Desirable nurturing children with disabilities directly impacts their independent lives when they become adults in future as well as adaptive behavior abilities at school. Therefore, the need of early intervention is very serious. However, put aside discussing its quality, the quantity of early intervention in Korea was insufficient. Futhermore, the focus of early intervention was not on preventive aspects but on intervention itself. So, through exploring early intervention programs, including the Head Start program, that have been prevailing since 1960s, the author was to obtain information for newly establishing the direction of early intervention in Korea. As a result, the author suggest that Korean early intervention program should be prepared for preventive purposes, based on their own culture, and consider ecological environment of children in poverty through deep understanding its application methods.
Key words : Head Start, Deficit Model, Raising Intelligence Model, Dovetailed Programming, Ecological Approach* Dankook University