FROM PROCESS TO PRODUCT IN EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center

Fall 1999 Volume 3, No. 3
earlyDevelopments Fall 1999

2

Vol. 3, No.3

SUPERVISING EDITORS

Virginia Buysse & Pam Winton

EDITOR

Loyd Little

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Miki Kersgard

CIRCULATION

Jay Hargrove

PHOTOGRAPHY

Don Trull

COPY EDITOR

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Early Developments is published three

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Child Development Center at the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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Early Developments is funded in part by the

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part by PR/Award Number R307A60004, administered by the Office of Educational Research and

Improvement, U.S. Department of Education.

Contents of articles do not necessarily represent the

positions of the U.S. Department of Education.

Endorsement by the federal government should not

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Field notes

This issue of Early Developments tells the stories of how

some of today’s projects at the Frank Porter Graham Child

Development Center (FPG) evolved from earlier institutes

and projects into down-to-earth help for professionals and families, into models for systems change, and into assessment tools to

help administrators, policymakers, and ultimately, of course, children and their families. In a few cases, the chain has been direct

with the same researcher(s) or group of researchers completing

one study and then taking the next logical step. Such is the case

with a series of projects involving inservice and preservice training of teachers, and described in an article beginning on page 8.

In most cases the connection has been institutional, with large

projects and institutes creating a caldron of ideas that have

spawned projects well into the future. For example, 13 investigators were involved with the Carolina Institute for Research on

Early Education for the Handicapped (CIREEH) project in the

1980s. A story about some of CIREEH ’s “grandchildren” today

begins on page 4.

A FPG project more than two decades ago about curriculum led

circuitously to some of the most widely used assessment tools in

America. That story begins on page 11.

So while research may be more complicated, the public outreach

mission of FPG hasn’t changed: Helping children and their families is still our bottom line.

In our special section about the National Center for Early

Development & Learning (NCEDL), also based at the University of

North Carolina at Chapel Hill, we highlight one of the first national

conferences dedicated to professional development and compensation for the early childhood workforce. We also look at a new

product aimed at delivering the results of research faster and in

an easily accessible format. These stories are on pages 14–15.

Errata: In the last Early Developments, a book edited by Martha

Cox and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Causes and Consequences, was

mentioned in an article on parenthood. The full title is Conflict

and Cohesion in Families: Causes and Consequence published by

Lawrence Erlbaum.

By the way, Early Developments is online at our website in PDF

format and may be freely downloaded and reprinted. If you want

additional printed copies, they are $1 each plus shipping costs.

Please address your requests for additional copies to Nancy

Pruden at 919-966-4221 or email the FPG publications office at

<publications@mail.fpg.unc.edu>. —Loyd Little editor

Visit the Frank Porter Graham Child Development

Center website at <www.fpg.unc.edu>

FINDING OUR WAY—

how early family

research led to 

practical help for 

professionals and

families, page 4

MAPPING THE FUTURE—

changing the ways

early childhood 

professionals are

trained, page 8

BUILDING BLOCKS—

research leads to

quality assessment

tools, page 11

MAKING GAINS—

national conference

examines compensation and training of

the early childhood

workforce, page 11
The road

from research to practice

3earlyDevelopments Fall 1999

Sometimesresearch has immediate results

that are of practical use. This is, of course, the universal hope of

researchers, practitioners, parents, and policy makers. More often,

however, research begins with more fundamental questions about

how things work. Once we understand how something works, then

we can figure out how to make it work better.

In this issue of Early Developments, we trace how several projects at

the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center began, their

evolution and transformation into new projects, and the products or

benefits that were derived from these projects over the years.

For example, a project to create an early childhood curriculum led

to the development of the Early Childhood Environmental Rating

Scale (ECERS) which gave program administrators a valuable tool to

help make changes in programs. It also gave policymakers more

precise data to help assess the effectiveness of programs.

Another example: Early FPG research showed that individualized

service plans for inclusion needed to be more family centered. That

meant changes in how service providers and center operators

approached such plans and that, in turn, led to creating practical

models for affecting change in the education and preparation of

service providers.

From our work over three decades, we have learned two fundamental lessons. First, important problems regarding young children and

the programs that serve children and families cannot be fixed

quickly. The issues are too complicated and the barriers to change

too great. Only through sustained focus on an issue can meaningful

change occur. Second, it is sometimes impossible to predict, at the

beginning of a project, what the final useful product from that project might be.

The key is 

■ identifying an important problem,

■ studying as many aspects of that problem as possible,

■ brainstorming with the beneficiaries (teachers, parents, etc.) of

the research about a number of possible solutions, and then 

■ trying out solutions that have a good chance of succeeding.

—Don Bailey

Bailey is director of the Frank Porter Graham Child Development

Center and professor in the School of Education at UNC-Chapel Hill

From the director’s office The road

from research to practice
4earlyDevelopments Fall 1999

The evolution of research projects to practice is

rarely a straight line or a short step. For 

example, retreats will be held next year in

Atlantic Beach, NC to prepare parents of young

children to become leaders in a variety of

advocacy and advisory roles with early intervention agencies and organizations across the state.

But this new practical resource for North

Carolina families with children with disabilities

can be traced back to institutes and research

that began more than two decades ago at the

Frank Porter Graham Child Development

Center (FPG) at the University of North Carolina

at Chapel Hill.

