Practitioner-informed improvements to early childhood intervention performance checklists and practice guides

Carl J. Dunst; Deborah W. Hamby; Linda L. Wilson; Marilyn Espe-Sherwindt; Donna E. Nelson

doi:10.21831/reid.v3i1.14158

Practitioner-informed improvements to early childhood intervention performance checklists and practice guides

Carl J. Dunst, Orelena Hawks Puckett Institute 128 South Sterling Street Morganton, NC 28655, United States
Deborah W. Hamby, Orelena Hawks Puckett Institute, United States
Linda L. Wilson, The Enola Group, United States
Marilyn Espe-Sherwindt, Family Child Learning Center, Akron Children’s Hospital and Kent State University, United States
Donna E. Nelson, Expanding Horizons Early Intervention Program at the Center for Early Childhood, East Tennessee State University, United States

10.21831/reid.v3i1.14158

Abstract

Results from four early childhood practitioner field tests of performance checklists and early intervention practice guides are reported. Findings from the first field test were used to make changes and improvements in the checklists and practice guides evaluated in the second and third field tests, and findings from the latter two field tests were used to improve the checklist and practice guide evaluated in the fourth field test. Results indicated that changes made in response to practitioners’ suggestions and feedback were associated with (1) progressive increases in the practitioners’ social validity judgments of the checklists, practice guides, and checklist-practice guide correspondence, and (2) progressive decreases in the number of practitioner suggestions and feedback for improving the early intervention materials. The field-test research demonstrates the importance of practitioner input, suggestions, and feedback for improving the usefulness of early childhood intervention practices.

Keywords

early childhood intervention; performance checklists; practice guides; social validity; practitioner appraisals

Full Text:

PDF

References

Babbie, E. R. (2009). The practice of social research (12th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Bailey, D. B., Jr., & Wolery, M. (1992). Teaching infants and preschoolers with disabilities (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill.

Britto, P. R., Engle, P. L., & Super, C. M. (Eds.). (2013). Handbook of early childhood development research and its impact on global policy. New York, NY: Oxford.

Bruder, M. B., Dunst, C. J., & Mogro-Wilson, C. (2011). Confidence and competence appraisals of early intervention and preschool special education practitioners. International Journal of Early Childhood Special Education, 3(1), 13-37.

Coe, R. (2002, September). It's the effect size, stupid: What effect size is and why it is important. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the British Educational Research Association, University of Exeter, England. Retrieved from http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00002182.htm.

Cowan, P. A., Powell, D., & Cowan, C. P. (1998). Parenting interventions: A family systems perspective. In W. Damon, I. E. Sigel, & K. A. Renninger (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 4. Child psychology in practice (5th ed., pp. 3-72). New York, NY: Wiley.

Division for Early Childhood. (2014). DEC recommended practices in early intervention/early childhood special education. Retrieved from http://www.dec-sped.org/recommendedpractices

Dunst, C. J. (1996). Early intervention in the USA: Programs, models, and practices. In M. Brambring, H. Rauh, & A. Beelmann (Eds.), Early childhood intervention: Theory, evaluation, and practice (pp. 11-52). Berlin, Germany: de Gruyter.

Dunst, C. J. (2017a). Early childhood practitioner judgments of the social validity of performance checklists and parent practice guides. Journal of Education and Training Studies, 5(3), 176-187. Retrieved from http://redfame.com/journal/index.php/jets/article/view/2162 doi:10.11114/jets.v5i3.2162

Dunst, C. J. (2017b). Family systems early childhood intervention. In H. Sukkar, C. J. Dunst, & J. Kirkby (Eds.), Early childhood intervention: Working with families of young children with special needs (pp. 38-60). Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge.

Dunst, C. J. (2017c). Procedures for developing evidence-informed performance checklists for improving early childhood intervention practices. Journal of Education and Learning, 6(3), 1-13. Retrieved from http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/jel/article/view/66005 doi:10.5539/jel.v6n3px

Dunst, C. J. (in preparation). Research foundations for evidence-informed early childhood intervention performance checklists.

Dunst, C. J., Bruder, M. B., Trivette, C. M., & Hamby, D. W. (2006). Everyday activity settings, natural learning environments, and early intervention practices. Journal of Policy and Practice in Intellectual Disabilities, 3, 3-10. doi:10.1111/j.1741-1130.2006.00047.x

Dunst, C. J., & Espe-Sherwindt, M. (2017). Contemporary early intervention models, research, and practice for infants and toddlers with disabilities and delays. In J. M. Kauffman, D. P. Hallahan, & C. P. Pullen (Eds.), Handbook of special education (2nd ed., pp. 831-849). New York, NY: Routledge.

