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Parent Education in Early Intervention: A Call for a Renewed Focus

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Parent Education in Early Intervention: A Call for a Renewed Focus

Gerald Mahoney, Ann Kaiser, Luigi Girolametto, James MacDonald, Cordelia Robinson, Philip Safford and Donna Spiker
Topics in Early Childhood Special Education 1999 19: 131
DOI: 10.1177/027112149901900301

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 131

Parent Education in Early Intervention:

A Call for a Renewed Focus

Gerald Mahoney,
Children’s Hospital
Medical Center of Akron,
Ann Kaiser,
Vanderbilt University, Parent education
as a key component of early intervention has been greatly de-

Luigi Girolametto,
University of Toronto,
emphasized
sistencies during the past 15 years, we believe, because of the perceived incon-
between the purposes and goals of parent education and family-
centered approaches to early intervention. We argue that research indicating that par-
James MacDonald, ent involvement is critical to early intervention effectiveness and that parents want in-
Communicating Partners, formation about specific ways they can help their children’s development supports the
Cordelia Robinson, need for parent education in early intervention. We propose that the early intervention
field address the concerns expressed about the lack of sensitivity in parent education
University of Colorado
Health Sciences Center, approaches, develop strategies for parent education that are consistent with contem-
porary family service concepts, address the need for explicit instruction of service
Philip Safford, providers in parent education strategies, and conduct research on the immediate and
Case Western Reserve long-term effects of parent education on children and families.
University,
and
Donna Spiker,
Stanford University

Parent education is the process of providing parents and
other primary caregivers with specific knowledge and
childrearing skills with the goal of promoting the devel-
opment and competence of their children. Although al-
most any activity that parents become involved with in
early intervention could be construed as educational, the
term parent education typically refers to systematic ac-
tivities implemented by professionals to assist parents in
accomplishing specific goals or outcomes with their chil-
dren. Our definition of parent education includes the ex-
pectation that parents will acquire knowledge and skills
that allow them to mediate or extend the intervention with
their child. Typical goals of parent education include
teaching parents strategies to assist children in attaining
developmental skills, helping parents manage children’s
behavior in the course of daily routines, and enhancing
parents’ skills in engaging their children in play and so-
cial interaction.
Parent education may take a variety of forms, rang-
ing from individualized coaching by a speech-language
clinician during play interactions at home to viewing
videotapes of difficult child interactions and discussing
them in a teacher-led parent group meeting to reading a
popular press book on effective toilet training. Parent ed-
ucation differs from support in that its primary purpose
is instructing the parent rather than encouraging or so-
cially supporting the parent. Parent education may in
fact provide encouragement and support to the parent,
but that is not its primary purpose.
One of the most important developments in early
intervention during the past 30 years has been the shift
to providing services in collaboration with parents and
families. This emphasis is reflected in family-centered ap-
proaches to care, direct family support, and the imple-
mentation of early intervention based on Individualized
Family Service Plans (IFSPs). Some professionals seem to

e-mail: gmahoney@kent.edu

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132
perceive the explicit instruction of parents with knowl-
edge and skills as incompatible with this family-centered
philosophy. Possibly, parent education is viewed as too
narrowly focusing on the development of the child, con-
straining parents’ role to teaching, and being inconsistent
with valuing diverse cultural approaches to parenting.
The Division of Early Childhood (DEC) recom-
mended practice guidelines for family participation in in-
tervention programs for children with disabilities have
proposed that &dquo;families are equal members who can join
together with staff and can take part in all aspects of the
early intervention system, including all aspects of their
child’s care and all levels of decision making&dquo; (Vincent &
Beckett, 1993, p. 19). This proposition implies a model for
working with parents in which parent education is one
of several options. These guidelines attach relatively lit-
tle importance to parents playing a mediating role in the
education or therapeutic process, and place more empha-
sis &dquo;on equality, trust, and mutual respect&dquo; (Vincent &
Beckett, 1993, p. 24).
