Family Involvement in Early Intervention: Accepting the Unchangeable, Changing the Changeable, and Knowing the Difference

Abstract

This article provides a conceptual critique of the effort to define and judge early intervention in terms of the extent to which it is family centered. Transactional models of child development have demonstrated the extent to which family and other ecological characteristics can influence development of children beyond the influences of their biological characteristics. Although the transactional model leads interventionists to recruit wider aspects of the child's ecology to enhance the child's development, it does not necessarily lead to a family-centered model within which the child's concerns are expressed as part of the family's concerns. Three criticisms are raised that should be addressed before adopting a family-centered model of early intervention. First, the definition of family is indeterminate for individual American families, because individual family members have different and at times conflicting definitions of their family. Therefore, definition of a family's concerns is a process of negotiating a collective concern from individual family members' concerns. Second, early interventionists bring their own conceptions of the meaning of family to their work, which may reflect a disparity between interventionist and family being served. Third, empirical research about family processes and their relationship to individuals' development is inadequate at this time to guide family-centered interventions. The understanding of family dynamics may occur in some relationships with early interventionists, but only as a function of the intimacy the family is willing to allow. Insistance on family-centeredness requires a greater intrusion into family life unless one family members' concerns are accepted as a proxy for the family's concerns. Maintaining the boundaries of expertise available within early intervention programs can occur when an approach is child centered, acknowledging the transactional nature of the processes that support children's development. Extending the boundaries of expertise may require more extreme reorganization of services for children and families, integrating existing child welfare, health, and educational systems. Such integrations have not yet entered discussions of family-centered services except in the form of broad wishes about improved case management.