CAPSTONE PROJECT SUMMARY (Thesis Sample)

Capstone Summary: Investigating how to Improve Access, Quality, and Family Engagement for Infants and Children with Developmental Delays or Disabilities Name Institution Course Professor Date Introduction & Problem Motivation Overview Early intervention serves as an essential approach to offering appropriate services and assistance to children with developmental difficulties or disabilities and parents of such children. However, families are challenged to receive adequate and proper EI services that cater to their needs. There are limitations and possibilities of early intervention for children with disabilities due to specific geographic barriers, differences in socioeconomic status, or other systemic factors, like in Nevada (Cruda, 2023). There are several reasons why this project is needed for Nevada's early intervention system. The goal is to determine the current status of the early intervention systems in Nevada and to make improvements to increase the availability, quality, and inclusion of families in the early intervention programs. Early intervention is the key to ensuring that long-term changes can be made in intra-individual functioning and across many contexts. Specifically, in the social aspect, EI assists children in being more involved in the family and other societal aspects and gives families tools to facilitate their child's education adequately. From a health perspective, most EI services sponsor concerns that impact children's physical, communication, learning, social, emotional, and adapting development that is positive for their future health. In addition, in the economic aspect, early intervention discourages spending financial resources on health and education needs by capitalizing on the ability of children to undergo significant changes in certain stages of development (Axford &Berry, 2023). Moreover, in the education area, early intervention is a framework of initial schooling that offers therapy, teaching, and intervention for students based on individual needs from the age of under five years. By building capacities for early intervention in Nevada, this project creates a domino effect, enhancing the state's childhood, family, and community functioning across development domains and contexts. Research Question The overarching research question this project aims to address is: In what ways can Nevada's early intervention system be enhanced to maximize access so that Infants with developmental delays or disabilities and their families will benefit from it? Hypothesis Three possible hypotheses could be explored in this project, as well as their potential outcomes and ways to differentiate between them. The first hypothesis suggests that families from Nevada's rural and frontier regions experience less availability of early intervention services than families in urban areas. Possible findings supporting this hypothesis include rural families perceiving longer distances to cover, transport hindrances, and limited access to EI providers as the significant challenges they encounter. Similarly, data indicating that rural families enroll less and use services less than their urban counterparts would strengthen these geographical injustices for access. Such potential outcomes could be differentiated by comparing survey results where families from different geographical locations describe the challenges they met and the data that characterizes enrollment and services received depending on the geographical location and the degree of rurality. A second hypothesis posits that cultural/linguistic irrelevance leads to the disconnection of diverse families. A possible implication that might support this hypothesis could involve families from identified racial or ethnic minorities and non-English speaking families complaining of communication barriers when with providers. Hence, if these diverse families had significantly higher dropout rates than their English-speaking, non-Hispanic white peers, it would indicate that there is a lack of responsive practices that leads to students' disengagement. Such outcomes would be indicated by breaking and comparing survey or interview data of families by race or ethnicity and home language variables. Comparative analysis of enrollment, participation, and dropout among these demographic entities would also help understand the effects of cultural and language barriers. The third hypothesis assumes that workforce issues such as lack of professional development and pipeline deficiencies influence the quality of EI services in Nevada in a negative way. Others were families stating that the quality of services they received was still a function of where they lived and the service provider. These observations pointed to some providers' inability to adhere to EBPs consistently. The absence of families' perceptions of service quality and the lack of consistency through surveys and interviews could differentiate this outcome. Also, direct observation and assessing the fidelity of EI service delivery would generate factual evidence of the effects of workforce-quality differences. Besides, comparing the workforce factors such as the credentials and experience level of the providers in different areas may explain the existing quality differences. By testing and exploring hypotheses for the access, cultural competence, and other points of the workforce and system, this study can identify specific areas in which Nevada's EI system can be strengthened to enhance statewide capacity to serve children and families. Problem Statement Nevada's EI system, like other states, serves children aged below three who have developmental delays or disabilities and their families, and it has various barriers that hinder the provision of services to all children and families in need of early intervention. However, based on the data obtained, it is seen that Nevada is one of the lowest-ranking states in the country for the provision of services under EI to children below the age of 3 years as compared to the proportion of children of similar ages whose developmental delays have been estimated (Murphy et al., 2020). As a result, huge gaps may be prevalent regarding reaching out to families, providing services, and improving the system's capacity. Many populations across Nevada's EI are limited by systemic barriers and barriers within the EI system that affect access, quality, and family involvement. Geographic challenges, being one of the largest frontiers states, cause many families in Nevada to experience physical proximity challenges, such as long distances to access EI centralized in urban areas, while providers continue to challenge the adequacy of delivering adequate services in some of the most remote frontiers of Nevada. Further, there are language barriers, an issue in Nevada due to the multiculturally and multilingually diverse racially or ethnically diverse population; yet, these barriers could lead to failure in communication, lack of rapport, and family non-engagement with the provider. Other barriers include low wages, few incentives, and a lack of clear career advancement opportunities that cause a shortage of EI professionals in Nevada, particularly in specialized skills or cultural-linguistic capability, which brings cases of practice variation and quality deficits informed by workforce deficit. However, another set of barriers related to data and coordination, including inadequate data infrastructure, tangled service tracking systems, and challenged cross-system initiatives, hampers effective identification of needs, funding, and evaluation of EI needs and outcomes statewide. The study will discuss various geographic locations and populations in Nevada that experience a lack of access to the required EI services. The coverage entails the examination of family-provider interactions and mainstream/cultural competence of the existing EI systems, as well as the assessment of the competency, uniformity, and efficiency of the EI services at multiple childcare providers across Nevada. In identifying the family-defined barriers or facilitators for participation in Nevada's early intervention programs, the project investigates new models of services and supports, workforce, data, and family and professional collaboration strategies that may enhance Nevada's families, children, and EI system. Background & Literature Review Early intervention services are essential and can assist infants and children with various disabilities or developmental delays. The Division for Early Childhood (DEC) of the Council for Exceptional Children has articulated guidelines that advocate using natural learning environments, family-centered approaches, and research-based practices. Research has shown that timely and quality EI is associated with benefits such as children achieving developmental milestones, better prognosis for the future, lowered stress levels in families, and savings from future extensive services (Valverde et al., 2023; Smythe et al., 2021). However, the authors highlighted the desirability for more empirical studies concerning successful practices to engage families and manage cultural and language differences. However, many families may encounter difficulties in obtaining EI services.  A study by Moran and Sheppard (2023) showed that urban families face shortages of culturally sensitive services, transport difficulties, and referral confusion. Nonetheless, there is limited literature on the EI in Nevada’s frontier, urban, and rural regions. Moreover, a study by Sapiets et al. (2023) revealed that families of children with developmental disabilities remain in a state of confusion and absence of information regarding support services. In a narrative review, Sapiets et al. (2021) established that there are determinants of the use of EI, which include cultural beliefs, a shortage of providers, and socio-economic status. The authors also established ...