Carl J. Dunst

Family-Centered Practices Birth Through High School

Quantitative and qualitative research evidence is reviewed and synthesized with regard to the family-centeredness of early intervention, preschool, and elementary and secondary school practices. Early intervention and school practices are not as family-centered as is generally claimed, and one finds less presumption of being family-centered at each level from early intervention to preschool to elementary school to secondary school programs. The need for better research is noted, and research that would advance our understanding of family-centered practices is suggested.

Family-Oriented Early Intervention Policies and Practices: Family-Centered or Not?:

This article includes a multimethod, multisource analysis and synthesis of the degree to which contemporary family-oriented early intervention policies and practices are family centered. Federal laws and legislation, state-level policy positions, and the viewpoints of service providers and consumers were analyzed as part of the study. The findings, taken together. Indicate a movement toward adoption of family-centered early intervention policies and practices at the different levels of analysis. There are, however, discrepancies between what state-level policymakers and “street-level” providers and consumers see as current beliefs and practices within states.

Everyday Family and Community Life and Children's Naturally Occurring Learning Opportunities

National surveys of nearly 3300 parents (and other caregivers) of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers with or at-risk for developmental delays were conducted to ascertain the sources of naturally occurring learning opportunities afforded young children in the context of family and community life. One group of parents completed a survey about family life as sources of learning opportunities (N = 1723), and another group completed a survey of community life as sources of learning opportunities (N = 1560). Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that both family and community life were each made up of 11 different categories of learning opportunities. Results indicate the 22 categories provide a framework for recognizing and identifying sources of learning opportunities providing children a rich array of experiences constituting natural learning environments.

Characteristics and Consequences of Everyday Natural Learning Opportunities

The relationships between several different person and environment characteristics of everyday natural learning opportunities and changes in both child learning opportunities and child behavior and performance were examined in an intervention study lasting 19 to 26 weeks. Participants were 63 parents or other caregivers and their infants, toddlers, and preschoolers with disabilities or delays. Findings showed that learning opportunities that were interesting, engaging, competence-producing, and mastery-oriented were associated with optimal child behavioral change. Implications for early intervention practices are discussed.

Valued Outcomes of Service Coordination, Early Intervention, and Natural Environments:

A national survey of Part C early intervention program providers (practitioners and program directors) and participants (parents of young children with disabilities) was used to discern the desired outcomes of service coordination, early intervention, and natural environment practices. Survey participants judged from among 69 outcome indicators those that they considered to be the most valued benefits of each IDEA Part C service. Results indicated that certain categories of outcomes were more likely to be judged as the desired benefits of a specific Part C service, and that only two outcome categories (family satisfaction and improved family quality of life) were considered to be valued outcomes for all three services. Implications for practice and research are described.

Helpgiving styles and parent empowerment in families with a young child with a disability

Despite a substantial conceptual literature demonstrating a significant relationship between helpgiving practices and personal control, there are relatively few empirical studies that have examined this relationship beyond a single cultural group, and few studies that have made use of more complex measures of empowerment. This study reports the results of a survey completed by two groups of families with a young child attending early intervention programs in the US and in Australia. Although there were major differences in the personal characteristics of the two groups, and differences in their reported levels of empowerment and helpgiving practices, the relationship between helpgiving practices and empowerment was the same in both groups. In particular, the use of both a “relational” as well as a “participatory” helpgiving style was crucially associated with empowerment in both groups.

Influences of Family-Systems Intervention Practices on Parent-Child Interactions and Child Development

The extent to which the influences of family-systems intervention practices could be traced to variations in parent—child interactions and child development was investigated by meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM). MASEM is a procedure for producing a weighted pooled correlation matrix and fitting a structural equation model to the patterns of relationships in the data. The main practices constituting the focus of analysis were capacity-building help-giving practices, social supports and resources, family needs (concerns and priorities), and family strengths. Eight studies were included in the meta-analysis. The participants were 910 infants, toddlers, and preschoolers with and without developmental delays or disabilities and their parents or other primary caregivers involved in different kinds of help-giving programs. Results showed that capacity-building help-giving and family-systems intervention practices had direct effects on both parent self-efficacy beliefs and well-being and indirect effects on parent—child interactions and child development mediated by self-efficacy beliefs and parent well-being. Implications for practice and further research are discussed.

Family Resources, Personal Well-Being, and Early Intervention

The hypothesis that adequacy of resources is related to personal well-being and adherence to professionally prescribed child-level regimens was tested. The subjects were 45 mothers of developmentally delayed infants and toddlers participating in an early intervention program. The mothers completed three measurement scales about their family resources, personal well-being, and commitment to professionally prescribed treatments. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that adequacy of resources was related to both well-being and commitment to child-level interventions even after the effects of maternal age, family socioeconomic status and income, and child age and developmental quotient were statistically removed. The results are discussed in terms of assisting families to meet self-identified needs before asking them to carry out professionally prescribed child-level treatments as part of their involvement in early intervention programs.

Capacity-Building Family-Systems Intervention Practices.

This article includes a description of a family-systems model for implementing early childhood and family support assessment and intervention practices. The model includes both conceptual and operational principles that link theory, research, and practice. Lessons learned from more than 20 years of research and practice have been used to revise and update the model, which now includes a major focus on family capacity building as a mediator of the benefits of intervention. Key components of the most recent version of the model are described, and findings from research syntheses showing the relationship between the different components of the family-systems model and parent, family, and child behavior and functioning are summarized. Future directions are described.

Placing Parent Education in Conceptual and Empirical Context.

e-mail: dunst@puckett.org Mahoney et al. (in this issue) have made the observation that parent education in early intervention has come into disfavor and proceeded to build a straw man for arguing why this is so, and why there is a need for renewed emphasis on parent education and training. I am in full agreement with the authors on this latter point, but disagree vehemently with many of the authors’ contentions about the reasons why parent education is not a more explicit focus of contemporary early intervention practices. At the outset, it is important to note that when Mahoney et al. (in this issue) used the term early intervention, they meant the Part B (619) and Part C Programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Act of 1990 (IDEA), as evidenced by their responses to IFSPs and P.L. 94-142, and not early intervention as more broadly defined and practiced in the United States (Dunst, 1996). This is important, because parent education is a key feature of many other contemporary approaches to early intervention and education (e.g., Powell, 1988, 1989; Wanders-