Ed. D.

The problem of the study was that of determining parents' opinions regarding the value of homebased programs in which they were taught to teach their preschool handicapped children. The data in the study consisted of responses by forty selected parents on the Value of Program Instrument which was developed for the study using the definition of value as defined by Krathwohl, Bloom and Masia. Parents' acceptance, preference, and commitment to the program were measured in association with the parents' educational levels and their child's type of handicap. All computations were done on an IBM computer using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The data was analyzed using crosstabulations, non-parametric statistical tests of significance, and appropriate descriptive statistics. The following are the conclusions made as a result of the findings: As participants in a parent training program, parents needed information on how to help their children learn and on how to help them to adjust to their children. Parents were pleased with the way the homebased preschool program operated but they also wanted to have the Child Development Specialist visit more frequently than once a week. Parents, to a small degree had initiated contact which led to the placement of their children in the program; the majority of children were placed however through initial action of the Child Development Specialist. Parents were pleased with the Child Development Specialist to the extent that they would choose them if they had a choice of teachers. "Helping my child learn" was chosen as the most important of ten topics for use in a parent training program, while "managing money" was chosen as the least important. Parents overwhelmingly accepted the homebased programs as indicated by their willingness to be associated with it, but there was no relationship between their acceptance and their educational level or their child's type of handicap. Parents preferred the program as indicated by their wanting, seeking, and pursuing it, but there was no relationship between their preference for the program and their educational level or their child's type of handicap. More than one third of the parents were committed to the program as indicated by their acts to further it, but the majority of parents were uncertain about their commitment. There was no association between their feelings of commitment about the program and their educational level or child's type of handicap. Parents and home teachers did not differ in their reporting of the parents' acceptance, preference and commitment to the homebased preschool program. / Ed. D.