Adapting Early Childhood Curricula for Children with Disabilities and Special Needs

by Ruth E. Cook

The Head Start program had a significant impact on the development of early childhood special education. It was the first major public exposure to the im...

Legislation enacted in 1972 required Head Start programs to include children with disabilities to the extent of at least 10% of their enrollment. Including children with disabilities in classrooms with typical children has become a major activity of Head Start. In fact, even as early as 19...

After the extreme optimism that accompanied the establishment of Head Start, it came as a shock to those who worked daily with the children and their parents that the program failed to produce long-term gains.

what were long term gains and goals?

The Westinghouse Report of 1969 cited data suggesting that measured gains made by Head Starters faded rapidly. By the end of the first grade, there often were no significant differences between the overall academic performance of children who had attended Head Start programs and those from the same kinds of homes who had not.

influential ...

Edward Zigler, a member of the original planning committee that conceptualized Head Start and later director of the Office o...

data” (p....

in other words- no using speculation- go by data

most recent impact study of 3- to 4-year-olds in Head Start revealed minimal long-term effects on children’s ...

development at the third-grade level (Puma et al., 2012), other studies have reported the positive effects of being in Head Start.

Head Start program, children demonstrated gains in language, literacy, and math skills, and well as increased social skills and impulse control

In kindergarten, compared to children who did not attend preschool, Head Start children demonstrated higher cognitive and social-emotional skills and fewer attention or behavioral dif...

Establishing an effective family–professional partnership is a guiding principle of early childhood special education.

practitioners understand and respect the critical role and inevitable impact family members and other caregivers have on the child’s development and the success of the intervention process. Evidence of the family’s influence on child development can be found in research with children with and without disabilities.

reported that the parent’s ability to follow the child’s lead by responding to signals and interests such as physical closeness and turn taking is positively related to the social ...

parents’ home literacy practices positively influence reading skills in young children w...

Research, recommended practices, and experience continue to validate the field’s commitment to supporting parents as they deal both with their own emotions ...

It is imperative that practitioners in early childhood special education value the significant role of parents and families and build collaborative partnerships with th...

Collaboration with parents or other caregivers is also essential to the development of families’ awareness of the importance of their role in facilitating, guidin...

Family–professional collaboration involves “practices that build relationships between families and professionals who work together to achieve mutually agreed upon outcomes and goals that promote family ...

(It should be noted that in this text, the terms parents, families, and caregivers refer to individuals who have primary caregiving responsibilities for, and consistent interactions with, a young child. We recognize that parents refers to adults who have legal parental responsibilities. Families refers to parents, siblings, relatives, and any one else who is considered to be family. The term caregivers includes anyone who may be providing care of the child under consideration.)

“dance of partnership.” These include the fact that the need to collaborate extensively with a child’s teachers is not a choice for parents, whereas professionals usually make the choice to work with children and parents. Second, parents are expected to work more intimately with professionals than is usually true of the caregivers of children without disabilities.

In order for true collaboration to result, professionals must listen more intently and focus on the needs of the whole family, not just those of the child. In addition, parents are expected to “dance” with many professionals when consideration is given to all that might be involved with any one child. Even though parents may know their child...

“Phase 1: Colliding and Campaigning,” each partner explains his or her own perspective about the child to persuade the other. This is solo dancing rather than a dance of partnership. At each phase, each partner must practice these steps: stop, look, listen, share, and take care to understand the other’s goals and perspectives in order to move toward a collaborative partnership. In “Phase 2: Cooperating and Compromising,” partners listen, developing trust and open cooperation, and there is “less stepping on toes” (p. 20). Many relationships may remain at this phase with commitment, problem solving, and some level of consensus. It takes time to develop “Phase...

The parent perspective that appears at the end of the chapter illustrates how time and professional concern helped enable one parent to develop the coping skills needed to face the day-to-day rea...

Lisa Jerugim’s personal perspective on raising a child with developmental ch...

When children with disabilities originally began to receive early intervention services, parents were expected to be passive bystanders watching their childr...

Parents were encouraged to become involved, but the nature of the involvement was...

Parents of young children with disabilities often were trained to carry out therapeutic or instructional a...

PL 105-17 of 1997 strengthened the recognition of families as integral partners in the early intervention process.

Currently, PL 108-446, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004, further supports the critical role that families play in their child’s development by requiring that families receive written notification of their rights and responsibilities annually, rather than just on the initiation of services.