Designing and Evaluating Early Intervention Programmes

Abstract

No agreement on model of service delivery for early intervention. Thus diverse programmes with "respect to their policies and practices in a range of areas, including the agencies which control them, the nature of their clientele, their modes of service delivery, curricula, assessment methods, relationship with parents, and so on. In the past few years, however, this diversity has begun to give way to a common philosophy as to what constitutes optimal early intervention." (297) Major issues has been how best to evaluate quality. Chapter focuses on developing a comprehensive evaluation strategy which attends to process as well as outcome - formative as well as summative "The central thesis is that programme evaluation and programme design are the reciprocals of each other. In other words, evaluation should lead to improved programme design." (298)