An adapted version of the Impact on Family Scale (IFS), a 33-item rating scale for measuring the impact of the handicapped child on adult family members and siblings, was completed by 49 mothers of children between 36 and 64 months of age enrolled In early intervention programs. The internal consistency coefficient was found to be .86. Correlations of the Adapted IFS total score and IFS factor scores with relevant criterion measures supported the validity of the scores from the adapted scale for measuring the impact of the handicapped child on the family. The results of this study suggest the potential utility of the adapted IFS for assessing the effects of early intervention programs on families.

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Fathers' and mothers' encouragement of sibling interaction was examined in two-child families when the younger sibling was 5 weeks old and the older sibling about 22 months old and then approximately 3 months later. Concordant with the theories of J. Block (1982) and J. H. Block (1983,1984), fathers' and mothers' own linguistic behaviour as well as their encouragement of their children's behaviour reflected * The authors express their appreciation to the Office of Research and the Agricultural Expenment Station (journal paper No. 3678), Utah State University, for their support of this work. Many thanks to Dona Reeder, Carolyn Miller, and Mahshid Salehi for their assistance in collecting and coding data.

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