The school psychologist's role in the early childhood special education program. Tournal of Early Intervention

As part of a study to determine what role school psychologists might best fill in infant and preschool pro-grams, a survey was conducted of school psychologists currently working with elementary- and high school-age children and of early childhood special educators employed in preschool and infant programs. The survey endeavored to ascertain how each of these groups viewed the school psychologist’s role, and what each group thought the school psychologist could best contribute to early childhood and infant pro-grams. Two sets of questionnaires were analyzed representing 50 early childhood special educators and 82 school psychologists. The first examined the possible situations in which early childhood special edu-cators might request assistance from a school psychologist. The second questionnaire asked participants to rank order their preference of consultation models. Results indicated that the two groups hold very dif-ferent perceptions concerning the role of the school psychologist in early intervention programs. Implica-tions of the survey are discussed in terms of service delivery and of school psychology training. The past decade has witnessed a continuing rise in the number of preschool children with handicapping conditions who receive early intervention services in public pro