There has been little discussion of parent education in
recent early intervention literature. For example, a review
of five early intervention textbooks published during the
past 5 years (Dunlap, 1997; Hanson & Lynch, 1995;
Howard, Williams, Port, & Lepper, 1997; Noonan &
McCormick, 1993; Odom & McLean, 1996) indicated
that none of these books had chapters on the topic of
parent education; the number of references to parent ed-
ucation ranged from none (0) to two. During this same
5-year period, less than 10% of all articles published in
the three major early intervention journals (Topics in
Early Childhood Special Education, Journal of Early In-
tervention, and In fant-Toddler Intervention) addressed
parent education as we have defined it in this article.
Many early interventionists have reported that par-
ent education is a major part of their job responsibilities
(Filer & Mahoney, 1996). However, a recent investigation
has raised some questions about how much direct provi-
sion of knowledge and demonstration of skills occurs.
McBride and Peterson (1997) conducted observations of
160 home-based early intervention sessions. Results in-
dicated that interventionists primarily worked directly
with children, although often in conjunction with a par-
ent or another adult. &dquo;The content of these interactions
focused almost exclusively on the child’s development... ,
and home interventionists spent over half of the time di-
rectly teaching the child&dquo; (p. 226). McBride and Peterson
concluded that their data described a model of child-
directed intervention in which the interventionist func-
tioned as the key agent of change, with little emphasis on
working collaboratively with parents to implement strate-
gies or activities to promote the development of their child.
As a field, we must discuss whether we have any
knowledge and skills to offer to parents, both in terms of
things they can do and in terms of actions that are better
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not taken. If we decide that we do indeed have useful in-
formation and skills to transmit, we need to determine
whether that function takes priority over child-focused
interventions. Dialogue is needed to develop culturally
sensitive and collaborative approaches adapted to indi-
vidual parent needs and learning styles. Moreover, open
discussion of parent education practices is needed to guide
personnel training programs and to ensure that practi-
tioners develop the skills required to adapt their assistance
to different circumstances. Finally, we must address the
dilemma that practitioners encounter in trying to respond
to the multiple demands of families, including family
needs for support, information, and parent education
with limited time and resources.
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
Historically, parents were viewed, at best, as peripheral
to the child’s education and treatment and, at worst, as
obstacles or even adversaries (Turnbull & Turnbull, 1990).
When the role of parents in their children’s education was
eventually acknowledged, the relationship between profes-
sionals and parents was usually &dquo;a one-sided one, predi-
cated on the presumed superior knowledge of the former&dquo;
(Safford & Safford, 1996, p. 298). However, in the early
1970s, when early intervention demonstration projects
for children with disabilities were first being developed,
some programs advanced principles of intervention that
would be acceptable today. For example, Shearer and
Shearer (1977) identified the following principals:
1. Learning occurs in the parent’s and child’s
natural environment;
2. There is direct and constant access to be-
havior as it occurs naturally;
3. It is more likely that learned behavior will
generalize and be maintained if the behav-
iors have been learned in the child’s home
environment and taught by the child’s nat-
ural reinforcing agent;
4. If instruction occurs in the home, there is
more opportunity for full family partici-
pation in the teaching process;
5. There is access to the full range of behav-
iors, many of which could not be targeted
for modification in a classroom;
6. The training of parents, who already are
natural reinforcing agents, will provide
them with the skills necessary to deal with
new behaviors when they occur;
7. Finally, because the home teacher is work-
ing on a one-to-one basis with the parents
and the child, individualization of instruc-
tional goals for both is an operational reality.

Despite these early advocates of a progressive ap-
proach, the predominant mode of intervention involved
&dquo;professional efforts directed toward helping families
with disabled children focused upon parents and children
separately&dquo; (Robinson, Rosenberg, & Beckman, 1988,
p. 111). Teachers and therapists worked with the child;
a caseworker provided counseling to help parents ac-
cept and adjust to having a child with special needs, fre-
quently focusing on working through the grief cycle
(Bromwich, 1984; Gargiulo, 1985). Parents were viewed
as clients, not partners.
