Assessing needs of families with handicapped infants

A 35-item parent survey was developed to assess the functional needs of parents with young handicapped children. A rationale for scale development and content is presented. Data from 34 two-parent families with handicapped infants suggest that the instrument is a useful source of intervention goals. Several items emerged as high priority needs for mothers and fathers. Addition of an open-ended response format provided a considerable amount of useful information. A readministration of the measure 6 months later with a subset of 20 families yielded high correlations. Implications of these findings for clinicians working with families of young handicapped children are discussed.