Finding our way

How early family research led to 

practical help for professionals and families
ONE OF THE EARLIEST SUCH INSTITUTES was the Carolina

Institute on Research and Early Education for the

Handicapped (CIREEH).“It was one of four similar institutes

in the nation funded in the 1970s by the U.S. Bureau of Education, as

it was called then, to produce research to help in the educating of

children with disabilities,” said Jim Gallagher, CIREEH’s principal

investigator and also FPG director at the time.

CIREEH was one of the first large-scale research projects to examine

family involvement in programs for preschool children with disabilities. The institute ran for 10 years and among its achievements are:

■ research on how families adjust to the birth of a child with 

disabilities (they cope remarkably well, especially when 

they receive early help from professionals);

■ the development of programs that encourage specialists 

working with children with disabilities to focus on the 

family as well as the child;

■ the development of dozens of curriculum items for use 

with children under a year of age with various types of

disabilities; and

■ the creation of numerous assessment scales.

An example of CIREEH’s legacies is Family Assessment in Early

Intervention by Don B. Bailey Jr., now FPG director, and Investigator

Rune J. Simeonsson. The book, published in 1988, was an outgrowth

of the CIREEH’s F.A.M.I.L.I.E.S. Project, a five-year study of families

with young handicapped children enrolled in a home-based intervention network in North Carolina.

Bailey said,“It's a natural evolution, particularly at an institution

such as FPG where we have many researchers working together and

in collaboration with others. Taking the research of one project and

designing a more refined project to answer questions raised by the

first project is a natural progression for us. And more often than not,

this leads to implications and help for personnel preparation, professionals, and families.”

CIREEH’s beehive of activity also helped spawn a 1989 study by

Bailey, Virginia Buysse, Rebecca Edmondson, and Tina M. Smith (all

at UNC-Chapel Hill) that examined the perceptions of professionals

in four states concerning family-centered services in early intervention. And that led to the development of a scale to determine perceptions of how families are included in an early intervention program

or community. The scale was called FOCAS: Family Orientation of

Community and Agency Services. Later came Guidelines and

Recommended Practices for the Individual Family Service Plan, published in 1991 by the National Early Childhood Technical Assistance

System (NECTAS) and the Association for the Care of Children's

Health.

Family-centered practices

The work of CIREEH also led to one of the larger current projects at

FPG: Latino Families of Children with Mental Retardation.“We are

looking at how families adapt to a child with mental retardation,

focusing on three areas: beliefs about mental retardation, its causes,

treatment options, and ultimate expectations for the child with mental retardation; perceived family needs that extend beyond direct

intervention services for the child; and perceived usefulness of professional and agency services,” said Debra Skinner, project director.

FPG’s early work with families and professionals also helped generate

another project—Longitudinal Study of Boys with Fragile X

Syndrome and Their Families. Fragile X syndrome is the most 

5earlyDevelopments Fall 1999

NEILS longitudinal study

The long history of the Frank Porter GrahamCenter's research into family involvement in

programs for preschool children with disabilities

continues to the present: Today, Rune J.

Simeonsson and four other FPG investigators are

part of a national team conducting the National

Early Intervention Longitudinal Study (NEILS)—

funded by the Office of Special Education

Programs, U.S. Department of Education. 

NEILS is a five-year study designed to provide answers

to four main questions:

■ Who are the children and families receiving early

intervention services?

■ What early intervention services do participating

children and families receive and how are those

services delivered?

■ What outcomes do participating children and families experience?

■ How do outcomes relate to variations in child and

family characteristics and services provided?

More than 3,300 children and their families are being

followed from 3 to 5 counties in each of 20 states.

Families with children between birth and 31 months of

age who are newly entering early intervention are

being enrolled in NEILS. Other data presented in the

fall of 1999 during a presentation at the National

Center for Health Statistics’ National Conference on

Health Statistics:

Categories of Conditions, Impairments &

Functional Limitations

Speech/communication impairment ..................41.1%

Prenatal/perinatal abnormalities ........................19.0%

Motor delay..........................................................17.5%

Global delay..........................................................12.0%

Congenital disorders..............................................8.9%

Intellectual/cognitive impairment or delay..........7.2%

Central nervous system disorder ..........................6.5%

Social/environmental risk ......................................3.9%

Social/behavioral impairment................................3.7%

Sensory systems ......................................................3.3%

Self-help skills ........................................................2.6%

Neurologic impairment..........................................2.2%

Musculoskeletal disorders......................................2.0%

Illness or chronic disease........................................1.9%

Use of medical devices ..........................................1.4%
common inherited cause of developmental

disability, affecting as many as one in 2,500

people. Since 1993, FPG has been following

selected young children with fragile X syndrome and their families in Virginia and the

Carolinas.

“A pattern in this kind of research is clear,”

said Bailey.“Make sure we have the big picture, collect and analyze good data, postulate

and examine outcomes, create and test models of change, and then figure out how to get

changes that work to professionals, teachers,

and families. We've been fortunate at FPG to

have this continuity in our research and our

researchers.”

Helping parents & families

FPG’s family research has led to another of

the center's newest projects, the Parent

Leadership Development Project. Begun in

1999, the Parent Leadership Development

Project is working to develop a cadre of

parents to fill a variety of advocacy and

advisory roles with state and local agencies

and organizations.

“Comprehensive, high-quality, individualized early care and intervention for children

with disabilities now requires simultaneous

attention to child development, community

building, professional development, and

family involvement,” said Virginia Buysse,

co-principal investigator along with Pat

Wesley.“Families should be considered

essential advisors in public policy, research,

personnel preparation, and program development, as well as partners in all aspects of

their children’s care and education.”