Parent education-specifically, parent-mediated
intervention models-has been guided by diverse theoret-
ical frameworks, ranging from a psychoanalytic &dquo;treat-
ment of the child via the parent&dquo; approach (Furman &
Katan, 1969, p. 24) to behavioral and social learning ap-
proaches (Kaiser & Fox, 1986; Rosenberg & Robinson,
1988). In large measure, however, the shift in the 1970s
toward increasing use of parent-mediated intervention
reflected the influence of the compensatory education
model and the recognition that, to be effective, interven-
tion needed to be embedded into daily routines (Robin-
son et al., 1988). The compensatory education model
posited that educational failure among children of poor
families reflected sociocultural disadvantages and that
improved parenting could compensate for some of these
disadvantages. Training parents to be more effective teach-
ers of their young children was a primary intervention
strategy (e.g., Deutsch & Brown, 1964; John, 1963).
This perspective influenced the criteria for federal
sponsorship of early intervention programs for children
with disabilities under the Handicapped Children’s Early
Education Program (HCEEP). &dquo;It [is] mandatory that
projects develop training programs for parents with the
objective of teaching parents to be effective in working
with and teaching their own child&dquo; (Shearer & Shearer,
1977, p. 96). Thus, the concept of parents as teachers
emerged from the implied need for educating parents
about child development content and competencies and
strategies believed to facilitate competence in children
(Rosenberg & Robinson, 1988). Initially, parents’ role in
early intervention entailed diverse instructional responsi-
bilities. It was recommended that parents be trained to
plan, implement, and evaluate direct instructional ses-
sions with their child, maintain systematic data records
of their child’s progress, and participate with profession-
als in regular meetings on their child (Karnes & Teska,
1980). The second aspect of this early rationale for parent-
mediated interaction was an economic rationale, embed-
ded in a logical and data-based argument that promotion
of development required consistency in the way in which
parents and other caregivers interacted, encouraged, and
disciplined a child. At that time (late 1960s), full-time
childcare for children ages 3 and under with disabilities
was the exception; therefore, the logical (i.e., most avail-
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133
able and least expensive) mediator of that consistency
was the child’s mother, or perhaps grandmother.
CRITICISMS OF PARENT EDUCATION
In the past 20 years, there have been a number of criti-
cisms of parent education, including the burden that home
programming imposes on parents (Rosenberg & Robin-
son, 1988), the relationship between parent and profes-
sional in parent education (Barrera, 1991), the implicit
blaming of parents (Turnbull & Turnbull, 1990), the role
conflict for parents (Hanson & Hanline, 1990; Vincent &
Beckett, 1993), and the potential cultural bias of parent
education (Hanson & Lynch, 1995). Despite the fre-
quency of these concerns in the early intervention litera-
ture, there have been surprisingly few empirical studies
of the extent to which parents actually experience parent
education as culturally biased, resulting in an undesired
burden, implying blame, or interfering with their pri-
mary role as parents. Little empirical information exists
about the manner in which parent education is delivered,
the relationship between parents and professionals as a
context for parent education, or the value that parents
perceive in the skills taught to them. Without systematic
evaluations of parent education programs that address
the long-standing concerns raised in the literature, pro-
fessionals cannot make decisions about parent education
based on evidence other than their own personal experi-
ences.
Alternative Approaches to
Working
with Families
Ironically, the emergence of family-centered care and
family support as core features of early intervention may
have been one of the factors contributing to the decline
of parent education. Family-centered care can be defined
as a friendly, respectful partnership with families that in-
cludes the provision of emotional and educational sup-
ports (Burton, 1992; Dunst, 1990; Kovach & Kjerland,
1989) and opportunities for parents to participate in ser-
vice delivery and to make decisions as to how available
services best meet their needs (Bailey, 1991; Burton, 1992;
Dunst, 1990; Murphy & Lee, 1991). The term family
centered was adapted from the health care field. The
Association for the Care of Children’s Health (Shelton,
Jeppson, & Johnson, 1987) defined principles of meeting
the whole family’s needs-not just those of the child-as
a means for making care more accessible and effective
for families and children.
