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Donna Spiker

Program Manager, Early Childhood Program

Donna Spiker, Ph.D., Program Manager of the Early Childhood Program, is a nationally known developmental psychologist with extensive experience designing and conducting research and evaluations on the effects of early intervention,early care and education, and school readiness programs and services for infants and young children and their families. She has strong expertise regarding the development and assessment of infants, toddlers, and young children with disabilities and other risk conditions, including autism, developmental delay, Down syndrome, behavioral disorders, low birth weight, and poverty, and programs and services to support them.

Dr. Spiker is principal investigator of the evaluation of the St. Paul Early Childhood Scholarship Pilot Program and the Pre-Kindergarten Allowances Project for the Minnesota Early Learning Foundation. She also is leading a subcontract to the Erikson Institute to evaluate the Illinois Early Childhood Block Grant Program for the Illinois State Board of Education. Dr. Spiker is associate director of the national Early Childhood Outcomes (ECO) Center for the Office of Special Education Programs of the U.S. Department of Education. She previously co-directed the Statewide Data Collection and Evaluation of First 5 California Funded Programs, with primary responsibility for evaluation of the School Readiness Initiative and the Special Needs Project and co-directed the National Early Intervention Longitudinal Study (NEILS), the first study of early intervention for infant and toddlers with disabilities and their families with a nationally representative sample.

Dr. Spiker has authored numerous articles and book chapters about the development and assessment of infants and young children. She is a frequent presenter at national and international professional conferences and consults on research and clinical early childhood projects across the United States. She serves on the editorial boards of a number of journals devoted to research about young children and is a Fellow in the Division of Developmental Disabilities and Mental Retardation of the American Psychological Association and is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of London. Dr. Spiker earned her Ph.D. in child development (with a minor in special education) from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Spiker can be contacted at cehs@sri.com.