The Parent Leadership Project is recruiting

72 parents and other family members of

children with disabilities interested in developing or improving partnerships with professionals. These parents will receive intensive training, including follow-up activities

to develop leadership skills. This cadre will

then be linked to institutions of higher

learning, and organizations and agencies

providing early education, early intervention, and family support services.

Other major offshoots of CIREEH were a

project named the Carolina Institute for

Research on Infant Personnel Preparation

and a series of projects aimed at changing

early intervention personnel development

systems. These are discussed in an article

beginning on page 8.

earlyDevelopments Fall 1999

6

Data from the NEILS longitudinal study

Data are already beginning to flow in from the study. The first round 

of findings, based on a larger sample, indicate that of 5,667 children

entering the early intervention system, 59% were reported to qualify 

for services because of a documented developmental delay, 28% with a

diagnosed condition, and 13% who were eligible because of being at risk

for developmental delay.

Neils data collection is being conducted by:

■ Telephone interviews with families for information about child and

family characteristics, child functioning, and families’ perceptions of

services. Families are being interviewed when their child enters early

intervention, when their child is three years old, and again when

their child is five years old.

■ Semiannual reports from service providers on early intervention services provided to NEILS families, included information about children's

transitions out of early intervention.

■ One-time survey of service providers about their background, training, and the ways they deliver services.

■ One-time survey of teachers about the children’s programs and services being provided when the NEILS children are five years old.

In addition to Simeonsson, other FPG researchers in the study are Don

Bailey, Robin McWilliam, Anita Scarborough, and Lynne Kahn.

The NEILS study is being conducted by SRI International, Menlo Park, CA.

If you want to know more

Bailey, D., & Simeonsson, R. (Eds.) (1988). Family assessment in early

intervention. Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill.

Capone, A., Hull, K., & DiVenere, N. (1997). Parent-professional partnerships in preservice and inservice education. In P. Winton, J.

McCollum, & C. Catlett (Eds.), Reforming personnel preparation in

early intervention: Issues, models and practical strategies (pp. 435–452).

Baltimore, MD: Paul Brookes.

Bailey, D., Skinner, D., Correa, V., Arcia, E., Reyes-Blanes, M.,

Rodriguez, P., Vázquez-Montilla, E., & Skinner, M. (1999). Needs and

supports reported by Latino families of young children with developmental disabilities.American Journal on Mental Retardation,

104, 437–451.

Bailey, D., Skinner, D., Rodriguez, P., Gut, D., & Correa,V. (1999).

Awareness, use, and satisfaction with services for Latino parents of

young children with disabilities.Exceptional Children, 65 (3), 367–381.
Recent publications

By researchers at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center

Early intervention as we know it 

D. Bailey, L.Aytch, S. Odom, F. Symons, & M.Wolery. (1999).Mental

Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews, 5, 11–20.

Awareness, use, and satisfaction with

services for Latino parents of young

children with disabilities

D. Bailey, D. Skinner, P. Rodriguez, D. Gut, & V. Correa, (1999).

Exceptional Children, 65 (3), 367–381.

A review of interventions for

preschoolers with aggressive and 

disruptive behavior

D. Bryant, L. H. Vizzard, M. Willoughby, & J. Kupersmidt. (1999).

Early Education and Development, 10 (1), 47–68.

The environment and mental 

retardation

D. Bryant, & K. Maxwell. (1999).International Review of Psychiatry,

11, 56–67.

Why and how working women choose

child care: A review with a focus on

infancy

E. P. Pungello, & B. Kurtz-Costes. (1999).Developmental Review, 19

(2), 31–96.

The early childhood environment 

rating scale, Revised edition

T. Harms, R. Clifford, & D. Cryer. (1998). NY: Teachers College Press.

The prediction of process quality from

structural features of child care

L. Phillipsen, M. Burchinal, C. Howes, & D. Cryer. (1997). Early

Childhood Research Quarterly, 12, 281–303.

Defining and assessing quality in early

intervention programs for infants and

toddlers with disabilities and their families: Challenges and unresolved issues

L. Aytch, D. Cryer, D. Bailey, & L. Selz. (1999). Early Education and

Development, 10 (1), 7–23.

Services for young children with

Autism Spectrum Disorder: Voices of

parents and providers

L. Sperry, K. Whaley, E. Shaw, & K. Brame. (1999).Infants and Young

Children, 11(4), 17–33.

QuickNotes: Inclusion resources for

early childhood professionals (2nd ed.)

P. Wesley, B. Dennis, & S. Tyndall. (1999). Lewisville, NC: Kaplan Corp.

Embedding personnel development

into early intervention service 

delivery: Elements in the process

N. Stiffler, & N. Fire. (1999).Infants and Young Children, 11(3), 50–61.

Family and professional congruence 

in communication assessments of 

preschool boys with fragile X syndrome

S.C. Jackson, & J.E. Roberts. (1999).Journal of Early Intervention,

22(2), 137–151.

Quality of early childhood programs in

inclusive and noninclusive settings

V. Buysse, P. Wesley, D. Bryant, & D. Gardner. (1999). Exceptional

Children, 65 (3), 301–314.

Improving quality in early 

childhood environments through 

on-site consultation

S. Palsha, & P. Wesley. (1998). Topics in Early Childhood Special

Education, 18 (4), 243–253.

