(PS2-61) Infrastructural Implementation Determinants of Early Intervention Access in the US

Background

Part C is a federally funded early intervention program that serves families of children birth through three who have developmental disorders or are at a high likelihood of having delays in social, emotional, cognitive, and motor development. Each state is required to maintain comprehensive child find efforts to identify eligible children. Despite states’ efforts to enroll families of children aged birth-to-three into Part C services, most states (N=28), as of 2022, are still below the national average percentage of family enrollment (4.01% enrollment). Further, all 50 states are lower than our best estimate of the percentage of children who would qualify for services (12% enrollment, Eisenhower et al., 2021). Large discrepancies also exist between states with the highest percentages of enrollment (11.20%) and those with the lowest percentages (1.18%). Policy imperatives must be guided by factual evidence about the practices that do and don’t work to increase Part C enrollment. Funding and eligibility criteria have been linked to program enrollment in previous literature (Fagan et al., 2019). To this end, we investigated how state and federal funding and state Part C eligibility criteria influence Part C enrollment.

Objectives

1. To examine whether a Part C’s primary funding source (federal or state) predicts greater enrollment rates for children birth-through-three.

2.To evaluate whether state enrollment differs based on eligibility criteria.

3.To evaluate the association between state’s eligibility criteria and whether they exceed the national average of Part C enrollment.

Methods

All data was generated from publicly available state government websites, ECTA, ITCA, as well as federal reports from the U.S Department of Education. Data were aggregated for all 50 states on the following variables: primary part C funding source (federal, state, local); state system of payment structure (private, insurance, or other); FY 2022 federal and state allocations, the percentage of children served in each state, and the eligibility criteria for each state.

Results

Part C enrollment (M=4.00, SD=1.98) was non-significantly correlated with the state’s total federal allocation amount (M=$9,526,507, SD=$10,466,338) (r= -0.110, p > .05), or the state allocation amount (M=$38,018,729, SD=$22,717,632) (r=0.09, p >.05). A chi-squared analysis showed non-significant differences in the proportion of states that exceeded the national enrollment average χ2 (df=2) = 0.08, p > .05. An ANOVA showed non-significant differences between states whose primary funding source was federal, state, or local dollars F(1,46) =0.084, p > 0.05.

Conclusions

These findings are an initial probe into factors that play a role in explaining heterogeneity in part C enrollment across states. Part C enrollment rates did not differ based on how much funding each state received, the state’s primary funding source, or the eligibility criteria for Part C services. Further analyses will provide insight into specific avenues by which child find efforts may be successful, including investigating state funding allocated towards advertising services, funding for hiring and retaining part C service providers, and differences amongst states lead child find agencies.