Discusses the need for careful consideration of family and cultural factors in transition planning. Issues explored include degree of independence for the adolescent desired by the family, rules of acceptance, needs for information, changes in family routines, and family and child life experiences. (Author/CR)

Thirty-eight Hispanic parents of children (ages 6-26) with developmental disabilities and 22 professionals participated in focus group interviews on group action planning. Both constituency groups identified advantages and disadvantages to group action planning. Parents indicated this type of planning process could increased the quality and…

To be committed to family involvement, teachers need to see results and receive support. Administrators can focus on results by exposing teachers to positive outcomes of family involvement through literature and successful teachers' experiences. Administrators can provide support through planning, allocating personnel and resources to help,…

An expanded nursing role in interdisciplinary team evaluations of students with special health needs includes systematically and sensitively seeking family perspectives. This article reviews family nursing assessment categories, reframing them for use in assessing family perspective regarding child health and educational needs and presenting a…

A study found Latino families (n=183) thought that schools did well in providing information about their children with visual impairments and inviting families to school programs, but did poorly on encouraging families to volunteer at school, providing assistance to families in helping their children with self-care activities, and making home…

The parents of a child with Cri du Chat syndrome successfully implemented a gradated guidance procedure the mother had read about in the training manual, "Teaching Developmentally Disabled Children: The ME Book" (Lovaas et al., 1981), to teach their child eating and ball rolling. Skills were maintained at a 52-week follow-up. (Contains…

To help poorer students improve computer access, schools can provide computer instruction classes for local families, provide information sessions on how to purchase home computers, survey parents about access, maintain evening hours for student computer use, establish loaner programs for families, and develop neighborhood-access programs. (MLH)

This article describes the history of New York's efforts to create partnerships with families with children with emotional disturbances, articulates the stages of parent involvement in policymaking, and summarizes lessons learned and recommendations for effective and enduring families as policy allies. A case study is presented. (Contains…

This article examines systemic barriers (i.e., racism and prejudice, equity of resources, and professionals' views of themselves being different) faced by minority families in the assistive technology decision-making process. Implications for professionals working with students with mental and developmental disabilities from minority families are…

It has been argued that social isolation is the mechanism linking neighborhood disadvantage to residents' reduced life chances. Analysis of Chicago data on inner-city African American families (each containing a mother and adolescent child) found that families in poorer neighborhoods belonged to social networks with fewer resources but,…

This study examined the association between demographic factors and families' involvement in their children's education by using records of 35,057 preschool-aged children. Results indicated that poor parents, single parents, and parents who primarily spoke a non-English language at home participated significantly less in most of the involvement…

Twelve case studies describe the kinds of decisions that young people with disabilities and their families have to make as they prepare to leave school. The seven types of decision-making processes that are identified attempt to describe some of these complexities as experienced by young people and their parents. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

Interviews were conducted with 60 human-services-agency staff of the Child and Adolescent Service System Program in California and 67 parents of children with serious emotional disturbance regarding changes over the previous four years in their local children's service systems. Results indicate increased interagency collaboration and family…

Outlines lessons learned during many missions undertaken in countries of the former Soviet Union and former Yugoslavia that were designed to set up psychosocial assistance programs to teach coping skills to children adversely affected by armed conflicts and the socioeconomic transition process from a planned to a market economy. (SM)

After reviewing articles that discuss educational approaches for young children with autism, this article concludes that engagement is a critical feature, it is not clear that one approach is more effective than another, applied behavior analysis is a common foundation, and approaches may benefit from a more complete consideration of the family…