Family explanations for families' having a child orientation emanate from the their experience and values. A family would not be involved in early intervention if their child did not have disabilities or was not at risk for disabilities. Not surprisingly, families expect the focus to be on the child. They are not as likely as professionals to have been exposed to a family-systems approach to early intervention. Families' maintaining boundaries between what is private and what is disclosed to professionals is a normal act of family functioning.
Many families are surprised that there is even an option.
If families' priorities are influenced by their service providers' values and behaviors, however, research is needed on the extent to which professionals initiate and reinforce a child-centered approach to early intervention. What they do not say, however, is that service providers work actively with the parents and other family members to support the family ecology. Families say they should be able to handle those kinds of things themselves. Such responses raise questions about the extent to which early intervention professionals have adopted a family focus. Our research has led us to hypothesize a model, shown in the figure below, explaining the predominantly child focus in service delivery.