ARTICLE REVIEW

Article Review

Article Review

Introduction

This paper presents a critical review of article titled, “Collaborative services for infants and toddlers with disabilities: perspectives from professionals in an urban setting”, written by a team of authors. This article was published in May 2006 issue of “Early Child Development and Care”. The authors have discussed the importance and influence of Early Head Start education programs for infants and toddlers with disabilities.

Literature

There has been much debate about the overall effectiveness of Head Start. A study conducted by (Zhang, Schwartz, Lee, 2006) suggested that, despite Head Start's efforts to close the gap in school readiness between poor and privileged children, a gap still exists between the two groups when they enter school—and the gap widens during the school years.

According to (Zhang, Schwartz, Lee, 2006), Both EHS and EI have a component of developing individualized family-centered goals for very young children and their families. EHS staff are required to develop and implement individualized Family Partnership Agreements (FPAs) with each family delineating family outcomes, responsibilities, timetables, strategies and progress in achieving the projected outcomes. This parallels the Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) process required by Part C that addresses the concerns, priorities and resources of the family pertaining to the child's development. The IFSP is a mandated process required by Part C and a written document developed by a multidisciplinary and interagency team consisting of the parents, other family members, the service coordinator who may be the parent or a service provider, and other professionals involved in providing early intervention services.

The components of the IFSP process include: (1) the child's current level of development in five domains; (2) the family's priorities, concerns and resources; (3) the major outcomes expected to be achieved; (4) the specific early intervention services to be provided in the natural environments; (5) the ...