Family involvement is a key element in early intervention programs, as they must be tailored to individual children and family needs. Successful programs encourage parent participation, strengthening planning and cooperation with experts. Such involvement positively impacts children's development and program success, emphasizing the crucial role of parents in supporting children, particularly during their formative years. In this respect, the importance of family participation studies is clearly expressed when the best benefit of the individual with special needs is considered in early intervention studies.
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The early intervention process is important for supporting the development of children with developmental disabilities or at risk and their families. Early intervention should be programmed as soon as possible, the intervention should be transferred to the family and continuity should be ensured during implementation. Families should be included in the early intervention process with a systematic approach by planning their relationships with their children. Child and family cooperation in early intervention is important for the correct management of the process. In the intervention process, the family is considered as a mechanism that directly reaches the child in transferring the practice and information support received from experts to the child (Guralnick, 2005, Shonkoff & Meisels, 2000). Accordingly, family involvement practices come to the forefront in preventive services related to the continuity of development follow-up and practices in early intervention studies.
The family is more important in the education of children with special educational needs than in the education of children without special needs. Research shows that supporting children with special needs by their families contributes positively to the development of these individuals and that the participation of parents in family education programs is of vital importance for children (Güzel, 2006; Koca, 2016; Özcan, 2004).
Family involvement is an indispensably effective, important and powerful factor in a child's growth journey (Lewis et al., 2020). Children experience learning and discovery in the family environment (Kwon, 2021). In early intervention, the development and safety of children are supported by focusing on parent-child interaction (Guralnick, 2005). Within the scope of early intervention, home visits, parent support groups, home or institution-based practices, family counseling, special therapies, information and suggestion sharing, and periodic evaluation studies are carried out by experts (Bryant & Graham, 1993).