The goals of family-centered philosophy are to in-
volve parents as more equal and active partners, to rec-
ognize the central and long-term importance of the role
they play, and to acknowledge that intervention services
134
exist tohelp parents achieve their dreams about and
carry outtheir responsibilities with their child (Mahoney
& Wheeden, 1997). The view of parent education as pro-
fessionally driven, disruptive of family life, predicated on
constructs of parental deficiency and blame, and antago-
nistic to nontraditional cultural values, has been re-
garded as antithetical to family-centered philosophy.
Family support is an approach to early intervention
that emphasizes family services and resources primarily
designed to help the family cope with the demands as-
sociated with caring for their child (Dunst, Trivette, &
Jodry, 1997). This model assumes that, when parents
have an adequate number and quality of social supports,
they will be less stressed, experience greater personal well-
being, and have more positive attitudes toward their
child. These parent characteristics are proposed to result
in parents having more opportunities to interact and play
with their child and a greater commitment to their child’s
intervention, which in turn results in the child’s attaining
higher levels of developmental functioning (Dunst, 1990;
Dunst, Trivette, & Cross, 1986; Dunst, Trivette, & Deal,
1988; Dunst et al., 1997).
Implicit in the family support approach is the view
that parents’ effectiveness at addressing their children’s
developmental needs is affected primarily by their
socioeconomic and psychological well-being and only
secondarily by their knowledge and childrearing skills
(Weissbord, 1993). These assumptions contrast sharply
with those of parent education, which emphasizes the
importance of the parents’ childrearing knowledge and
specific skills for enhancing their children’s development
(Mahoney & Wheeden, 1997). Recently, family support
activities appear to have replaced parent education (McWil-
liam, Winton, & Crais, 1996). In part, this change in em-
phasis has occurred because family support is presumed
to accomplish the same ultimate goal as parent educa-
tion-to enhance children’s development and well-being.
The Need for a Renewed Focus on
Parent Education
As researchers and higher education faculty who have
devoted our professional careers to promoting the in-
volvement of parents and other primary caregivers in
early intervention activities, we acknowledge that there
are problems related to how families have been treated,
and that some of the most egregious examples of inap-
propriate treatment have occurred in the context of edu-
cating parents. We believe strongly that the concepts of
family-centered care and family support have greatly en-
hanced our sensitivities toward families and helped to
expand notions of early intervention to include family
and community supports that are vital to the develop-
ment and well-being of all children. Nevertheless, we
maintain that contemporary attitudes regarding parent
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education are problematic, insofar as they could un-
dermine the potential of early intervention to achieve its
vision-to help children realize their developmental poten-
tial within the context of family and community activities.
Our views have been shaped by our own experiences in
developing and validating parent education models and
procedures. Yet, we maintain that there are legitimate
reasons other than our professional self-interests that call
the field to examine current attitudes regarding parent
education. In the following section, we describe three of
these reasons.
Results of Early Efficacy Studies. Par-
Intervention
ent education, specifically parent-mediated in-
or more
tervention, is predicated on the view that children’s
development can be facilitated by enhancing parents’
strategies for interacting with their children. This view
can be contrasted with family support models of inter-
vention, which posit that parents need not change their
childrearing behavior but rather need to have greater op-
portunities to engage in their natural style of parenting,
and child-directed interventions, which may assume no
direct relationship between parenting and early interven-
tion outcomes.
