Revisiting a Comparison of Eligibility Policies for Infant/toddler Programs and Preschool Special Education Programs
Journal article by Joan Danaher, Jo Shackelford, Gloria Harbin; Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, Vol. 24, 2004
Journal Article Excerpt
Revisiting a Comparison of Eligibility Policies for Infant/toddler Programs and Preschool Special Education Programs. by Joan Danaher , Jo Shackelford , Gloria Harbin The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) contains separate programs for infants and toddlers (Part C) and preschoolers (Part B, Section 619). Among the differences in these programs are eligibility policies and options that states may use for defining the eligible population. When the Infants and Toddlers Program was created (Education for All Handicapped Children Act Amendments, 1986), the goal was to serve children with developmental delays and, at states' discretion, children at risk for delays. Preschool services would remain a program for children with traditionally identified disabilities. Parents, professionals, and policymakers were concerned about continuity in eligibility as children moved from early intervention for infants and toddlers to preschool special education and related services. These early concerns focused on three areas: 1. inclusion of children at risk for developmental delay in the Infant and Toddler Program, 2. possible differences arising from the use of categorical versus noncategorical approaches to eligibility determination, and 3. differences in the level of delay required for eligibility by the two programs. Subsequent reauthorizations of the law by Congress--the Act now renamed as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act--added developmental delay as an optional eligibility category for children ages 3 through 5 years (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments, 1991) and then extended the age range that states could use for developmental delay from 3 through 9 years (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments, 1997). Table 1 summarizes these policies. Despite the changes in federal legislation, concerns have continued about the potential negative impact disparate policies could have on families, who receive early intervention services but are denied services when their children reach 3 years of age. An earlier study comparing the states' Part C and Part B eligibility policies found some cause for this concern in more than half the states (Harbin, Danaher, & Derrick, 1994). In the study reported here, the authors sought to determine whether policy changes since the first study had improved the potential for continuity between the two programs. The authors wish to stress that the comparison dealt only with policies documented in states' regulations, guidelines, or memoranda. At the time of the first study, policy implementation was new. With years of implementation, some states have revised their policies and are now beginning to address questions of continuity more directly. This repetition of the earlier study is limited only to the direction of policy changes over time. Implementation of eligibility policies at the local level may be very different from what the state policy permits. Implementation is affected by many factors, including awareness of the policy, training and expertise in implementing all aspects of the policy, and organizational culture. For example, local preschool program staff may not be informed about using professional judgment, may have little expertise in applying it, or may not believe that children whose test scores do not meet a specified criteria should be served in preschool special education. A Part B eligibility policy at the state level allowing professional judgment of a child's qualification for services thus might not be implemented at the local level. Key differences in the federal policies are as follows. Part C allows states to include children who are at risk for developmental delay; Part B does not. Part B lists disability categories under which a child may be eligible, plus a developmental delay category similar to, but not as broad as, Part C. Thus, because Part C serves children who are at risk, this is a potential source of discontinuity that cannot be rectified by the Part B program. Both Part B and Part C can ameliorate this problem through referrals to other programs. Eight states include some portion of the at-risk population in their Infant and Toddler Program eligibility policies (Shackelford, 2004). This number is down from the 12 states that did so at the time of the first comparison study. State policies on serving children who are at risk range from one state's narrowly focused policy that includes only the children of parents with developmental disabilities to policies that include as many as 30 risk factors, any one of which may be used to determine eligibility. The number of states including children who are at risk has steadily decreased, probably due to concerns about the cost of serving larger numbers (Shackelford, 2004).At the time of the first comparison, approximately 30% of the states used only ... |
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