Inclusive preschool environments:

Strategies for planning

B. Hardin, P Wesley, & L. Lohr. (1998). Lewisville, NC: Kaplan Corp.

Knowledge versus policy in special

education

J. Gallagher. (1999). In R. Gallimore, L. Bernheimer, D. MacMillan,

D. Speece, & S. Vaughn (Eds.), Developmental perspectives on children

with high-incidence disabilities (pp. 245–261).Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence

Erlbaum.

Policy options for early childhood: 

A model for decisionmaking

J. Gallagher, & R. Rooney. (1999). Early Education and Development,

10 (1), 69–83.

Accountability for gifted students

J. Gallagher. (1998). Phi Delta Kappan, 79 (10), 739–742.

Infant-toddler planning guide

F.Derks,B.Hardin,L.Lohr,& P.Wesley.(1998).Lewisville,NC: Kaplan Corp.

Integrating therapies into the 

classroom

S. M. Scott, R. A. McWilliam, & L. Mayhew. (1999).

Young Exceptional Children, 2 (3), 15–24.
T

HAT INSTITUTE GAVE RISE TO A COLLABORATIVE SERIES of projects that began changing

the way early childhood professionals are trained. In doing so, researchers created

new rating scales for assessing family-centered practices in early intervention,

refined the case method as a way to help prepare professionals, developed models for states

and institutions of higher learning (including community colleges) to beef up their preservice and inservice training of early childhood professionals, and created a model that

helped North Carolina early intervention programs apply a family-centered approach.

The institute was the Carolina Institute for Research on Infant Personnel Preparation

(CIRIPP), which ran from 1987 to 1992. The principal investigator was Don Bailey, director

of the Frank Porter Graham Center.“With the implementation of the early intervention legislation (Part H of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act [IDEA]), we needed to

take a closer look at the personnel training of early intervention professionals. We needed

to know many things: Did these people have sufficient training for implementing the family-centered, interdisciplinary approach in the new law? What was ‘sufficient training’? Were

our institutions responding to new needs and demands?”

First, CIRIPP conducted a national survey of college and university programs in 11 key disciplines to see how students were being prepared to work with infants and toddlers with

early

disabilities and their families. Other surveys focused on barriers, models of training, comDevelopments Fall 1999

8

This fall, North Dakota will

hold a faculty institute with

interdisciplinary teams drawn

from community and tribal

colleges, families, and practitioners—these teams will focus

on increasing family-centered

and interdisciplinary practices

in the preservice programs.

A group in Idaho has organized

a statewide Consortium for

Preparation of Early Childhood

Professionals, and Baylor

University in Texas now offers

an interdisciplinary early 

intervention minor.

All of these very practical

changes in how we prepare

early childhood personnel have

their roots in an institute that

began at the Frank Porter

Graham Child Development

Center more than a decade ago.
9earlyDevelopments Fall 1999

petencies, best practices and so forth. Some

of the findings and conclusions from these

surveys were:

➤ In most disciplines, with the exception of social work and nursing,

students received virtually no 

information about working with 

families.

➤ Professionals consistently reported 

a discrepancy between typical and

desired practices in working with

families.

➤ It was clear that changes in the preservice preparation of professionals

would be slow to non-existent. A

mechanism was needed to promote

systems change.

➤ Families and professionals needed to

be involved in decisions about changing practices.

Over the next five years, CIRIPP faculty developed new curricula, assessed alternative

instruction strategies, worked out ways to

promote family-centered attitudes among

professionals, created inservice training

methods, and tested new family-centered systems for service coordination.

Bailey said,“Our findings projected little

change in preservice programs because of

competing areas of specialization, lack of faculty with expertise, and the sometimes contradictory and competing requirements of

state agencies, professional organizations,

and universities. As for inservice training, we

found that large numbers of direct service

providers needed training about new federal

regulations. In other words, we found a major

lack of collaboration and cooperation at a

time when it was needed more than ever.”

Other research spin-offs

Among other things, CIRIPP researchers:

➤ developed and evaluated the case

method of instruction as a supplement

to traditional training of early childhood professionals;

➤published a manual for workshop facilitators,Implementing Family-Centered

Services in Early Intervention: A Teambased Model for Change; and

➤ developed and published the Brass

Tacks series of instruments to help

early intervention programs, teams,

and individual professionals determine

the extent to which their practices

reflect a family-centered approach.

In the final CIRIPP report, Bailey and his

team noted these implications:

➤ in the area of preservice, the average

entry-level professional from the key

disciplines is likely to enter the field

with little infancy, family or interdisciplinary experience or knowledge; and

➤ at the inservice level, large numbers of

direct service providers need training

to the Part H (now Part C) of IDEA initiatives. This training must address the

systems and family barriers preventing

them from being as family-centered as

they would like to be.

The next step

One of the 18 CIRIPP faculty members working with Bailey was Pam Winton, who took

part of the CIRIPP findings to the next level.

Winton said,“Our research revealed the

enormous personnel challenges. What we

needed were strategies and models to help

personnel development systems make

changes. And the biggest challenge was that

there was no one ‘personnel development

system’.”

What existed was a conglomeration of different state and local agencies, departments

within universities and community colleges,

and so on, that all had responsibility for personnel preparation but that didn’t necessarily work together and might even be giving

conflicting messages about best practices,

she explained.

“For example, in one university there could

be three different disciplinary departments

preparing students headed for early intervention jobs; each discipline had its own

Research projects can lead to 

revisions in how early childhood 

professionals are trained
earlyDevelopments Fall 1999

10

traditions, strategies, and philosophies

about how to work with children. Working

with families was not typically part of their

training. The people who suffered were the

families and children who relied on a

smoothly operating interdisciplinary team

to provide them with the services they needed,” Winton said.