Dunst, C. J., Masiello, T., Meter, D., Swanson, J., & Gorman, E. (2010). Technical assistance providers' evaluation of the Center for Early Literacy Learning practice guides. CELLpapers, 5(3), 1-4. Retrieved from http://www.earlyliteracylearning.org/cellpapers/cellpapers_v5n3.pdf

Dunst, C. J., Pace, J., & Hamby, D. W. (2007). Evaluation of the Games for Growing tool kit for promoting early contingency learning. Asheville, NC: Winterberry Press.

Dunst, C. J., Raab, M., & Hamby, D. W. (2016). Interest-based everyday child language learning. Revista de Logopedia, Foniatria y Audiologia, 36, 153-161. doi:10.1016/j.rlfa.2016.07.003

Dunst, C. J., Raab, M., & Trivette, C. M. (2011). Characteristics of naturalistic language intervention strategies. Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and Applied Behavior Analysis, 5(3-4), 8-16. Retrieved from http://www.baojournal.com/SLP-ABA%20WEBSITE/index.html

Dunst, C. J., Raab, M., & Trivette, C. M. (2013a). Getting in step with responsive teaching. Everyday Child Language Learning Tools, Number 5, 1-4. Retrieved from http://www.puckett.org/CECLL/ECLLTools_5.pdf

Dunst, C. J., Raab, M., & Trivette, C. M. (2013b). Methods for increasing child participation in interest-based language learning activities. Everyday Child Language Learning Tools, Number 4, 1-6. Retrieved from http://www.puckett.org/CECLL/ECLLReport_7_LearnOps.pdf

Dunst, C. J., Trivette, C. M., Gorman, E., & Hamby, D. W. (2010). Further evidence for the social validity of the Center for Early Literacy Learning practice guides. CELLpapers, 5(1), 1-3. Retrieved from http://www.earlyliteracylearning.org/cellpapers/cellpapers_v5n1.pdf

Dunst, C. J., Trivette, C. M., & Raab, M. (2015). Utility of implementation and intervention performance checklists for conducting research in early childhood education. In O. N. Saracho (Ed.), Handbook of research methods in early childhood education: Vol. 1. Research methodologies (pp. 247-276). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Durlak, J. A. (2009). How to select, calculate, and interpret effect sizes. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 34(9), 917-928. doi:10.1093/jpepsy/jsp004

Eshel, N., Daelmans, B., Cabral de Mello, M., & Martines, J. (2006). Responsive parenting: Interventions and outcomes. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 84(12), 991-998. doi:10.1590/S0042-96862006001200016

Farrell, A., Kagan, S. L., & Tisdall, E. K. M. (Eds.). (2016). The SAGE handbook of early childhood research. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publishing.

Foster, S. L., & Mash, E. J. (1999). Assessing social validity in clinical treatment research issues and procedures. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 67, 308-319. doi:10.1037/0022-006X.67.3.308

Gawande, A. (2009). The checklist manifesto: How to get things right. New York, NY: Metropolitan Books.

Groark, C. J., Eidelman, S. M., Maude, S., & Kaczmarek, L. (2011). Early childhood intervention: Shaping the future for children with special needs and their families. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.

Guralnick, M. J. (Ed.) (2005). The developmental systems approach to early intervention. Baltimore, MD: Brookes.

Hunt, J. M. (1961). Intelligence and experience. New York, NY: Ronald Press.

Hunt, J. M. (1987). The effects of differing kinds of experiences in early rearing conditions. In I. Uzgiris & J. M. Hunt (Eds.), Infant performance and experience (pp. 39-97). Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Kazdin, A. E. (2005). Social validity. In B. S. Everitt & D. C. Howell (Eds.), Encyclopedia of statistics in behavioral science (Vol. 4, pp. 1875-1876). Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons.

Leko, M. M. (2014). The value of qualitative methods in social validity research. Remedial and Special Education, 35(5), 275-286. doi:10.1177/0741932514524002

Mackiewicz, J., & Yeats, D. (2014). Product review users' perceptions of review quality: The role of credibility, informativeness, and readability. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 57(4), 309-324. doi:10.1109/TPC.2014.2373891

McLean, M., Sandall, S. R., & Smith, B. J. (2016). A history of early childhood education. In B. Reichow, B. A. Boyd, E. E. Barton, & S. L. Odom (Eds.), Handbook of early childhood special education (pp. 3-20). Switzerland: Springer International.

