IFSP Early Intervention Process

THE INDIVIDUAL FAMILY SERVICE PLAN (IFSP)
Mary Beth Bruder

An Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) documents and guides the

early intervention process for children with disabilities and their families.

The IFSP is the vehicle through which effective early intervention is

implemented in accordance with Part C of the Individuals with Disabilities

Education Act (IDEA). It contains information about the services necessary

to facilitate a child's development and enhance the family's capacity to

facilitate the child's development.

Through the IFSP process, family members and service providers work as

a team to plan, implement, and evaluate services tailored to the family's

unique concerns, priorities, and resources.

According to IDEA, the IFSP shall be in writing and contain statements of

the child's present levels of physical development,

cognitive development, communication development,

social or emotional development, and adaptive

development.
the family's resources, priorities, and concerns relating

to enhancing the development of the child with a

disability;
the major outcomes to be achieved for the child and the

family; the criteria, procedures, and timelines used to

determine progress; and whether modifications or revisions

of the outcomes or services are necessary;
specific early intervention services necessary to meet the
unique needs of the child and the family, including the

frequency, intensity, and the method of delivery;
the natural environments in which services will be provided,

including justification of the extent, if any, to which the

services will not be provided in a natural environment;
the projected dates for initiation of services and their

anticipated duration;
the name of the service provider who will be responsible for

implementing the plan and coordinating with other agencies

and persons; and
steps to support the child's transition to preschool or other

appropriate services.

U.S. Department of Education rules (1993) require that non-Part C

services needed by a child, including medical and other services,

are also described in the IFSP, along with the funding sources for

those services. The statute allows parents to be charged for some

services. If a family will be charged, this should be noted in the IFSP.

How the IFSP Differs from the IEP

The IFSP differs from the IEP in several ways:

It revolves around the family, as it is the family that is the

constant in a child's life.
It includes outcomes targeted for the family, as opposed to

focusing only on the eligible child.
It includes the notion of natural environments, which encompass

home or community settings such as parks, child care, and gym

classes. This focus creates opportunities for learning interventions

in everyday routines and activities, rather than only in formal,

contrived environments.
It includes activities undertaken with multiple agencies beyond the

scope of Part C. These are included to integrate all services into
one plan.
It names a service coordinator to help the family during the

development, implementation, and evaluation of the IFSP.

STEPS THAT LEAD TO EFFECTIVE IFSPs

Identify Family Concerns, Priorities, and Resources

The family's concerns, priorities, and resources guide the entire IFSP

process. Early intervention should be seen as a system of services

and supports available to families to enhance their capacity to care

for their children. The notion of partnership between the intervention

team and the family must be introduced and nurtured at this beginning

point of the IFSP process.

Identify the Family's Activity Settings

All children develop as the result of their everyday experiences. It is

important to document valued, enjoyable routines (bath time, eating,

play activities, etc.) and analyze them to see if they offer the sustained

engagement that leads to learning opportunities. Likewise, it is

important to identify the community activity settings (e.g., child care,

gymboree, swimming) that provide opportunities for learning.

Conduct a Functional Assessment

An effective assessment process

addresses the family's questions about enhancing their

child's development, focusing on each family member's

concerns and priorities
collects information for a specific purpose, for example,

the evaluation conducted by the early interventionist

at the beginning of the IFSP process determines if the

child is eligible for services
reflects a complete and accurate picture of the child's

strengths, needs, preferences for activities, materials,

and environments
has a person familiar to the child conduct observations and

other assessments in settings familiar to the child (e.g., home,

outdoor play area, child care program)

Collaboratively Develop Expected Outcomes.

After assessment information is collected, the team meets to review the

information and the family's concerns, priorities, and resources to develop

statements of expected outcomes or goals. Active family involvement is

essential. Collaborative goals focus on enhancing the family's capacity

and increasing the child's participation in valued activities.

Assign Intervention Responsibilities.

After outcomes are identified, the early intervention team assigns

responsibilities for intervention services that support those outcomes.

An IFSP requires an integrated, team approach to intervention. Using

a transdisciplinary team model is one method of integrating information

and skills across professional disciplines. In the transdisciplinary model,

all team members (including the family) teach, learn, and work together

to accomplish a mutually agreed upon set of intervention outcomes.