Mahoney, Boyce, Fewell, Spiker, and Wheeden
(1998) re-examined developmental outcomes attained
by more than 600 children participating in four early in-
tervention research studies in relation to parent-child
interaction, family support, and intensity of service. These
studies included the Infant Health and Development
Program (IHDP; 1990), the Longitudinal Studies of the
Effects and Costs of Alternative Types of Early Interven-
tion (Casto & White, 1993), the PALS (Play and Learn-
ing Strategies) Program (Fewell & Wheeden, 1998), and
the Family-Centered Outcome study (Mahoney & Bella,
1998).
Comparisons of outcomes across these projects in-
dicated that the effectiveness of intervention on children’s
development was not related to the amount of support
services that programs provided, nor to the amount or
intensity of child-directed services that children received.
Rather, intervention effectiveness appeared to be related
to changes in the mothers’ style of relating to or caring
for their children. Results indicated that children in these
intervention programs attained higher levels of develop-
mental functioning only when their mothers increased
their level of responsiveness while interacting with them.
These changes in parent-child interaction occurred in in-
tervention programs that either focused directly on teach-
ing interactive skills to parents or encouraged maternal
responsiveness through selected parent-child intervention
activities. However, changes in parent-child interaction
did not occur in programs that primarily emphasized
family support or professionally implemented, child-
directed interventions.

Another study providing strong support for the
view that parent involvement is the key to intervention
effectiveness is that of Kaiser, Hancock, and Hester ( 1998 ),
who compared the effects of two parent-implemented
and one therapist-implemented naturalistic communica-
tion interventions. Seventy-three preschool children with
communication delays were randomly assigned to one of
four conditions: therapist-implemented Enhanced Milieu
Teaching, parent-implemented Enhanced Milieu Teach-
ing, parent-implemented Responsive Interaction, or con-
trol. In theparent-implemented treatments, parents were
taught language intervention strategies, which they prac-
ticed with their children during 24 individual sessions in
a clinic setting. Children in the therapist-implemented
condition received 24 sessions of communication inter-
vention in the same setting.
Children’s development was assessed immediately
before and after intervention and 6 months later. At the
end of the treatment, the children in each of the three
treatment groups showed significantly greater increases
in language skills than children in the control group, al-
though there were no differences among the three inter-
vention methods. However, 6 months after treatment,
children whose parents had been taught either of the
parent-implemented interventions showed significantly
greater use of productive language than children who
had received the therapist-implemented treatment. On
average, during the 6-month postintervention period,
children in the parent-implemented treatment groups
gained 8.5 months, whereas children in the therapist-
implemented treatment group gained only 6 months.
These differences were confirmed by home observations,
which indicated that in the parent-implemented treat-
ment groups, parents generalized and maintained their
language facilitation skills during the 6-month follow-up
period. Similar positive effects on children’s communica-
tion when parents were taught strategies for use in day-
to-day interactions have been reported by Girolametto,
Weitzman, and Clements-Baartman (1998).
What Parents Want From Early Intervention Pro-
grams. Mahoney and colleagues conducted two large-
scale survey studies to examine the types of services that
parents wanted from their early intervention programs
(Mahoney & Filer, 1996; Mahoney, O’Sullivan, & Denne-
baum, 1990a). In both studies, national and regional
samples of more than 250 mothers whose children were
receiving early intervention completed the Family Fo-
cused Intervention Scale (Mahoney, O’Sullivan, &
Dennebaum, 1990b) to describe the types of family ser-
vices that they would like to receive from their programs.
Results indicated that mothers’ highest preferences were
for parent education activities (child information and
family instruction activities), which were nearly 25%
higher than their preferences for family support activities
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135
(systems engagement, resource assistance, and personal/
family assistance). Parents’ preferences for intervention
services remained stable over the 4-year time period be-
tween these two studies, even though the prevalence of
certain types of family support activities (e.g., personal/
family assistance) appeared to increase by more than 20%.
These data indicated that, although parents view family
support activities as important components of early in-
tervention, support services do not replace their desire or
need for parent education.
