Integrating Frameworks From Early Childhood Intervention and School Psychology to Accelerate Growth for All Young Children

Abstract

Knowing what behaviors adults can engage in to accelerate child growth toward desired outcomes is fundamental to achieving the promise of early education and intervention. Once adequate progress-monitoring measures are developed, patterns of child performance over time and in response to certain interventions can be quantified. The ability to quantify response to intervention with young children will produce at least three immediate benefits: (a) the ability to improve child outcomes in a more efficient fashion through iterative problemsolving attempts, (b) a resulting data set that could be used to determine what additional supports and services might be needed in the context of early learning environments, and (c) a cumulative data set that should reflect whether the additional supports and services are meaningfully accelerating child growth. This article discusses the rationale for response to intervention in early education, the logical basis for response to intervention decision making, and barriers to effective implementation with young children. This article also introduces the articles in this special series, each of which focuses on accelerating learning and growth for all young children and has implications for the use of response to intervention in early education.