The answer was

obvious: a major

change in how state

agencies and universities operated.

She said,, “Most

practitioners did

not necessarily

want to be trained

by someone in the

‘ivory tower’ who

probably didn’t

have recent practical experience; and

the state agencies

in charge of inservice training did

not automatically turn to universities for

help for the same reason. State agencies

wanted trainers who could easily relate to

the daily challenges facing practitioners.

To put it bluntly,” she continued, “we were

trying to bring the ivory tower and the

trenches together, and neither side was

comfortable with that. It was like trying to

arrange a marriage between two people

who didn’t even want to go out on a blind

date together.”

The only way to address this, Winton

decided, was to create an integrated early

intervention personnel development system. That idea landed one of four regional

faculty-training institutes funded by the

U.S. Department of Education in 1992, the

year that CIRIPP ended. One of the four 

was the Southeastern Institute for Faculty

Training (SIFT) headed by Winton and FPG

researcher Camille Catlett.

SIFT’s goal was to develop and field test a

model for reforming early intervention 

personnel development systems in 15

southeastern states. The model they developed has now been refined and replicated

through three additional projects that 

they direct—SIFT-OUT, SCRIPT and NEW

SCRIPTS. Their newest project, NEW

SCRIPTS, focuses on community colleges

and diversity issues.

Putting it in perspective

To put this in perspective, since 1992 these

four projects (SIFT, SIFT-OUT, SCRIPT, and

New Scripts) have worked with 28 states to

improve the preparation of their early childhood intervention workforce. Winton said,

“By using a sequence of planning, training,

follow-up, and evaluation, interdisciplinary

teams of faculty members, family members,

practitioners, and state agency representatives have created state-specific changes at a

systemic level, at a program/practice level,

and at an individual level.”

The examples at the beginning of this article

are only a few of the actual, practical outcomes from the SIFT and SCRIPT projects.

Another one of those original researchers

with CIRIPP was P.J. McWilliam who took the

case method and turned it into a significant

teaching technique. After CIRIPP, McWilliam

directed a special Case Method of Instruction

(CMI) project that expanded awareness of CMI

and the availability of appropriate instructional materials for case-method teaching of

early intervention personnel preparation.

McWilliam also

directed the

Carolina Model

Inservice Training

Project that created

a curriculum for

training early intervention teams to

implement a familycentered approach

in their daily work

with children and

families. Most

recently, McWilliam

is directing the CMIOutreach Project,

which is designed to

help university

instructors incorporate the case method in

their preservice and inservice instruction.

Bailey said,“This rolling forward of our

work into more detailed and more practical

use reflects one of the strengths of a large,

strong research institution. These projects

don’t reflect so much one person following a

line of research as they do the research institution and all its members building on the

findings of earlier work by earlier

researchers. By taking our research to the

outreach stage, we show our commitment to

use research opportunities to ultimately

benefit children and their families.”

If you want to know more...

Winton, P., McCollum, J. & Catlett, C. (1997). Reforming personnel preparation in early intervention. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.

McWilliam, P., & Bailey, D. (1993).Working together with children & families: Case studies in

early intervention. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.

Bailey, D., Simeonsson, R., Yoder, D., & Huntington, G. (1990). Preparing professionals to

serve infants and toddlers with handicaps and their families: An integrative analysis across

eight disciplines. Exceptional Children, 57 (1), 26–35.

Winton, P., McWilliam, P.J., Harrison, T., Owen, A. & Bailey, D. (1992) Lessons learned from

implementing a team-based model of changes.Infants and Young Children, 5 (1), 49–57.
A 1975 project named the

Early Childhood Education

Curriculum Development Program at 

FPG is the linear grandparent of...

a project in Sweden that allows preschool

teachers to analyze and upgrade the

quality of their own programs;

a military family child care home 

accreditation program for the U.S.

Army, Navy and Marines; and

a project in Durham, NC, that helps child

care centers upgrade the quality of

their care.

To name only a few of the “grandchildren.”

WHEN WE BEGAN WORKING with our curriculum development program in the late 1970s, it soon became clear

that we needed a way to assess the quality of early childhood programs,” said Thelma Harms, who directed that early FPG program.

She and a colleague Dick Clifford went to work, and by 1980 had produced the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS), which

has since become one of the most widely used scales to assess various aspects of quality in early childhood group care.

The ECERS was followed by three other scales, each measuring different segments of the early childhood field: The Family Day Care

Rating Scale (FDCRS) used for programs in a provider’s home; the

Infant/Toddler Environmental Rating Scale (ITERS) for group programs for children from birth to 2 1/2 years; and the School-Age Care

Environmental Rating Scale (SACERS) for before- and after-school

group care programs for school-age children to age 12.

Harms said that in order to provide care and education that will permit children to experience a high quality of life while helping them

develop their abilities, a program must provide for the three basic

needs of children:

❒ Protection of their health and safety

❒ Building positive relationships

❒ Opportunities for stimulation and learning from experience

11earlyDevelopments Fall 1999

Building blocks

Research that led to new quality

assessment tools & changed 

personnel preparation programs

“
earlyDevelopments Fall 1999

12

“It takes all three to create quality care. No

one component is more or less important

than the others, nor can one substitute for

another. Since our scales are comprehensive

process quality measures, all three aspects

are included,” she said.

FPG director Don Bailey, who worked with

Harms on some of her earlier projects, said,

“FPG has a significant history of development of measuring and assessment tools.

