Issues in Early Intervention: Measuring Attitudes about Family-Centered Services

The steps taken to develop an attitude-gauging instrument which is consistent with a family-centered approach in early intervention are reported. Data provided by occupational therapists ( N=319) in two pilot studies were used to support reliability and validity of the questionnaire, Issues in Early Intervention (IEI). Also, factors that may influence how occupational therapists, attending workshops on early intervention, responded to the questionnaire are reported. A regression model was able to explain 25% of the variance of the total score for IEI. The results suggest that geographic region and employment experience characteristics have small but significant influence on respondents' attitudes.