Journal of Early Intervention

Adult support of 12 specific friendship dyads involving 3- to 5-year-old children with and without developmental delays was investigated through semi-structured interviews with the children’s parents and teachers. Most respondents described these friendships as harmonious and important for the emotional benefits that these relationships provided children. Parents and teachers reported supporting the friendships through a variety of strategies, ranging from setting up the social environment to helping friends interact with each other and engaging in home-school communication on the topic of friendship. Findings also indicated that some of these strategies may have been implemented incidentally, rather than being intentionally focused on friendship support. Teachers reported giving information and being asked about or provided with information but did not report asking parents for information relating to specific friendships.

Building on Opportunities for Student Teaching and Learning (BOOST) is a community-based summer preschool program developed, implemented, and coordinated by student teachers, university supervisors, and faculty. Ten preservice graduate students participated in BOOST practicum activities during the spring and summer terms of their 1-year Early Intervention/ Early Childhood Special Education (EI/ECSE) master’s degree program. Eleven children with and without developmental delays attended the preschool program during the 5-week summer term. The student teachers, supervisors/faculty, and families evaluated the effectiveness of the BOOST practicum. Results have implications for alternatives to traditional student teaching and practicum experiences.

Researchers have noted divergent findings with respect to the relationships of practitioners’ beliefs and their implementation of recommended practices. With Q-sort methods, this study examined practitioners’ beliefs about practices in early intervention with samples of current practitioners (n = 211) and preservice students (n = 142). Findings indicated that practitioners rated participation-based practices as less strongly held beliefs when compared with several other early intervention practices, and students’ responses revealed beliefs that were in contrast with participation-based beliefs. In addition, results showed that practitioners’ beliefs were more similar to respondents from institutions of higher education than were the preservice students.