CHALLENGES OF PARENT EDUCATION
A renewed emphasis on parent education as an integral
component of early intervention requires that we (a) re-
consider our assumptions about parent-mediated interven-
tion, (b) develop an empirical basis for parent-mediated
intervention, and (c) develop professional expertise in
the instruction of parents. We propose that the following
four assumptions should guide consideration of parent
education:
1. Parent-mediated intervention is philosophi-
cally compatible with family-centered ap-
proaches to early intervention.
2. Parent-mediated intervention is multi-
faceted and embeds a continuum of
approaches and content.
3. Parent involvement in parent education is a
choice.
4. Instruction of parents to implement inter-
ventions with their children requires spe-
cific professional expertise.
First, parent education is philosophically compati-
ble with family-centered approaches to early intervention.
In his model of ecological systems, Bronfenbrenner (1979)
emphasized the integral relationship between parents’ ef-
fectiveness in their childrearing roles within the family
and the demands, stresses, and supports emanating from
other settings. However, in his earlier work, Bronfenbren-
ner (1975) noted that &dquo;intervention programs which place
major emphasis on involving the parent directly [italics
added] in activities fostering the child’s development are
likely to have constructive impact at any age&dquo; (p. 464).
Effective early intervention practices provide children
with learning opportunities that have development-
enhancing effects, provide parenting supports so that
parents have the time and energy, knowledge, and skills
to promote child learning, and provide both child- and
parent-level supports in a family-centered manner (C. J.
Dunst, personal communication, April 18, 1998). It is
possible provide parent education within the context
to
of a family-centered approach to services and to include
136
both family support and parent education (Mahoney &
Wheeden, 1997). The manner in which parent education
is delivered, choices about content and goals, and the re-
lationship between professionals and parents are all as-
pects of this process that define the philosophical and
functional compatibility between parent education and
contemporary models of family-centered services. Sen-
sitively delivered instruction to parents is a process that
respects and dignifies the role of parents and need not
imply that parents are deficient in any way. For example,
current models of parent-implemented communication in-
terventions emphasize teaching new language skills in the
context of everyday interactions at home (Girolametto,
Greenberg, & Manolson, 1986; Kaiser, 1993; Kaiser et al.,
1998).
Second,
it is important to recognize that parent ed-
ucation is multifaceted construct. Figure 1 illustrates
a Time; Greenspan & Weider, 1998) or on helping parents
some of the complex dimensions of parent education, in-
cluding what is being taught and what are the intended
outcomes of the education process. Parent education en-
compasses a range of content, from providing informa-
tion about a child’s current level of development (e.g.,
FIGURE 1. Important aspects of parent education.
Downloaded from tec.sagepub.com at OhioLink on November 12, 2014
White, 1985) to instructing parents in the implementa-
tion of a programmatic approach to promoting complex
skills over time (e.g., Lovaas, 1987). Moreover, the ex-
pected outcomes of parent education range from increases
in knowledge about development through changes in
parent-child interaction to children’s acquisition of spe-
cific skills and integrated skill sequences over time and
contexts. Parent education may be short term (e.g., a brief
demonstration of a specific feeding strategy) or long term
(e.g., parent collaboration in a child’s language interven-
tion program over several years). The parent educator’s
goals may encompass teaching specific parenting skills or
general qualities of parent-child interaction that facili-
tate changes in children’s development over time. Parent
education may focus on intensive parent-child activities
conducted in the context of a specific period (e.g., Floor
to support their children’s functioning in the context of
everyday interactions (Girolametto, Pierce, & Weitzman,
1997; Kaiser et al., 1998; MacDonald & Carroll, 1992).
There may be instances in which systematic strategies for
behavior management are taught because the child’s be-

havior difficulties interfere with the functioning of the
child and family in their everyday environments. Less for-
mal interventions to support positive child behavior, such
as home environmental arrangement (Hemmeter & Kai-
ser, 1990), may be sufficient for some children and fam-
ilies. The challenge for early intervention as a field is to
explicate the options for content, outcome, and approaches
to teaching, so that the full range of options for parent
education are presented and available to families. With
the range of options presented, parents and professionals
can select what is needed and acceptable for the family
and child.
