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seem to have been “added on” with little or no rhyme nominated by the topic area workgroups for each revised
or reason. Take, for example, the one family practice practice” (Snyder & Ayankoya, 2015, p. 22).
and two instruction practices that have to do with dual Some of the evidence amassed for earlier versions
language learners (e.g., “Practitioners use and adapt in- of DEC recommended practices (e.g., Sandall et al.,
structional strategies that are effective for dual language 2000) no doubt includes findings relevant to the 2014
learners when teaching English to children with disabili- recommended practices (Division for Early Childhood,
ties.”). On the one hand, they do not seem to fit with the 2014). There is, however, no direct correspondence since
other practices in this topic area, and, on the other hand, the “topic areas” in the two sets of practices are not all
beg the question why these two topic areas and not oth- the same, and neither is the content of the practices for
ers and especially the interaction topic area? This is not the same topic areas not all the same.
to say the practices are not important, but to point out The direct service “topic areas” in the 2000 DEC
inconsistencies in the topic area practices themselves. recommended practices are assessment, child-focused
These five factors, among others, led me to conclude intervention, family-based practices, interdisciplinary
that “The lack of specificity of the DEC recommended models, and technology applications. Content analyses
practices both in terms of the interventions and outcomes of the practices for the two sets of DEC recommended
of the practices, and the fact that individual practices are practices finds some overlap but hardly any one-to-one
formatted so differently, makes their usefulness [for] correspondence in terms of the same or identical list of
early childhood intervention [performance checklists]… practices. For example, the 2000 DEC recommended
questionable” (Dunst, 2017a, p. 5). This conclusion was practices uses the term transitions to refer to both tran-
made, in part, by the fact that large numbers of recom- sitions between classroom activities and transitions be-
mended practices are formatted and stated in such differ- tween programs, whereas the 2014 DEC recommended
ent ways that they confuse rather than clarify the purpose practices uses transitions only in terms of transitions
of intent of the practices. between programs. Thus, claims that the research evi-
dence for the 2000 DEC recommended practices con-
4.2. Lack of Research Evidence for the stitutes evidence for the 2014 recommended practices
Recommended Practices do not seem warranted. As a result, the evidence for the
2000 DEC recommended practices would be applicable
In the monograph Enhancing Services for Young to the 2014 DEC recommended practices for some but
Children with Disabilities and Their Families, it is stated certainly not all of these practices.
that “The 2014 version of the DEC Recommended Prac- Evidence for the effectiveness of any type of prac-
tices represents the most current knowledge available tice requires that there be a functional or statistical rela-
on evidence-based, high-leverage practices to support tionship between a practice and an outcome or outcomes
young children, birth through age 5, with disabilities and of interest (Dunst, 2010; Dunst, Trivette, & Cutspec,
their families” (Division for Early Childhood, 2015a, p. 2007). More specifically, there has to be an empirical
v). In this same monograph, McLean (2015) cited the relationship between the key characteristics, active in-
empirical support for the 2000 version of the DEC rec- gredients, or core components of a practice and observ-
ommended practices (e.g., Smith et al., 2002) but no able changes, improvements, or differences in child,
evidence for the 2014 practices. This was the case, to a caregiver-child, parent, family, or practitioner behavior
large degree, because “Given the accelerated timelines or functioning (Dunst & Espe-Sherwindt, 2017). This
for producing the [2014] revised set of recommended is the type of practice-based evidence needed to inform
practices in one year, the [DEC] commission determined isolation of what matters most in terms of explaining
it would not be feasible to conduct comprehensive litera- outcomes of interest (Dunst, 2016, emphasis added).
ture reviews to gather information about the status of the Practice-based research evidence includes findings
best available evidence” (Snyder & Ayankoya, 2015, p. where certain behavior indicators prove more important
21, emphasis added). This begs the question: If no evi- than others in terms of explaining practice-outcome re-
dence was provided for the 2014 DEC recommended lationships (Dunst, 2010, 2016; Dunst & Trivette, 2012).
practices, how can a claim be made that the practices are These relationships can be established using any number
evidence-based? of research designs and approaches. The most important
In the absence of direct evidence for the 2014 DEC thing is that the evidence establishes practice-outcome
recommended practices, two sources of information relationships for the behavior indicators for an interven-
were offered as evidence for the recommended practic- tion practice and intended benefits.
es. The first was the empirical evidence for earlier sets As part of final preparation of the 2014 DEC rec-
of DEC recommended practices (Snyder & Ayankoya, ommended practices, topic area workgroup leaders were
2015). The second were lists of references for “evidence asked to provide lists of published and unpublished stud-

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