comments. Personal experiences are provided which serve to make a point and/or bring levity to sometimes grave situations. These experiences contribute to the subjective opinions and research findings that promote the efficacy of early intervention. In addition, this book explores the benefits and success of animal assisted intervention. The primary audience for the book includes parents, educators, social workers, and others who work with toddlers who have special needs and challenges.

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

Abstracts of dissertations available on microfilm or as xerographic reproductions.

In 1988, the Chicago public school system decentralized, granting parents and communities significant resources and authority to reform their schools in dramatic ways. To track the effects of this bold experiment, the authors of Organizing Schools for Improvement collected a wealth of data on elementary schools in Chicago. Over a seven-year period they identified one hundred elementary schools that had substantially improved—and one hundred that had not. What did the successful schools do to accelerate student learning? The authors of this illuminating book identify a comprehensive set of practices and conditions that were key factors for improvement, including school leadership, the professional capacity of the faculty and staff, and a student-centered learning climate. In addition, they analyze the impact of social dynamics, including crime, critically examining the inextricable link between schools and their communities. Putting their data onto a more human scale, they also chronicle the stories of two neighboring schools with very different trajectories. The lessons gleaned from this groundbreaking study will be invaluable for anyone involved with urban education.