Description
Early intervention (EI) refers to services available to infants and toddlers with developmental delays and disabilities, and their families (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2023). EI provides select services that children and family may need, including speech-language therapy. Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are skilled professionals who work in early intervention settings, providing treatments that maximize a child’s ability to communicate and/or swallow effectively and that enhance the family’s capacity to support their child’s development (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, n.d.).
Research shows that families’ perceptions of EI are critical in determining the effectiveness of the services provided. Families who actively engage in early intervention services and are knowledgeable about the purpose and nature of the services achieve better treatment outcomes. Likewise, when families are unfamiliar with early intervention, they receive fewer services, are less engaged in the intervention process, and experience less favorable treatment outcomes (Melvin, Meyer, and Scarinci, 2020). The purpose of this study was to assess the utility of a family assessment tool designed to determine families' needs for accessing, engaging with, and benefiting from early intervention programs. The family assessment tool we developed contains 25 items, and participating families will rate each item as having sufficient knowledge, having some knowledge or having no knowledge of early intervention services, the roles of SLPs in early intervention and the strategies SLPs use to assist families with achieving the desired outcomes for their child or children with disabilities. Twenty families receiving early intervention services that include speech-language pathology services will be asked to participate in the pilot phase of this study. The outcome of this research is to use the data obtained to create resources that will promote high family engagement and to train speech-language pathology students to support high family engagement when working in early intervention settings.