Abstract
After a theoretical introduction on the actual goals and practices of early intervention with handicapped and at-risk infants and children and their families, we will present a brief characterisation of the Portuguese early intervention services and the design of an evaluation study concerning three main topics: Service organization and interagency co-ordination; Perceptions of early intervention providers and mothers concerning early intervention services those families receive; Perceptions of early intervention practitioners and mothers concerning the importance of those services. We will present the first results of our research study reporting data from 51 mothers and 51 professionals working with those families, who responded to semi-structured interviews and to a scale on family-focused early intervention services.
These data refer to the services that are actually being provided and the services families wished to receive. We will discuss these results in terms of what is known as recommended practices in early intervention, enhancing the difficulties that Portuguese early intervention practitioners face, due to the lack of specific training and to the fact that only in 1999 legislation in early intervention has been published in Portugal.
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25/07/2000