Measuring Parent and Professional Attitudes about the Individualized Family Service Plan: A Preliminary Report

Abstract

This paper is a preliminary report on the development of alternate forms of an attitude scale to assess parents' and professionals' views toward the Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) process (Parental Attitude Scale toward the IFSP; Professional Attitude Scale toward the IFSP), a process evolving as a result of federal regulations regarding early intervention services. Development of the set of attitude scales is unique in that (1) parents and professionals are considered as equals with different forms of the instrument having comparable content with minor changes in phrasing, and (2) alternate forms may allow for long-range, repeated measures of how attitudes change over time in response to implementation of a federal mandate, the IFSP. The item development for scale construction is reported, and the method by which six alternate forms (three for use with parents and three for use with professionals) were constructed. Continued lines of research for psychometric validation of the reliability of the instruments is identified for future research. Limitations of the research are put forth.