The Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council of the National Academies Committee on the Science of Children Birth to Age 8 just published a far-reaching report, titled "Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8: A Unifying Foundation" (Allen & Kelly, 2015). Although not specifically addressing those who serve infants and young children with disabilities, each of the 13 recommendations in the report are relevant for early childhood interventionists and the service delivery systems in which they work. Each recommendation is supported by a thorough analysis of need, as well as implementation strategies. Although each of these seems daunting when addressed separately, together they represent an integrated agenda for systemic change.

One strategy that has been recommended to unify the multiple and separate infrastructure components that support the workforce in early childhood intervention is an integrated and comprehensive system of personnel development (CSPD). Originally, the CSPD was developed to ensure that states had the number and quality of personnel available to meet the needs of children and their families under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Assistance Act (IDEA).

The Early Childhood Personnel Center has been funded by the Office of Special Education Programs to assist states to develop a CSPD infrastructure for all personnel serving children with disabilities and their families in whatever settings they are in (e.g., child care, home, early child hood programs). An integrated CSPD contains the following components: leadership, coordination, and sustainability; state personnel standards; preservice personnel development; in-service personnel development; recruitment and retention of personnel; and evaluation. Each component has a separate function, yet all are integrally related to the early childhood intervention system as described.

The leadership team is responsible to develop a sustainable plan for the CSPD. The state personnel standards subcomponent specifies criteria regarding the alignment of state standards and national standards established by discipline-specific organizations (e.g., Council for Exceptional Children, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, American Occupational Therapy Association, etc.) for personnel knowledge, skills, and competencies and state certification, licensure, credentialing, and/or endorsement upon these standards. The preservice personnel subcomponent addresses the needs for institutions of higher education to align programs of study with state and national personnel standards, coordinate with in-service training providers, and prepare students to work with infants, toddlers, and preschool children and their families. The in-service personnel development subcomponent requires the availability of appropriately targeted and effective training and technical assistance to retool, extend, and update the knowledge, skills, and competencies of the workforce. The recruitment and retention subcomponent delineates strategies that must be in place to ensure the availability of sufficient numbers of highly competent personnel to meet the demand for services in the state. Finally, the evaluation subcomponent provides the basis for collecting data and examining all elements of the CSPD to identify strengths and weaknesses and make appropriate modifications based on the findings. This last component is most important, as an integrated CSPD is informed by ongoing evaluation using multiple sources of data including the identification of new evidence to guide interventions, the training needs of the personnel to be able to implement interventions, the capacity of programs to meet quality standards, and child and family intervention results. The implementation of such a comprehensive system is critical for the transformation and sustainability of a workforce able to meet the growing needs of state systems of early childhood intervention.

CURRENT ISSUE

Our first article by Carl Dunst presents the results of a meta-synthesis on in-service professional development in early childhood intervention. Dunst reminds us that systematic reviews and meta-analysis of studies are necessary to understand the features and conditions that contribute to effective outcomes. The findings of the meta-synthesis presented in this article resulted in the identification of a number of effective evidence-based features that have been used across studies of in-service training. These key features include a description and demonstration of the intervention practice, active and authentic job-embedded opportunities to learn to use the practice, opportunities for reflection on the application and mastery of the practice, and a system of performance feedback during and after the in-service session to reinforce the initial learning. Dunst suggests that in-service training could be enhanced and more effective if these key components were always included.

Our second article by Erin Barton and Dana Lissman presents a single-subject study that examined two different methods of parent training with two mothers who had young children with disabilities. The parents participated in a group training using an abbreviated version of the Incredible Years parent training program. In addition to the group training, both mothers received individualized evidence-based coaching on positive parenting practices. The results across these parents suggests that a more intensive and individualized coaching strategy may be needed to maximize the outcomes of the group parent training program. Recommendations for practice are discussed.

Tania Boavida, Kate Akers, R. A. McWilliam, and Lee Ann Jung have also written about a study that has benefits for families whose children are in early childhood intervention. The Routines-Based Interview (RBI) was developed to assist early childhood interventionists to establish a relationship with the families they serve to more accurately access their needs and set intervention goals. The study investigated the psychometric properties of the RBI Implementation Checklist, using 120 early intervention professionals who conducted an RBI with a family. These data were then analyzed through a Rasch analysis to measure how the measure performed, how the interviewers performed, and the relationship between the two. Results indicated that the RBI Implementation Checklist was reliable. The authors discuss these findings and provide recommendations for future use of the RBI Checklist.

In our next article, Susan Milne and Jenny McDonald address the importance of adaptive functioning in the diagnosis of neurodevelopmental conditions in young children. They implemented a study that compared the results of two assessments on 52 preschool-age children: the Adaptive Behavior Assessment System II (ABAS-II) and the Adaptive Behavior Scales, Second Edition (Vineland II). The children's standard scores on the Vineland II were significantly higher than those on the ABAS-II, although both assessments revealed patterns of adaptive functioning. The age-equivalent scores on these assessments, however, more accurately described the amount and type of intervention supports required by a child than when using the standard scores alone. The authors conclude with a discussion on the importance and inclusion of an assessment of adaptive functioning in a diagnostic assessment.

The improvement of children's vocabulary is the focus of the next article by Jonna Bobzien, Corrin Richels, Kathryn Schwartz, Sharon Raver, Peggy Hester, and Lisa Morin. They describe a single-subject study conducted with four young children who have hearing loss and who were receiving oral instruction. The intervention consisted of repeated storybook reading paired with explicit instruction of novel vocabulary words. Data across the four children demonstrated that all children acquired the vocabulary words and were able to demonstrate both generalization and maintenance of the words after the intervention was conducted. The article concludes with recommendations about teaching vocabulary to young children with hearing loss.

Our last article by Shu-hsien Tseng describes a study in Taiwan that investigated teacher responses to children's initiations. The study included 107 teacher-child dyads: 53 children with developmental delays and 54 children without. The results suggested that children with developmental delays initiated interactions as much as their typical peers and that teachers reciprocated to both groups with the same degree of responsiveness. Most importantly, children's initiations were significantly associated with teachers' responses regardless of the presence of the social intent. The author concludes with a recommendation for teachers to increase their level of responsiveness to children's initiations in order to facilitate children's development.

I want to thank the authors of these articles for choosing to submit their work to Infants & Young Children, as well as thank the members of the editorial board who reviewed the manuscripts and provided feedback to the authors. I also want to acknowledge our continued commitment to publishing works by new authors and those from countries outside of the United States and our new commitment to expanding the knowledge base in early childhood intervention workforce development.

-Mary Beth Bruder, PhD

Editor

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