Individuals' roles are defined by the needs of the situation rather than

by the function of a specific discipline.

In a transdisciplinary model, one or a few people are primary implementers

of the program. Other team members provide ongoing direct or indirect

services, such as consultation. For example, an occupational therapist can

observe a toddler during meals, then recommend to the parent how to

physically assist the child.

Identify Strategies to Implement the Plan.

This step involves working closely as a team to increase learning opportunities,

to use the child's surroundings to facilitate learning, to select the most effective

strategies to bring about the desired outcomes, and identify reinforcers that

best support the child's learning.

Implementation may involve a toddler participating in a library story hour one

afternoon a week; a physical therapist showing family members how to use

adaptive equipment; or a service coordinator completing the paperwork to pay

for a child's transportation from his or her home to needed services.

Intervention strategies should help promote generalization of outcomesi.e.,

the child performs new skills in a variety of environments after intervention has

ended. For example, both service providers and family members can encourage

a child to request desired objects (e.g, toys) with gestures in numerous

environments (e.g., home, playgroup, child care).

Interventions should target several outcomes during one activity. When a child

participates in an activity, he or she uses a variety of skills from a number of

developmental areas. For example, during mealtimes, a toddler may use

communication skills to request more juice, fine motor skills to grasp a spoon,

a social skills to interact with a sibling.

Intervention strategies should help a child become more independent in his or

her world. The selected strategies might involve offering physical assistance

during mealtimes, prompting the correct response during a self-care routine, or

providing simple pull-on clothing to enable a child to dress without assistance.

Interventions provided within natural environments should look like a "typical activity."

For instance, a child learning to develop her fine motor skills should be encouraged

to color, draw pictures, play with puzzles, build with blocks, pick up her toys, use

eating utensils, play finger games, etc. Ideally, interventions should

Be embedded in everyday natural environments.
Emphasize the acquisition of functional competencies.
Make it possible to increase a child's participation within the environments.
Include both social and non-social activities

Evaluate Early Intervention to Ensure Quality

Both ongoing and periodic evaluations are essential to any early

intervention program. An evaluation may focus on a child's progress

toward obtaining desired outcomes and upon the quality of the

intervention program itself. Ongoing monitoring of the child's progress

requires keeping records in a systematic manner in order to answer

such critical questions as

To what extent and at what rate is the child making

progress toward attaining outcomes?
Are the selected intervention strategies and activities

promoting gains in development?
Do changes need to be made in the intervention plan?

Periodically reviewing the IFSP provides a means of sharing results about

the child's progress and integrating these results into the plan. Part C of

IDEA requires that the IFSP be evaluated and revised annually and that

periodic reviews be conducted at least every six months (or sooner if

requested by the family). This ongoing process provides a continual support

to the family and child as they realize their own strengths and resources

to help their child learn.

Reprinted from:
The ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education (ERIC EC)
The Council for Exceptional Children
1110 N. Glebe Rd.
Arlington, VA 22201-5704
Toll Free: 1.800.328.0272
E-mail: ericec@cec.sped.org

Resources

Brown, W., Thurman, S.K., & Pearl, L.F. (1993). Family centered early intervention

with infants and toddlers:innovative cross-disciplinary approaches. Baltimore, MD:

Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.

Division for Early Childhood. (1993). DEC recommended practices: Indicators of quality

in programs for infants and young children with special needs and their families. Reston,

VA: The Council for Exceptional Children.

Lerner, J.W., Lowenthal, B., and Egar, R. (1998). Preschool children with special needs.

Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Zhang, C. & Bennett, T. (2000). The IFSP/IEP process: Do recommended practices address

culturally and linguistically diverse families? (CLAS Technical Report #10). Champaign, IL:

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Early Childhood Research Institute on Culturally

and Linguistically Appropriate Services.

ERIC Digests are in the public domain and may be freely reproduced and disseminated, but please

acknowledge your source. This digest was prepared with funding from the Office of Educational

Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education, under Contract No. ED-99-CO-0026.

The opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the positions or policies of OERI

or the Department of Education.

December 2000