Sometimes researchers develop a scale just

for gathering research data; at other times,

the development of an assessment tool is

suggested by the data. Once early childhood

program directors and professionals have

reliable measures of aspects of their programs, they can make changes and improvements in their programs and personnel

development plans.”

The ECERS and ITERS were

used as comprehensive quality measures in the National

Child Care Staffing Study of

1989 and the Cost, Quality,

and Outcomes Study (CQO)

of 1995 and 1999—major

studies on the effects of

child care on child development. In 1998, Harms,

Clifford, and Cryer brought

out the revised ECERS

(ECERS-R) that incorporated

changes to make

the ECERS function

better in inclusive

and culturally

diverse settings.

ECERS has been

translated into a

number of languages and used in research and program

improvement in many countries including

Germany, Italy, Spain, Iceland, England,

Sweden, Russia, Portugal, Hungary, and

Canada.(See related story on page 13 about

how North Carolina is using the ECERS in a

new statewide rating system of child care programs.)

FPG’s experience in quality care and assessments also helped create an accreditation

system for the nation’s military. In the early

1990s, two private foundations (Mailman

and Carnegie) funded a national committee

to examine family child care quality criteria.

That committee was headed by Harms and

Debbie Cryer, who has also worked on measures. That led to an examination of national

quality criteria for family child care followed

by an FPG study comparing quality recognition systems for family child care. Eventually

it led to the development of the Military

Family Child Care Home Accreditation program which was completed in 1997.

New assessment tool

If there is a clear need by child care professionals in general for assessing programs,

that need surely extends to early intervention programs as well. A FPG team lead by

Lynette Aytch is in the final stages of completing a new Early Intervention Services

Assessment Scale (EISAS) to examine the

quality of early

intervention

services provided to young

children with

disabilities

and their families. Aytch

said her team

is developing a

program version and a

parent questionnaire.

“These types

of assessment

scales,” said

Aytch,“are

valuable for a number

of reasons. With

accountability a keyword in government

financing today, scales

are an important tool in evaluating programs. Well-constructed scales allow administrators and service providers to assess

program practices, and parent questionnaires offer families the opportunity to provide input into the program evaluation

process.”

Changes in child care

The ECERS-R scale is currently being used by

a project in Durham County, NC, to help

enhance quality in child care centers with

practical and professional assistance, and

with money. The project is Quality

Enhancement Support and Training (QUEST)

and is funded by the NC Partnership for

Children, the state’s Smart Start project

whose mission is making sure children are

ready for school when they enter the first

grade.

One of the QUEST consultants is Kate

Thegen, a research assistant with the

National Center for Early Development &

Learning (NCEDL), also based at UNC-Chapel

Hill. She explained how the project works,“A

child care center or a family child care program in Durham submits a request for

QUEST help, and if approved, then a QUEST

consultant will perform an assessment of

the center, suggest changes, offer resources

and technical assistance on making

changes, offer substitute teacher assistance,

and make grants to cover some of the

changes.”

The process begins with an assessment,

which includes such tools as the ECERS-R.

“Also,” said Thegen, “our on-site consultation model is based on a model originally

created by Partnerships for Inclusion (PFI).”

“QUEST is making a significant difference in

child care centers in Durham and is making

it on a very practical level. For example, one

of the areas I’ve worked in has been helping

teachers to understand and use the ECERS

scale so they could continue using it after

the QUEST consultant leaves,” she said.

Thegen is also a former child care center

director. Programs similar to QUEST are getting underway in other North Carolina

counties as well.

A related technical assistance program,

based on assessments with the Harms,

Clifford and Cryer environment rating

scales, is now being conducted by Harms

and Theresa Sull for the District of

Columbia Office of Early Childhood

Development. Harms and Sull have trained

25 technical assistance specialists in

Washington, DC, who are providing on-site

technical assistance to centers and family

child care homes over the next year. A rigorous evaluation of this technical assistance

program is being carried out in order to find

out more about characteristics that create

success in the process of technical assistance.

“With accountability a 

keyword in government

financing today, scales are an

important tool in evaluating

programs.”
13earlyDevelopments Fall 1999

I

n the spring of this year, North Carolina

revised the way it rates the 9,000 regulated day care centers and homes in the

states. Evaluations take into account staff

education, center’s history of compliance,

disciplinary techniques, how teachers

play with children, and staff/child ratios,

among other considerations.

Research at the Frank Porter Graham

Center was used to help develop the new

ratings. Also, the fact that North Carolina

is taking the initiative in upgrading its

day care centers ratings can be traced, in

part, to FPG research. Both actions are

descendants of the national Cost, Quality,

and Child Outcomes in Child Care Centers

study (CQO), begun in 1993, and of

earlier FPG projects involving quality care.

The CQO project, a collaboration of four

universities, included a number of FPG

researchers from the very beginning.“We

weren’t really sure what we would find

when we began this study,” said Dick

Clifford, a senior FPG researcher and

member of the CQO team.“This was one

of the first comprehensive studies to look

at our care centers and document the

effects of quality child care on children’s

development over time.”

Here are just two of the findings from the

first batch of data from the CQO study,*

published in 1995:

❒ The quality of child care is primarily

related to higher staff-child ratios,

staff education, and administrators’

prior experience. Other factors

include teacher wages, education,

and specialized training.

❒ Child care at most centers in the

United States is poor to mediocre,

with 40% of infants and toddlers in

rooms having less-than-minimally

acceptable quality.

