The Influence of State Variables on Early Intervention Policy Decisions, and Implications of these Decisions for the Effectiveness of Part C Programs

Part C of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) assures federal funds for the provision of Early Intervention (EI) services to children under the age of three with developmental delays. Although IDEA emphasizes the need for individualized and family-centered services, it remains otherwise vague in its policy requirements, allowing states to determine the details of their Part C programs' structures and service delivery. The resulting variation in states' Part C policies combined with the inherently individualized nature of EI services has befuddled recent movements to define and quantify service outcomes for child and family recipients of Early Intervention. This study attempts to characterize the processes and outcomes of Part C policy development at a state level in order to elucidate more and less successful strategies. I triangulated methods, combining a systematic review of published EI literature, analysis of public documents pertaining to Part C, and in-depth interviews with stakeholders in four states, in order to draw conclusions about what factors influence EI policy formation and program success. Similarities and differences across the four states indicate that the centralization of program structure, degree of interagency collaboration, advocacy of key spokespeople, political climate, and budgetary limitations all have important effects on Part C policies. Many of these variables also appear to enhance the quality of services delivered. However, the implications of programs' policy choices for the children and families they serve proved very difficult to determine, reaffirming the EI field's current need for and struggle with collecting outcome data. As OSEP's current reporting requirements move out of their infancy, compiling data at local, state, and national levels should facilitate further exploration of the relationship between state variables, Part C policy decisions, and benefits for the children and families that EI serves.Master of Public Healt