[Investigation in early intervention]

Point out the importance of the research in early intervention (EI), its limitations, and peculiarities.

After defender the importance of research in this applied field, its problems in EI are analysed from different perspectives. The idiosyncrasy of the intervention goals perfectly explain the concurrence of ethical and methodological limitations, which affect to the possible research designs. The diversity of possible needs of EI in the children lead to a great variability and heterogeneousity in the attended population and a great dispersion in the research purposes in this field. Centred in the interest by to improve the quality of the offered services, the actual situation of the research on the efficacy of the intervention in EI lead to reclaim insistently the development of multidimensional approaches. Evaluation of the intervention results, for example, must not exclusively centred in child developmental acquisitions, or at least not only in the classic aspects of motor, cognitive, language, etc.; quite the contrary, it must be take into account new areas and competencies, related both to the child and to his/her family. The evaluation of results or goals of the intervention must be only one dimensions more, which must be faced simultaneously to the evaluation of the characteristics of the child and his/her family and the characteristics of the programs itself.

The accumulated experience after eight years of service of a Research Department in a Childhood Developmental and Early Intervention Centre permit point out that this type of initiatives are valid to promote the research in the EI field.