Adapting Early Childhood Curricula for Children in Inclusive Settings, Fifth Edition - Softcover

This book is written with you, the student of either early childhood or special education, in mind. Whether you are studying to become a teacher of young children with special needs or are an early interventionist with a related background who wishes to develop greater versatility in your chosen field, we have designed this to be an easy-to-read, interesting, and comprehensive resource for you. It provides extensive use of examples, dialogues, practical illustrations, checksheets, and a focus on the best practices in the field.

When this text was originally published, intervention with young children with special needs was in its formative years. Since that time the field has expanded, and this book has successfully grown with it. Young children with special needs are now enrolled in a variety of settings and are served by professionals and paraprofessionals with diverse backgrounds. Our objective now, as it was in the first five editions, is to present a text that will play a major role in the development of all of these professionals. The focus is on the skills necessary to assist infants, young children, and their families to meet their special challenges and develop to their fullest potential.

Distinguishing Features

This book has four main strengths that make it a compelling self-teaching resource:

1. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the natures of all young children and how they learn. Adapting curricula and intervention approaches for chlldren with special needs works effectively only when professionals build on a strong foundation of understanding what is common to all young children. On the basis of this necessary foundation, students can consider strategies for meeting the developmental and educational needs of infants and young children who have disabilities or who experience circumstances and conditions that potentially interfere with optimal growth and adjustment.

2. The approach taken in this text also stresses the absolute necessity of understanding young children within the context of the family. Every family is unique and complex, reflecting the many influences of history, culture or ethnicity, economics, and family dynamics. Early interventionists must focus not on the detailed analysis of these many factors, but on ways of supporting families that will maximize their day-to-day fulfillment as caregivers of their young. As explained in the text, your job, in part, is to help parents develop a sense of competence in their own abilities to nurture their children regardless of family circumstances. Appreciation of families' roles in the development of children and respect for families' concerns and priorities are critical to effective curriculum design and program development.

3. A significant portion of the text is organized according to traditional developmental domains: social-emotional, motor, communication, and cognitive skills. As an early childhood special education professional, you will seek to develop these growth areas in the children entrusted to you. Thus, you must develop a thorough understanding of each of these complex domains.

4. Finally, you must ultimately understand that all of the growth areas and individual and family background factors must be synthesized into a view of the whole child. As in any other form of synergy, the whole child is much greater than the sum of his or her parts. This holistic view relates directly to the book's emphasis on activity-based and play-based approaches to intervention. You will learn how to integrate goals and objectives for all domains into developmentally appropriate and motivating activities in inclusive, community-based settings. Throughout, best practices are explained for home, center, or classroom application.

What is new about this sixth edition? The four points just mentioned suggest the framework and approach that have consistently made this book appealing to readers of five earlier editions. They have been time-tested and consistently found to be helpful. However, changes have also been made in substance.

The sixth edition includes important considerations for working with young children who exhibit characteristics within the autism spectrum of disorders. It also recognizes the major challenges involved in effectively serving children in inclusive settings. Therefore, extensive attention is given to the development of skills to support inclusion. Not only are the three primary models of inclusion support thoroughly discussed, but techniques for problem solving and collaboratively resolving conflict are also presented. Team building that includes families and involves paraprofessionals productively is considered to be essential to successful inclusion of young children with special needs. As in previous editions, updated, student-friendly annotated bibliographies, lesson plans, a glossary, developmental charts, and a list of early intervention competencies and resources are included.

Organization

The text opens with a presentation of our philosophy for working with children who have special needs. It explores human likenesses and value differences and discusses our belief in the importance of providing services in the most normalized settings possible. Chapter 1 highlights the historical contributions of the fields of early childhood education and special education. Important features and implications of Public Laws 94-142, 99-457, 101-336, 101-476, 102-119, and 105-17 are summarized, along with alternative approaches to service delivery.

Chapter 2 presents techniques to involve families in a collaborative partnership with the variety of professionals with whom they must interface. In developing a family-focused approach, students are encouraged to view families from a systems perspective. Special attention is given to the various methods of parent involvement that can accommodate cultural diversity, language differences, and unique family situations.

Issues and methods of infant and child assessment, including both formal and informal methods, are presented in Chapter 3. Students are introduced to team approaches and the importance of ecologically valid assessments. Chapter 4 defines the components of individualized education programs and individualized family service plans. Strategies for collaborative program and transition planning are outlined. Chapter 5 focuses on curriculum development within a framework of generic instructional strategies. Disability-specific adaptations for young children with special needs provide a point of departure for facilitating inclusion.

Chapter 6 begins by describing the stages of psychosocial development as a precursor to understanding how to facilitate social skills through the medium of play. Considerable attention is given to helping children who experience particular emotional and behavioral challenges and working with those who have been maltreated or exposed prenatally to drugs. After describing typical development of motor skills, Chapter 7 examines atypical motor development. Practical intervention strategies are offered, including handling and positioning guidelines.

Chapters 8 and 9 focus on the development of communication and cognition. The importance of caregiver-child interactions and the role of play in optimal development is recognized throughout. Special attention is devoted to specific strategies for enhancing communication skills in children with severe disabilities, autism, visual impairments, and hearing impairments, as well as children from non-English-speaking families. Unique is the section devoted to understanding the social and linguistic factors related to children's emergent literacy skills and strategies for encouraging these skills. A section on facilitation of phonological and phonemic awareness is included in this section.

The final chapter has been totally revised to combine previous content related to working with paraprofessionals with models and strategies of inclusion support. Three models of inclusion support are discussed in Chapter 10: itinerant consultation, coteaching, and use of paraprofessionals as one-tonne assistants.

Finally, the appendices offer a wealth of practical information, including developmental guidelines, recommended materials, periodicals, Web site addresses, and a list of competencies that we hope will be developed by each and every reader.