Increasingly, early education, regardless of setting type, is considered to be an educational intervention that sets the stage for children's long-term school success. Accordingly, policymakers are focused on how to develop and support educators who have the skills and capacity to deliver high-quality programming to children. A pressing question…

Background: Massachusetts is one of a very limited number of states exclusively employing participant-direction to deliver autism waiver services to children. A crucial element of this waiver program is the work conducted by the state's Department of Developmental Services (DDS) staff and state-approved providers with waiver families to facilitate…

The study examined the structure and patterns of service utilization of all elderly persons (N=1911) receiving state-supported mental retardation services in Massachusetts in 1987. Increased use of services and growing numbers of increasingly frail elderly people were noted. Qualitative data concerning age-integrated, age-specialized, and generic…

Analysis of early intervention expenditure data for 157 children in Massachusetts revealed an enormous variability in the total expenditure per child estimate. The study identified specific child, family, and program characteristics as predictors of different types of service hours. Difficulty in using one mean expenditure figure for planning is…

One of four being published on a five-state project on the dynamics of child care subsidy use, this report provides a detailed look at families receiving child care subsidies in Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Texas, and the factors associated with length of subsidy receipt and provider stability. Data were collected and analyzed by…

This brief is based on the 61-page report of the same name. This paper, commissioned by the Brookings Institution, studies the emergence of the mixed delivery model, in which pre-kindergarten is delivered in community-based settings and schools. It describes findings of a state survey CLASP conducted to understand the policy choices,…

This review examined the evaluation components from 10 awarded state improvement grants designed to improve systems providing services for students with disabilities. The review examined the following aspects of the evaluation components: purposes, conceptual framework for the evaluation and systems reform, evaluation design and approaches,…

Presented is the 1974 annual report of the Office for Children, an agency responsible for monitoring and coordinating all services for children in Massachusetts. Among the aspects covered are administrative organization; the development and implementation of a special budget for new and expanded children's services; the formation of 39…

The handbook provides guidelines for implementing the Massachusetts right to education law (Chapter 766) through the development of regional collaboratives to deliver educational services to low incidence handicapped and severely handicapped children. Chapter 1 includes instructions on the use of the handbook, reasons for considering…

Researchers conducted a telephone survey of a random sample of 750 Massachusetts families with one or more children under the age of 13 in an effort to: (1) quantify the current use of various forms of child care by such families; (2) identify regional differences in the use of child care; (3) estimate the need for child care services in 1995; (4)…

The handbook discusses administrative strategies found successful in fostering the integration of mildly handicapped students in five states' school systems (California, Kansas, Massachusets, Minnesota, and Texas). In "Administrative Systems for Service Delivery," T. Oliver describes approaches to streamline referral to placement…

Reported are results of a practicum from which a regional program for hard of hearing preschool children was developed and implemented which provided direct classroom services, parent counseling and inservice educational programs for school districts in the southeast region of Massachusetts. Noted is the delivery model of an educational…

The second annual progress report of the Massachusetts Occupational Information System (MOIS) describes the activities and strategies of the MOIS in 1977. The report is divided into seven sections. The Administrative and Organizational Information section considers the highlights of the year, contains a chart illustrating the growth of the system,…

In Chapter Five, Alisa Belzer, Cassandra Drennon and Cristine Smith provide an overview of the challenges facing state-level professional development systems. The authors begin the chapter with a brief history of professional development in adult basic education, noting shifts in the funding and priority of professional development in the field.…

The findings of a 1978 project of the Massachusetts Developmental Disabilities Council on the need for respite care services and the various models for delivery of respite care are reported. Methodology included review of respite care regulations in 12 states, site visits and a survey of Massachusetts programs, and a survey of 339 families with…