PLANNING AND ORGANIZING

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS

Delivering Services to Young Children with Special Needs

Curriculum for Young Children with Special Needs
Designing Learning Environments for Young Children
with Special Needs
Strategies for Teaching Young Children with Special
Needs
Delivering Services to Young Children with
Special Needs

 Service Delivery Approaches

 Should occur in the natural environment

 What is the natural Environment?

 Book “natural environment is the locations viewed as
normal or typical for individuals of similar age without
disabilities”
 What are some normal and not normal settings?
 Service Delivery Models should be
 Integrated placements
 Comprehensive
 Normalized
 Adaptable
 Peer and Family References
 Outcome- Based
 Division of Early Childhood of the Council for
Exceptional Children Task Force recommends
these 5 general principles
 Placement in the LRE
 Family-Focused
 The use of transdisciplinary service delivery approach
 The inclusion of both developmental and individually
appropriate practices
 The inclusion of empirically sound as well as
value0driven practices
What are the 3 Service
Models

 Home Based
 Services are provided in the home

 Advantages

 Disadvantages
 Center-Based
 Services are located in the center

 Advantages

 Disadvantages
 Combination
 This is using both home and center based

 Look at Pg 155
 Do any stick out to you?
What are some Inclusive
Setting?
 Mainstreaming or Inclusion
 LRE
 REI
 Full Inclusion
The setting must be!

 It must provide the student with an appropriate education

based on the unique needs of the child.
 It is meant to enhance the child’s education
through provision of a normalized social context of
learning
 IDEA never envisioned all children to be
integrated----WHY?
 Settings benefit the child with the disability,
children without disabilities, communities, and the
families with and without children with disabilities.
 Todum Pole of LRE activity
Regular Education Initiative
(REI)
 It is not directly aimed at young children with
special needs
 First introduced in 1986 by former Assistant
Secretary of Education Madeline Will
 It is a partnership between regular and special
education
 Which partnership is it?
 Misunderstood and misrepresented
Full Inclusion

 All children are taught in general Ed classrooms

 Placement Option Timeline.

Transitions

 When do they occur?

 Infant program to toddler program

These are the goals of a
transition from DEC Task
Force
 Ensure continuity of service
 Minimize disruption of the family system
 Promote child functioning in the natural
environment of the LRE
 Involve planning, preparation,
implementation and evaluation with and
between programs and with the family
Transition Continued

 Both the child and family must be involved in

the transition

 Follow the 3 C’s

 Collaboration
Communication
Comprehensive Planning
5 Steps to undertake for a
transition
 Plan a field trip to the new school
 Read stories about the fun and new
adventures
 Help the child create a scrapbook of the new
grade
 Role play going to the new school
 Invite the child’s new teacher in
Professional Teaming and
Collaboration
 Multidisciplinary
 Interdisciplinary
 Transdisciplinary
What is in the IFSP
 Statement of the infants or toddlers present levels of physical, cognitive,
communication, social or emotional and adaptive development
 Statement of the familys resources, priorities and concerns
 Statement of the major outcomes expected to be achieved for the infant or
toddler and the family including criteria, procedures, and timelines used to
assess progress toward outcomes
 Statement of early intervention services necessary to meet the unique needs
of the infant or toddler and the family
 The projected dates for initiation of services and the anticipated duration of
such services
 The name of the service coordinator
 A statement of the natural environments in which early intervention services
shall be provided or justification if services are not provided in said environment
 The steps supporting the transition of the toddler with a disability to services
provided under part B
Curriculum for Young
Children with Special Needs
 Definition of curriculum
 5 Different phases of curriculum development
 Phase 1 - Determine what goals of outcome are desired for each child
 Phase 2 – Determine what skills each child must learn in order to
achieve these goals or outcomes
 Phase 3 – Determine the expectations of the environment and the
functional skill requirements
 Phase 4 – Determine how the skills will be taught based on each
child’s learning style, activity preferences, and experiences
 Phase 5 – Determine how the goals or outcomes will be evaluated
 Result – Information that can be used to make decisions about the
curriculum
What should You consider
when determining curriculum

 Read and discuss Pg 215 and 217

Things to consider

 Broad enough to address the wide range of

abilities of the children
 One in which the children’s IEP or IFSP objectives
can be addressed
 Generated based on the interests and experiences
of the children
 Selected based on the availability of resources and
materials necessary
 Designed based on the interests of the teacher
and other team members
According to Bredekamp and
Rosegrant these should be
evident
 The children’s interests are acknowledge
 The activities are meaningful and relevant to
the children’s everyday experiences
 Social interaction is encouraged
 Activities draw on children’s previous
knowledge
 Many forms of participation for active
engagement are provided for while promoting
the acquisition of skills and knowledge
DAP

 Established by NAEYC and has 3 important

dimensions
 Age appropriateness
 Individual appropriateness
 Cultural appropriateness
DAP continued

 It was not until 1993 that DEC published DEC

Recommended practices in Early Intervention / Early
childhood Special Education It outlined

 Educational experiences should be family-based

 Educational experiences should be researched-based or value-based
 Educational experiences should be consistent with a multicultural
perspective
 Educational experiences should provide for multidisciplinary input
 Educational experiences should be developmentally and
chronologically appropriate
 Educational experiences should be normalized
Designing the Learning
Environment for Young
Children with Special Needs
 Look at handouts anything in particular?
 What should be considered when designing the
learning environments?
 What are the typical activity areas in the learning
environment?
 Equipping Developmentally Appropriate Centers.
The Learning Environment

 The efficacy of every lesson introduced by the

teacher and the degree of learning demonstrated by
the child is dependent upon the engagement of the
child in the environmental interaction. Bailey and
Wolery (1992) suggest these guidelines to promote
engagement
 Provide appealing materials
 make participation a privilege rather than a duty
 Give children immediate roles in activities
 use instructions to initiate or prompt interactions
 identify children’s preference for materials
Other things to Consider

 Stimulus Control
 Premacking
 Responsivity
 Behavior Trapping
Considerations for
purchasing Instructional
Materials
 Cost and durability
 target population
 research and field-test dates
 Sequencing of skills
 organizational of materials
 effective teaching practices
 space/time
 extent of teacher involvement
 interest levels
 reinforcement needed
Checklist for Accessible
Environment
 Look at handouts 26-263
Strategies for Teaching
Young Children with Special
Needs
 Teacher Mediated
 Different techniques that the adult can use to
promote child engagement
 Types
 Environmental Arrangements
 What are some?

 Promote acceptance
 Provision of prompts and praise
Continues

 Peer Mediated Strategies

 Use other classmates to promote learning and
engagement
 Types
 Peer-initiation interventions
 Cooperative learning
Continued

 Routine-Based strategies
 Take advantage of already occurring events such
as play, predictable routine activities such as snack
time and transitions
 Types
 Activity based strategies
 Transition based instruction
Continued….Again

 Specific Naturalistic (Milieu) Strategies

 Idea in early childhood setting that they reflect
developmentally appropriate practice by using
procedures that are child-directed and teacher
guided
 Types
 Incidental teaching
 The model and expansion
 The Mand-model
 Time Delay
 Interrupted routine
Adapting the Home and school

 Vision
 Hearing
 Motor Development and Heath Impairments
 Cognitive
 Social and Emotional
 Communication and Language
Reference

 Gargiulo, Richard and Kilgo, Jennifer. Young

Children and Special Needs 2nd Ed. New
York: Thompson Delmar Learning,
2005.Print.