Parent Education: Easing the Transition to Preschool

having 3-year-olds with special education needs to experience transition from early intervention infant programs to special education preschool programs. The proposed regulations for P.L. 99-457 require that a transi-tion plan be part of each Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP), although the regulations provide little detail regarding its implementation. The transition model described in this case study focuses on educating and empowering parents to become long-term, independent, informed advocates for their children. This parent education program is centered around a series of six parent workshops conducted by the infant program staff 6 months prior to the children's transition. The workshops include presentations by the infant staff, group discussions, and handouts. As a follow-up to the individual workshops, transition assistance is provided to each family individually by the home-based teachers. Parents ' evalua-tions indicate high levels of satisfaction. Implications for selecting transi-tion plans for families are discussed. Parents with children attending special education preschool pro-grams often experience stress when entering school-age programs (Fowler, Chandler, Johnson, &C Stella, 1988). This is due to the amount and variety of change that children and families experience when their child makes a transition across service delivery systems (Johnson, Chandler, Kerns, & Fowler, 1986). Several models have been developed to facilitate this change (e.g., Diamond, Spiegel-McGill, & Hanrahan, 1988; Fowler et. al., 1988). In most states, the implementation of P.L. 99-457 will also requir