Rural Special Education Quarterly

Project TRAIN is a federally funded, personnel preparation grant that is housed in the Early Childhood: Exceptional Educational Needs training program in the Department of Special Education at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. The grant, which was funded under time rural competition, provides preservice training at the graduate level for early intervention professionals interested in working in rural areas with infants and toddlers who have special needs and with the families of these children. This article includes a description of Project TRAIN in terms of rationale, purposes, and expected outcomes. The Project TRAIN competencies within the context of the roles and skills needed to provide quality intervention, and SIGNAL, which is a performance-based evaluation instrument for guiding professional development, are described. Additionally, the competency-based training program is highlighted.

There is a critical need to prepare early-intervention personnel resulting from the passage of the Education of the Handicapped Act Amendments of 1986. This paper presents the results of a survey of service providers regarding the competencies they considered essential to serve young children with disabilities. It also describes the organization of a program to prepare personnel in a rural state where persons who need preparation may not have access to on-campus training.

This article discusses the Family Specialist Training Program, a project funded to deliver state-of-the-art training to professionals in early intervention programs in North Carolina. The training process and the training model are described with particular emphasis on the evaluation design of the project. The article gives practical recommendations for training in rural areas.

With the enactment of P.L. 99-457, colleges and universities will need to examine and create innovative ways of providing required coursework to help early childhood/special education professionals meet state certification requirements. This paper describes the use of audio teleconferencing as one approach of offering courses to these professionals in rural areas. Specifically, the advantages of utilizing audio teleconferencing and what instructional design and teaching methods were implemented in the delivery of this course are discussed.

Children with behavior problems are frustrating to teachers. Most programs for controlling behavior focus on reducing or eliminating behaviors. Instead, teaching appropriate behaviors can become part of the instructional component. Teachers can do this by evaluating the Intent of behavior and helping children achieve their intent In socially acceptable ways. The authors list steps for analyzing behavioral outcomes in order to develop teaching strategies for behavior problems.

The purpose of this study was to compare parental concerns for Infants and toddlers with special needs from rural versus urban counties in Arizona. A statewide, representative sample of 600 parents served by Arizona's key agencies were surveyed in face to face interviews with trained interviewers. Respondents were asked questions related to the nature and type of services they were receiving, their satisfaction with the services, their need for other services, financial needs, information needs, and emotional support needs. Differences were identified in relationship to the kinds of information parents from rural and urban counties need, as well as the source of information they are more likely to utilize. Parents from the largest urban area indicated that they had less help coordinating and accessing services. Parents from rural areas appeared to be enrolled at higher rates in low income family service programs and reported spending more money on travel and room and board to receive services. Overall, parents reported being highly involved in their child's services and indicated that their greatest concerns were in accessing information in order to make decisions about their child's needs.

Public Law 99-457, Part H, Program for Handicapped Infants and Toddlers, has created a significant challenge and need for personnel training. This article describes an inservice training project designed to develop the skills of rural professionals in developing and implementing family-focused Individualized Family Service Plans (IFSPs). The primary goals of the training are to provide early interventionists from numerous disciplines with a philosophy, a process framework for developing IFSPs with families, and to teach the skills needed to implement that process. The results of the training with professionals from six regional training workshops serving rural families are presented.

The transition of students with disabilities from programs serving birth to 2-year- olds to preschool special education programs serving 3 to 5-year-olds in public schools and other agencies must be accomplished through communication and collaboration between parents and professionals. This article highlights how to enable parents to make an informed decision in the selection of a future program for their child. It further identifies factors parents may wish to consider in selecting a new preschool program: home-based vs. center-based, time in program, curriculum, family support, and family involvement in the educational program.

This article examines the interagency transition process and the contribution of efficient assessment procedures to that process. Common issues which interfere with transition are discussed. Methods for identifying specific problems and a resource for strategies are described, as well as components of assessment tools that facilitate interagency transition.