Family needs assessment in rural and urban areas for families with handicapped infants and toddlers for implementation of Public Law 99-457

The purpose of this study was to investigate the needs of families with handicapped infants and toddlers in both rural and urban areas.;The study included eighty urban families and eighty rural families with a handicapped infant or toddler who was already receiving services. The parents completed the Family Needs Survey by Bailey and Simeonsson and an accompanying family data sheet. Families reported needs on the six subscales of the Family Needs Survey which are: Needs for Information, Needs for Support, Explaining to Others, Community Services, Financial Needs and Family Functioning. An analysis of the data yielded the following results related to the subscales on the Family Needs Survey.;Caucasians showed a higher degree of need than blacks on the Needs for Information subscale. Families with an income level between twenty and forty thousand dollars had a higher degree of need on the Needs for Support subscale than did families with an income below ten thousand dollars.;On the Explaining to Others subscale. (1) Caucasians have a higher degree of need than blacks; (2) Families with an income level between ten thousand and twenty thousand dollars have a higher degree of need than families with an income below ten thousand dollars or above forty thousand dollars; (3) Rural families with a severely handicapped child have a higher degree of need than either rural families with a mildly handicapped child or urban families with a severely handicapped child; (4) Single-parent families have fewer needs than two-parent families.;No differences were found involving the variables in this study for the Community Services subscale. Families with an income above forty thousand dollars have fewer needs on the Financial Needs subscale than any of the other three income levels, and single-parent families have a higher degree of need than two-parent families.;Rural black families have fewer needs on the Family Functioning subscale than do rural Caucasian families, or urban black families. Rural families with an income level below ten thousand dollars have fewer needs on this subscale than urban families with an income below ten thousand dollars or rural families with an income between ten and twenty thousand dollars.