Moving Toward Operational Definitions

Early intervention (EI) providers increasingly coach and collaborate with caregivers to strengthen and support caregiver–child interactions. The EI providers learning to coach other adults benefit from knowing what, exactly, they should do to support caregivers. This article serves two purposes. First, it proposes an operationally defined, theoretically based, and reliably used set of definitions (behaviors) that describe coaching strategies that providers can use to support caregiver learning. Second, it suggests possible applications of these definitions for EI providers, administrators, and researchers. We discuss underlying theories of adult learning and the process by which the definitions were developed. Preliminary evidence regarding the utility of these definitions is presented by using videotape data of provider coaching practices in home visits from three different studies. Descriptive data from these programs and home visits illustrate how the coaching definitions can be used to distinguish implementation differences and how they could be used to support professional development efforts for EI coaching and consultation.