Promoting the Self-Determination of Students with Severe Cognitive Disabilities

This literature review explores five published articles focused on the promotion of self- determination of students with severe cognitive disabilities. The purpose of this literature review is to better understand the details of the interventions designed to support students with the most severe cognitive disabilities. Within this framework, data was collected to examine participants, settings, implementers, and results. All five studies reported positive outcomes for all students in the promotion of self-determination

Foundations for Self-Determination in Early Childhood: Preliminary Preschool Study

Foundations for self-determination begin in early childhood for children with disabilities with the onset of self-regulation and engagement in activities at home, school, and in the community. This article describes the development and preliminary results of an intervention model that encourages collaborative practices for parents and teachers around short-term goal setting to adjust environments for young children with special needs or at risk for delay. The Foundations Intervention was used with 48 children in authentic early childhood settings and involved parents, teachers, and a facilitator to enhance children’s self-regulation and engagement at home and school. Results showed feasibility of the intervention; positive child outcomes in goal attainment, self-regulation, and engagement measures were also evident. When parents and teachers communicated about a child’s strengths and needs within routines at home and school, this appeared to strengthen parent and teacher connections and helped children become more engaged or regulated in daily activities.U.S. Department of Education Grant R324A09026

Family-Professional Partnerships in Action during the Implementation of a Child-Focused Intervention

This qualitative study explores and identifies observable behaviors and interactions of family-professional partnerships in action formed during the implementation of the Foundations Intervention. The Foundations Intervention is an intervention requiring families and professionals to engage in a mutual task of identifying a child’s needs for change, selecting strategies to work on at both home and school environments, and then to reflect jointly on how well those strategies worked. The question for this study was to examine the observable interactions of the families and professionals as they worked together, to identify observable components of effective partnership. This study was an analysis of transcribed videotapes and other qualitative data gathered for 10 family-professional dyads who were engaging in the Foundations Intervention. The analysis involved coding the data using an initial framework developed by previous researchers on components of partnerships based on participants’ retrospective perspectives and insights about partnership. The goal was to identify components of partnership that are readily observable and evident in real time and within the relatively short time-frame of the Foundations Intervention, i.e., Partnerships in Action. The study results yielded a framework for Partnerships in Action, including four primary domains: communication, skills, equality, and collaboration. Within each of these domains, I also identified and defined a series of indicators. The Partnerships in Action framework is a first step toward development of a functional tool to measure more objective behaviors and to provide guidance toward promoting better family-professional partnerships across home and school environments

An Exploration of How the Foundations Intervention Influences Family-Professional Partnerships in Head Start: A Case Study

Abstract This study explores family-professional partnerships in a Head Start and considers how an intervention designed to address needs of young children through joint efforts by families and Head Start teachers may influence those partnerships. The site in this study exemplifies Head Start’s commitment to family partnership, making it a suitable setting for a case study. The researcher observed and interviewed three teachers, four family members, and one Head Start administrator. The first research question explored pre-existing attitudes and structures related to partnerships at this Head Start. Three themes emerged: (a) program understanding of family partnership; (b) national performance standards and program administrative structures emphasizing family support and participation; and, (c) local Head Start leadership. The second research question explored the intervention’s influence on this setting’s partnerships and identified four themes: (a) developing shared goals between family members and teachers; (b) sharing knowledge of home and school environments; (c) collaborating to achieve the child’s goals; and (d) interactions with enhanced communication, high expectations, and commitment. These seven themes showed how the process, which relied on existing beliefs and administrative structures, had positive impact on family partnership when using the Foundations intervention.   Keywords: partnership, Head Start, self-determination, early childhood, disabilities Â

Family-Professional Partnerships in Head Start: Practical Strategies Using a Partnership Intervention

This research to practice summarizes the findings of a study of family-professional partnerships in a Head Start.  Head Start’s commitment to family partnership, makes the program selected an exemplar for positive beliefs about families and the importance of partnership. Using the foundations of self-determination as a context for intervention, intentional interactions and increased understanding of both the teachers and the family members helped the research team better understand if the intervention was feasible in a Head Start setting. This summary includes the methods, findings, and practice implications for the study. Implications include the importance of home and school collaboration to mutually benefit children with special and unique learning needs

Fostering the Foundations of Self-Determination in Early Childhood: A Process for Enhancing Child Outcomes Across Home and School

Early childhood practitioners can play a vital role in the development of early self-determination in partnership with families. Self-determination has been generally considered to be about personal agency or control that can also relate to the quality of one’s life. Young children with disabilities start to develop a range of critical skills such as engagement and self-regulation that will be needed throughout their lives. These are the early foundational skills that lead to later self-determination. This paper describes a simple four-step process and key features of foundations of self-determination in early childhood, a collaborative process focusing on home–school partnerships. The unique alliance between each dyad (i.e., family member and early childhood practitioner) support child outcomes across naturally occurring routines at home and school. Each family and practitioner dyad uses attainable short-term goals embedded in home and school routines, intentional adult cues, and environmental modifications to promote foundational skills of self-determination in young children with disabilities

Fostering the Foundations of Self-Determination in EarlyChildhood: A Process for Enhancing Child Outcomes AcrossHome and School

Early childhood practitioners can play a vital role in the development of early self-determination in partnership with families. Self-determination has been generally considered to be about personal agency or control that can also relate to the quality of one’s life. Young children with disabilities start to develop a range of critical skills such as engagement and self-regulation that will be needed throughout their lives. These are the early foundational skills that lead to later self-determination. This paper describes a simple four-step process and key features of foundations of self-determination in early childhood, a collaborative process focusing on home–school partnerships. The unique alliance between each dyad (i.e., family member and early childhood practitioner) support child outcomes across naturally occurring routines at home and school. Each family and practitioner dyad uses attainable short-term goals embedded in home and school routines, intentional adult cues, and environmental modifications to promote foundational skills of self-determination in young children with disabilities

Foundations for Self-Determination in Early Childhood: An Inclusive Model for Children with Disabilities

This article introduces the Early Childhood Foundations Model for Self-Determination and provides a rationale for the need to consider the foundations of self-determination behavior that begin early in life. This model is based on the premise that young children with disabilities benefit from a collaborative partnership between important adults in the lives of children to provide a supportive, stimulating, and coordinated environment between inclusive classrooms and home settings. Within partnership, the Foundations Model establishes the proposition that the basic foundational skills for developing self-determination in later life require young children with disabilities to gain skills in (a) choice-making and problem solving, (b) self-regulation, and (c) engagement. In this position paper, the authors review literature related to these three foundational constructs and present a rationale for use of the Foundations Model as a guide to developing systematic interventions to start young students with disabilities on the road to building a foundation for self-determination