But the sentence in the CQO study that

caught the eye of North Carolinians was

this one: “North Carolina, the state with

the least stringent child care standards of

the four states in the study, has the highest number of poor-quality centers.” (The

CQO study focused on 400 randomly

selected centers in North Carolina,

California, Colorado, and Connecticut.) 

The sentence was an eye-opener for many

families, state administrators, and policymakers in North Carolina. So, when the

state of North Carolina wanted to upgrade

its child care center rating scale, it looked

at a number of assessment tools created

at FPG. Stephanie Fanjul, director of the

North Carolina Division of Child

Development, said that if a center wants

to reach the top (a 5-star) rating, a voluntary rating, it must agree to be assessed

using both ECERS-R (Early Childhood

Environmental Rating Scale-Revised) and

an ITERS (Infant-Toddler Environmental

Rating Scale) assessments. Both scales

were developed by FPG researchers.

Don Bailey, FPG director, said, “We

always examine our research for implications for public policy, personnel

preparation, and additional research. It

is not surprising that we are finally

beginning to see changes in personnel

preparation and in the regulation of

child care centers and homes. This is

how research ought to be used.”

Head Start quality study

The same year that the first data from the

CQO study came out, the Head Start

Bureau decided to create a set of performance measures to provide a “report

card” on how the Head Start program is

doing overall. It set up a five-year project involving four Quality Research

Centers. One of the four is focused on

classroom quality and directed by

Donna Bryant at FPG.

“We’ve added a recently developed

measure of diversity to several widelyused measures in order to examine the

patterns of relations among various

aspects of quality, including the classroom environment, the nature of teacherchild interactions, and teacher

involvement,” said Bryant. (The new

measure of diversity is the Anti-Bias

Environmental Checklist created by Ellen

Peisner-Feinberg, another FPG

researcher.)

Some preliminary data from Bryant’s

project suggests:

❒ Different aspects of quality should

be included in future efforts directed

toward training of teachers as well as

research.

❒ Both diversity and developmentallyappropriate practices contribute to

the quality of classroom experiences

for young children.

❒ Instruments to monitor quality

should measure both teacher-child

interactions and the physical environment.

* See Research Spotlight, page 16, for a summary of information from the latest round of

the Cost, Quality, and Outcomes data.

Quality care

Research on quality 

care leads to 

policy changes
earlyDevelopments Fall 1999

14

Twodays of impassioned pleas,

determined efforts, patient

negotiating, listening to research data, and

optimistic networking characterized a

Chapel Hill, NC conference held earlier this

year that focused on how to upgrade the

compensation and education of the early

childhood workforce.

Sponsored by the National Center for Early

Development & Learning (NCEDL) and four other

groups, the conference brought together 180 professionals, teachers, child care center directors,

leaders of national advocacy groups, researchers,

and administrators and policy makers from

national and state governments.

Experts shared research and strategies that set the context for oftenpassionate discussions. Highlights include:

❍ Several speakers decried the general lack of a career development ladder for child care workers. Such a ladder, they said,

should support better compensation, reward training, and create organizational roles for teachers and providers. These steps

would also create a stronger foundation for more diverse leadership in the field.

❍ Approximately 30% of early childhood teachers leave the field

each year—and research is beginning to describe the serious

impact of turnover and change on young children.

❍ Over the years, research has shown for every dollar invested in

high quality child care, there is up to a $7 benefit to children,

parents, and society.

❍ Rosemarie Vardell of the Center for the Child Care Workforce

(CCW) said there is a severe staff shortage facing child care

centers. Wages are low, and “the market place is not taking care

of the problem.” She said that upgrading teaching requirements without upgrading compensation is a squandering of

resources.“The entire child care system needs major new

sources of funding.”

❍ Anne Mitchell of Wheelock College said subsidies to child care

can take two forms: 1) portable subsidies that follow the family such as vouchers, scholarships, and tax credits, and 

2) direct subsidies that go directly to the child care system.

❍ In a paper entitled “Who’s Missing at the Table?” written for

the conference, Marcy Whitebrook of CCW wrote,“The lack of

sufficient resources in early childhood settings, combined with

practitioners’ meager earnings, results in limited access to professional development, participation in advocacy, or other

experiences for many teachers and providers.”

Voicesfrom the front lines were heard in a panel called“Perspectives from Key Stakeholders.” Panel members

shared stories of what it means to be a teacher, a director, a parent

and a college professor facing the realities and limitations created

when a workforce is shackled with wages averaging $7.50 an hour.

Six different compensation/professional development models were

presented and discussed from Massachusetts, Rhode Island,

California, Georgia, North Carolina’s T.E.A.C.H. (Teacher Education

And Compensation Helps), and Canada.

Conference participants interacted as members of 21 teams—10

state teams, 10 NC county teams and one national team—all of

which included leaders in the early childhood field. The teams listened to experts, talked amongst themselves and crafted plans for

their teams to take home to begin to institute changes.

Conference Coordinator Kate Thegen of NCEDL said follow-ups to the

Making gains...A national conference

tackles ways to improve training and compensation of early

childhood workers

“IDEAL SOLUTIONS”—

Excerpts from notes on walls around various teams

❍ “Consider increasing benefits (in addition to salary) to

increase compensation.”

❍ “Determine the ‘living wage’ for our county and persuade

funding agencies that we need to pay that.”

❍ “A career lattice is needed.”

❍ “What do we do about an early child care worker who

may not have the education, but has years of experience

and an excellent reputation?”

❍ “We need to show a clear link between early child care

and educational outcomes in school later.”

