The Early Intervention/Early Childhood Special Education (EI/ECSE) leadership program prepares students to provide leadership in the area of infants and young children who are at risk and disabled and their families. Specifically students are prepared to become: 1) experts in program development, implementation and evaluation, 2) experts in policy development and analysis, 3) effective instructors, and 4) effective applied researchers.

The EI/ECSE doctoral program is tailored to meet the individual career goals of participating students. With their advisor, students design a program of studies that recognizes strengths and past experiences and which focuses on the student's future professional goals. An apprenticeship model is the primary training approach and entails two critical features. First, implementation of the apprenticeship model requires that students in this doctoral program are integrated into a broad array of "authentic" activities such as developing service delivery options, creating state policy, conducting research, participating in professional activities, writing articles, chapters, and grants, and preservice and inservice teaching. The involvement of students in authentic activities provides them with essential information about their profession, what will be expected, and how to meet those expectations in exemplary ways.

The second feature of the apprenticeship model is the opportunity for students to work with and observe individuals who meet the standards for successful professional behavior in the field. In this program, students work with a variety of competent professionals who demonstrate effective ways to solve problems and make other important contributions to their profession.

Program Requirements

For the Ph.D. degree, students must complete at least 3 years of full-time graduate level academic work beyond the bachelor's degree, of which at least one academic year must be spent in residence on the Eugene campus after the student has been classified as a conditionally or unconditionally admitted student in the doctoral program. One academic year consists of three consecutive terms of full-time study, with a minimum of 9 completed graduate credits per term.

The following courses must be included in the graduate program:

EI/ECSE Core Courses:

SPED 680 Foundations in Early Intervention
SPED 682 Assessment and Evaluation in Early Intervention
SPED 683 Curriculum in Early Intervention
SPED 687-90 Early Intervention Methods I-IV

18 hours of Statistics and Design Courses
Field Studies and Practica

In addition to course work requirements, students must satisfactorily complete a comprehensive examination and dissertation.