Meisels, S. J., & Shonkoff, J. P. (2000). Early childhood intervention: A continuing evolution. In J. P. Shonkoff & S. J. Meisels (Eds.), Handbook of early childhood intervention (2nd ed., pp. 3-31). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Neill, J. (2006). ZCalc: For converting a standardised mean effect size (ES) into a z score and in expressing various ways (Version 0.1). Retrieved from www.wilderdom.com/research/ZCalc.xls

Nunnally, J. C., & Bernstein, I. H. (1994). Psychometric theory (3rd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Odom, S. L., Hanson, M. J., Blackman, J. A., & Kaul, S. (2003). Early intervention practices around the world. Baltimore, MD: Brookes.

Odom, S. L., & Wolery, M. (2003). A unified theory of practice in early intervention/early childhood special education: Evidence-based practices. Journal of Special Education, 37, 164-173. doi:10.1177/00224669030370030601

Raab, M., Dunst, C. J., & Trivette, C. M. (2013). Adult learning procedure for promoting caregiver use of everyday child language learning practices. Everyday Child Language Learning Reports, Number 3, 1-9. Retrieved from http://www.cecll.org/download/ECLLReport_3_AdultLearning.pdf

Reichheld, F. F. (2003). The one number you need to grow. Harvard Business Review, 81(12), 46-54.

Reichow, B., Boyd, B. A., Barton, E. E., & Odom, S. L. (Eds.). (2016). Handbook of early childhood special education. Switzerland: Springer International.

Schwartz, B. L. (2014). Memory: Foundations and applications (2nd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.

Spector, P. E. (1992). Summated rating scale construction: An introduction. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

SPSS Inc. (2005). SPSS 14.0. Statistical package for the social sciences. Chicago, IL: Author.

Strain, P. S., Barton, E. E., & Dunlap, G. (2012). Lessons learned about the utility of social validity. Education and Treatment of Children, 35, 183-200. doi:10.1353/etc.2012.0007

Sukkar, H., Dunst, C. J., & Kirkby, J. (Eds.). (2017). Early childhood intervention: Working with families of young children with special needs. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge.

Swanson, J., Raab, M., & Dunst, C. J. (2011). Strengthening family capacity to provide young children everyday natural learning opportunities. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 9, 66-80. doi:10.1177/1476718X10368588

Trivette, C. M., Dunst, C. J., & Hamby, D. W. (2010). Acceptability and importance of adaptations to literacy learning practices for young children with disabilities. CELLpapers, 5(4), 1-4. Retrieved from http://www.earlyliteracylearning.org/cellpapers/cellpapers_v5n4.pdf

Trivette, C. M., Dunst, C. J., Hamby, D. W., & Meter, D. (2012). Research synthesis of studies investigating the relationships between practitioner beliefs and adoption of early childhood intervention practices. Practical Evaluation Reports, 4(1), 1-19. Retrieved from http://www.puckett.org/Practical%20Evaluation%20reports/CPE_Report_Vol4No1.pdf

Trivette, C. M., Dunst, C. J., Masiello, T., Gorman, E., & Hamby, D. W. (2009). Social validity of the Center for Early Literacy Learning parent practice guides. CELLpapers, 4(1), 1-4. Retrieved from http://www.earlyliteracylearning.org/cellpapers/cellpapers_v4n1.pdf

Trivette, C. M., Raab, M., & Dunst, C. J. (2014). Factors associated with Head Start staff participation in classroom-based professional development. Journal of Education and Training Studies, 2(4), 32-45. doi:10.11114/jets.v2i4.449

Wainer, A., & Ingersoll, B. (2013). Intervention fidelity: An essential component for understanding ASD parent training research and practice. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 20(3), 335-357. doi:10.1111/cpsp.12045

Wehby, J. H., Maggin, D. M., Moore Partin, T. C., & Robertson, R. (2011). The impact of working alliance, social validity, and teacher burnout on implementation fidelity of the Good Behavior Game. School Mental Health, 4(1), 22-33. doi:10.1007/s12310-011-9067-4

What Works Clearinghouse. (2014). What Works Clearinghouse procedures and standards handbook. Washington, DC: U. S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. Retrieved from http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/pdf/reference_resources/wwc_procedures_v3_0_standards_handbook.pdf.

Wilson, C. (2013). Credible checklists and quality questionnaires: A user-centered design method. Waltham, MA: Morgan Kaufman.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21831/reid.v3i1.14158