Third, engaging in parent-mediated intervention
should be a choice. It may not always be the right choice
for a family, child, or professional at a given time. When
families are stressed and lacking in basic resources, par-
ent education may need to take a backseat to these other
concerns. When children have immediate and critical
needs for care or for learning a skill, it may be more ef-
ficient for the professional to address those needs directly
and then to teach the parent strategies for meeting these
needs if the parent so chooses. When the professional does
not have the skills to educate the parent effectively, al-
ternatives must be found. Those alternatives might include
identifying another professional with skills to provide in-
struction to the parent (e.g., another therapist skilled in
teaching feeding strategies), referring parents for services
that target the parent’s and child’s needs (e.g., behavior
management training provided by parents trained in this
area), or acquiring informational materials designed for
parents (e.g., information available from the statewide
parent training centers).
Parent training is often reported to be more easily
implemented with parents who are relatively more edu-
cated and less stressed by their social and economic con-
texts (Kaiser & Fox, 1986). It cannot be concluded that
only middle class parents can be successful in learning new
strategies to support their children’s development. For ex-
ample, Delaney and Kaiser (1998) taught mothers from
very-low-income neighborhoods who had children with
early language delays and behavior problems strategies
to support communication and manage their children’s
behavior. The mothers learned and generalized these strat-
egies to home interactions.
The choice regarding parent education is not a yes-
no choice, but rather a complex set of choices about
source, format, timing, content, goals, and intensity of in-
volvement. The parents’ choices should drive the design
and implementation of parent education. Choosing par-
ent education should not preclude choosing other ser-
vices. Ideally, parent education is a choice that builds on
and enhances a comprehensive intervention service plan.
Fourth, parent education requires specific expertise.
Most early interventionists have been trained to work
with children, not adults. Parent education requires that
Downloaded from tec.sagepub.com at OhioLink on November 12, 2014
137
professionals understand core constructs of adult learn-
ing (Knowles, 1984) and techniques for teaching parents
specific skills (Girolametto, Pearce, & Weitzman, 1996;
Kaiser, Hester, Alpert, & Whiteman, 1995). Research on
training parent educators to teach parents to facilitate
their children’s language development has identified five
separate skill domains necessary for effective parent ed-
ucation. These include (a) fluent conceptual knowledge
of the intervention strategy, (b) skill in doing the in-
tervention with the child, (c) ability to provide clear
information with concrete examples, (d) coaching, and
(e) providing specific feedback (Hester, Kaiser, Alpert, &
Whiteman, 1996). To be well prepared for parent edu-
cation, early intervention personnel must be grounded
in principles of family-centered services, have skills for
interpersonal interactions with parents, have domain-
specific information, and specific skills for teaching par-
ents. To meet the parents’ specific needs and to adapt to
the child’s and parents’ style of learning, the professional
must be fluent in the process of parent education. Flu-
ency requires specific training, opportunities to practice
with feedback, and mentoring by colleagues who are
more experienced (Kaiser et al., 1995). If parent educa-
tion is to be an integral component of early intervention,
personnel preparation programs must address it in their
curricula.
RESEARCH NEEDS
The empirical basis for parent education largely consists
of studies demonstrating the effects of teaching parents
new skills (see Kaiser et al., 1998; Girolametto et al., 1996;
MacDonald, 1989) and correlational studies showing a
contribution of parent education to overall outcomes for
children (see Mahoney et al., 1998). Notably absent are
studies that examine how parent education is best imple-
mented and explore the range of parent education options
described in the previous sections. If parent education is
to be included in early intervention, we must expand the
evidence that supports its use, and we must use research
as a means of developing more effective strategies for
parent education. The research agenda related to parent
education must include (a) culturally appropriate strate-
gies for parent education; (b) effectiveness studies that
include both child and family outcomes; (c) examination
of parent education strategies that address how to teach,
what to teach, and who can effectively teach parents;
(d) development of strategies for the range of options for
content and outcomes as noted in Figure I; and (e) the in-
tegration of family support and parent education.
