Early Interventionists in Infant and Early Childhood Programs: A Comparison of Preservice Training Needs

Recent changes in early childhood special education have led professionals to take a hard look at personnel preparation. It is clear that personnel certification standards and personnel preparation programs currently do not reflect the training called for by expanding roles or by the growing knowledge base. One of the major issues addressed has been the delineation of similar and disparate roles of early interventionists who will be employed to work with particular populations of children within the age continuum between birth and 6. Currently, the best guidance as to these different roles comes from expert opinion. The purpose of this paper is to summarize results of two studies designed to describe the roles of personnel employed in special programs for two different age groups, infants/toddlers and 3- to 5-year-olds, as well as perceived preservice training needs of these personnel.