❍ “Better evaluation tools needed.” 
15earlyDevelopments Fall 1999

New product speeds 

dissemination of NCEDL

research information

Recognizing a need to

place research

results before constituents quickly and in an

easily read format, the

Research-to-Practice unit

of NCEDL has created a new product,

Spotlights.

Spotlights are monthly, one-page summaries

of research data, presentations by

researchers, and articles written by NCEDL

researchers for academic journals.

Traditionally, research data would arrive in

a format for public consumption after as

much as a year while the material made its

way into various academic journals and

into often-lengthy final reports for funding

agencies.“However, much of our work today

is of urgent significance not only to the

research community but to practitioners in

the field, families, and policymakers,” said

Pam Winton, who directs the Research-toPractice unit.

By working closely with the researchers

involved and using an internal review system, a Spotlight can typically be produced

within two weeks. Furthermore, Spotlights

can be directed toward certain constituencies. For example, one Spotlights explained a

decision matrix aimed at helping decision

makers/policy analysts weigh the pros and

cons of various policy options for a public

issue such as childcare quality. Another

Spotlight discussed diarrhea and child care

and was directed toward child care workers

and operators of child care centers.

Other topics among the first 10 Spotlights

ranged from a theoretical discussion of

assessing readiness of children for school,

to the transition considerations for children

with disabilities and their families.

The response to Spotlights has been quite

good, according to Winton. More than 8,500

have been disseminated in paper format;

many have been downloaded from the

NCEDL web site, and permission has been

given to other organizations to print and

disseminate Spotlights. For example, the

state of Kentucky printed 1,000 copies of

Spotlight #2 on Quality Child Care and disseminated it in a pre-school mailing packet

to teachers, and the National Association of

Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies

disseminated 500 copies of Spotlight #1 on

Kindergarten Transitions to member 

agencies.

conference include interviews with team leaders to determine

progress and barriers. Information

about the conference is on the

NCEDL website

<www.ncedl.org>

and shared

through future

presentations, articles, and a book.

Joan Lombardi,

deputy assistant

secretary for children and families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human

Services until last year, captured the spirit of the conference in her

closing remarks as “a tribute to those Americans who wake up every

morning, greet parents, hug children, change diapers, read books,

dry tears, and help the country

work and children thrive.”

Pam Winton, who directs the

Research-to-Practice unit of

NCEDL, said the conference is

believed to be the first such

national gathering to address

compensation and professional

development issues for the early

childhood workforce.

Other Making Gains sponsors

were CCW, Day Care Services

Association, the NC Department of Health and Human Services

Division of Child Development, and the NC Institute for Early

Childhood Professional Development.

Highlights from past NCEDL

Spotlights

❍ Kindergarten teachers report

that 48 percent of children

entering kindergarten have

moderate or serious problems.

❍ A three-year study showed that

children with closer relationships

to their preschool teachers

showed fewer problem behaviors—this was especially true for

boys. These children also had

better language skills through

kindergarten. 

❍ Interventions involving parents

and the community can be a valuable adjunct in controlling enteric

diseases in child care centers.

❍ A common difficulty in the transition of children with disabilities

from preschool programs to

school-age programs is having

multiple sending agencies and a

single receiving agency. A recommended solution is to establish a community-wide

interagency transition policy.

❍ NCEDL researchers are developing

a new scale to assess the quality

of early intervention services

provided to young children and

their families.

Spotlights posted on the NCEDL web

site <www.ncedl.org> are in PDF format, which means they may be

downloaded and printed.
Research spotlight

Recent findings at FPG

The Children of the Cost, Quality, and Outcomes Study Go

to School—Executive Summary

Cost Quality Study Team. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, National Center

for Early Development & Learning. (1999). Available at <www.ncedl.org>.

T

HE COST, QUALITY AND CHILD OUTCOMES in Child Care

Centers Study, begun in 1993, was designed in part to examine the influence of typical center-based child care on children’s development during preschool years and as they moved into

the formal education system. These children have now been followed through the end of second grade. Overall findings can be

summarized in a few broad statements.

Findings

■ High-quality child care is an important element in achieving the

national goal of having all children ready to learn when they

come to school.

■ Children who attended higher quality child care centers scored

higher on measures of both cognitive and social skills in child

care and through the transition into school. Further, this influence of child care quality was important for children from a

wide range of family backgrounds.

■ High quality child care continues to positively predict children’s

performance well into their school careers.

■ Longitudinal analysis indicated that the quality of child care

experienced by these children before they entered school 

continued to affect their development at least through kindergarten, and in many cases through the end of second grade.

■ Children who have traditionally been at risk of not doing well in

school are affected more by the quality of child care experiences

than other children.

■ For some outcomes (math skills and problem behaviors), children whose mothers had lower levels of education were more

sensitive to the negative effects of poor quality child care or

received more benefits from high quality child care. Moreover,

in typical child care, the influences of child care quality for children at risk were sustained through second grade.

■ The quality of child care classroom practices was related to children’s cognitive development, while the nature of the preschool

teacher-child relationship influenced children’s social development through the early school years.

The quality of the child care environment affected children’s cognitive development (language and math skills) through early elementary school. The relationships children had with their teachers in

child care were related to better social skills (greater cognitive/

attention skills and sociability and fewer problem behaviors) over

time. Children’s ability to get the most benefit from both their

teachers and educational environments available to them in school

is what readiness is really all about, and high-quality child care

experiences help children develop this ability.

Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center

CB# 8185, UNC-CH

Chapel Hill, NC 27599-8185

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