The Provision of Early Intervention and Early Childhood Special Education Within Community Early Childhood Programs

This article presents a description of a demonstration project that utilized community early childhood programs as intervention placements for toddler and preschool-age children with disabilities. Thirty children, with a range of disabilities, participated in 28 community early childhood programs to receive early intervention or early childhood special education services. Results suggested significant developmental gains for all of the children. In addition, families and program staff (both specialized and community) reported positive outcomes on measures of attitude. During the model development process, a number of service delivery characteristics were identified as necessary for the effective implementation of intervention services within community programs. These characteristics guided the model implementation process across programs and are described in this article.