This is your definitive guide to identifying and planning for children with special needs; to involving parents as partners in their child's development; and to providing quality early learning classrooms that insure the inclusion of every child. This book describes the most current early childhood education practices for teaching children with diverse learning and developmental needs; those who are developing normally and those with developmental problems with the focus on creating developmentally appropriate learning environments for all young children.
Just read the 9th edition of this text for an upcoming college course I am teaching this semester on inclusion in ECE classrooms.
The text does a great job at presenting inclusion and federal regulations surrounding children with special needs.
The appendix provides sample IEP and IFSP forms and several points of discussion and activities related to the chapter reading.
The text is easy to read and provides key terms before each chapter.
I do wish the text provided more examples of modifications and accommodations general ed teachers use in inclusive settings.
I also wished the text provided a sample, completed IEP.
Overall, the text provides great info in an easy-to-read manner with application questions related to the chapters. I plan to use the text and supplement with additional readings.
Good plain-English guide to the principles of inclusive practice; like most US-centric EC texts it tends to assume the reader is ignorant of the rationale for some fairly basic aspects of care (standards and practices that centres in other countries may take pretty much for granted), but on the whole a useful introductory text - sometimes that spelling-out works in students' favour. It's always interesting to see how the rather peculiar legislative and statutory environment over there affects the way things are done (e.g. situations where funding/support etc is contingent upon child age rather than developmentally appropriate educational placement, or a specific diagnosis rather than the simple case of need, etc). Very different mindset, but as I say, useful to know about esp. because it highlights the reasons for doing things differently. A good solid grounding in the basic issues and practices of inclusion.