Parents as Teachers

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education founded Parents As Teachers (PAT) in 1981. In 1986, Ohio, Texas, and Connecticut became the first three states outside of Missouri to implement PAT programs. In 1991, PAT attained international status when Australia began providing services. In 1994, the organization received public commendation from the United States Secretary of Education, as evaluations of PAT programs showed significant gains for high-needs children and their parents. By 1998, the number of PAT programs reached more than 2,000 sites including 49 states in the United States, Australia, Canada, England, and New Zealand. With certification of the first PAT program in Hawaii on July 12, 2001, PAT officially reached all 50 states. New developments in PAT include the Born to Learn Curriculum: Prenatal to 3 Years, which was translated into Spanish, and the development of standards for assessing the overall quality of PAT programs.

The philosophy of PAT is that babies are born to learn. The vision is that parents will be their child's best first teachers. Therefore, PAT services are driven by the idea that parents are the critical players in establishing the best possible foundation for learning and development for their children.

PAT provides several services for families with children younger than the age of three years. There are four key components common to all of the PAT programs:

• 1.
  Families receive personal visits in their home from a parent educator who educates the family regarding age-appropriate expectations for their child.
• 2.
  Parent meetings allow parents to share their concerns with other parents and to increase their parenting knowledge.
• 3.
  Screenings of the child's health, hearing, vision, and overall development are conducted periodically. Screenings provide an avenue for early detection of potential learning problems.
• 4.
  The founders of PAT were cognizant of the fact that families may have needs extending beyond the scope of PAT services. This provides the parents with links to resources within their community.

Numerous research studies on PAT programs throughout the country have confirmed positive effects in terms of child, parent, and family outcomes (Pfannenstiel, 1999). For example, The School Entry Assessment Project included more than 3,000 PAT participants. Findings indicate that children who participate in PAT combined with other prekindergarten experiences such as Head Start are the highest performing group upon school entry. Outcome measures included:

• Communication
• Mathematical knowledge
• Working with others
• Conventional knowledge

[Page 376]Other results indicate that children who receive PAT and early childhood special education (ECSE) services are rated by their teachers as similar in preparation to their average peers upon entering school. This finding suggests the possible contribution of PAT in ameliorating early developmental delays.

In an effort to reach a large number of children and their families, some school districts choose to pool their resources into consortia. By doing so, they are able to serve a larger number of children and their families than they would if they provided services as independent districts.