The population of children and families in early in-
tervention is multicultural. Research is needed as a basis
for understanding parenting within cultural contexts and
to develop parent education strategies and content that
 138
fit the cultural values of families. Professionals and par-
ents from varied cultural backgrounds must be our part-
ners in this research effort, and we must draw from
cross-cultural and sociological literature on parenting.
As a field, we have only just begun to consider the needs
of culturally diverse families (Hanson & Lynch, 1992);
however, our efforts in the area of parent education
should be anchored in the intent to develop culturally re-
sponsive strategies and content.
Both effectiveness and efficacy studies of parent-
mediated intervention are needed. Studies must articulate
the specific intended outcomes for children and families
and provide adequate measurement of multiple outcomes.
In addition to changes in child development, measures
of parents’ confidence in meeting their child’s needs be-
fore and after the intervention and of parent satisfaction
with the parent education procedures and outcomes are
needed, as well as in-depth analyses of the long term ef-
fects on children and families. At the minimum, studies
of parent education must document other intervention
services being provided to the child and family as a con-
text for evaluating the benefits of parent education.
Studies must also describe the implementation of
parent education procedures in sufficient detail so that
outcomes can be analyzed in relation to the specific pro-
cedures employed. Detailed implementation data are
needed for systematic replications and for developing
evidence-based practice. These data must include the pro-
cedures for teaching parents, the types of materials and
instructional strategies used, the efforts to promote gen-
eralization and maintenance, and parents’ evaluations of
the process. Furthermore, studies must document parent
acquisition of the content or skill, generalization to nat-
urally occurring interactions with their children, and
maintenance of newly learned content or skills over time.
Research should focus on developing parent education
methods that foster generalization, maintenance, and
integration of new content and skills into the parents’ ex-
isting repertoire in a manner consistent with their par-
enting style.
Studies that specifically examine and compare strate-
gies for parent education are also needed. These studies
must include analyses not only of the effects of various
instructional strategies, but also of strategies that specif-
ically include parent-professional collaboration, use par-
ents as experts for teaching other parents, and address a
range of short- and long-term outcomes for families and
children.
One of the most important areas for research is the
integration of family support and parent education. This
area of investigation provides an opportunity to test the
assumptions of the Bronfenbrenner (1979) ecological
model of development. Systematic analyses of the effects
of providing support prior to and during parent educa-
tion are needed. Furthermore, we must examine parents’
Downloaded from tec.sagepub.com at OhioLink on November 12, 2014
experiences of parent education as a potential form of
support and seek to develop approaches to parent edu-
cation that serve a secondary support function. We must
continue to ask parents what they need, what they expe-
rience, and what could be strengthened in these studies
to ensure that our research efforts are addressing exter-
nal and social validity as well as internal validity.
Finally, research on parent education must examine
how parent education can be provided in a manner that
is normalizing rather than stigmatizing. We must deter-
mine when parent education provided with parents of
typical children can address the needs of parents of chil-
dren with disabilities. Research on parent-to-parent ed-
ucation and on using parent groups as resources for
learning new content and skills is needed to expand the
range of options for providing parent education.
We must develop early intervention approaches that
are evidence based (Odom & Kaiser, 1996). The need for
research related to parent education is pressing. At the
same time, research in this area has important implica-
tions for theory and practice. Advances in parenting ed-
ucation that are based on empirical analyzes will make
an important contribution to the future of early inter-
vention.
CONCLUSION
In thisarticle, we have argued for the importance of ed-
ucating parents to carry out specific strategies, instruc-
tion, and interaction with their children as a central
feature of early intervention. We have
proposed a setof
assumptions about parent education to promote a re-
newed dialogue about new forms and strategies of par-
ent education. In laying out a research agenda, we have
suggested the importance of developing evidence-based
practices in parent education and in early intervention.+
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