Websites
In the ever-growing and changing field of early childhood education, educators often need to expand their knowledge and refine their skills to meet the new challenges that come on a daily basis. The following websites offer up-to-date information and research for general understanding and planning and more specific issues. A section is also included that links you to Ohio websites that focus on the field of special education and inclusive practices.
These web-based resources may be beneficial as you study and explore the ideas related to the inclusive classroom.
The Center for Inclusive Child Care offers online self-study courses for early childhood and school-age care professionals interested in increasing their knowledge and awareness about the special needs of children and how to include all children in their settings.
CRIEC is an organization that seeks to broaden the knowledge base of the early childhood community by providing research and information about RTI in relation to early childhood education. RTI is one approach that is being used in inclusive early childhood settings in hopes of better meeting the learning needs of every child in the classroom. The website includes explanations and examples of the three tiers of RTI as it applies early childhood settings and offers a link to the Preschool RTI Network for those educators who wish to interact with other teachers who have an ongoing interest in RTI within the preschool context.
The Circle of Inclusion website uses real-life examples to help define accommodation, adaptation, and modification as well as other terms associated with the inclusive classroom.
This section of the ECLKC is in itself a rich website that offers a wealth of information about specific disabilities and the programs and services that are needed by staff and parents as they seek to serve the children who have special needs.
The center's overarching goal is to increase the competence, confidence, and effectiveness of personnel in Head Start programs to include children with disabilities. Look here for training materials and tools for teachers and coordinators, as well as other resources.
The NDC website features links to helpful information that can be used by teachers and others who work with children with disabilities. The center serves as a central source of information on disabilities in infants, toddlers, children, and youth; IDEA, which is the law authorizing special education; No Child Left Behind (as it relates to children with disabilities); and research-based information on effective educational practices.
Supported by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs, NECTAC serves all 50 states and 10 jurisdictions with an array of services and supports to improve service systems and outcomes for infants, toddlers, and preschool-aged children with special needs and their families. If you go to "topics" and choose "inclusion," you can see the DEC-NAEYC Joint Position Statement on Inclusion (2009). There is also a link to information from the National Early Childhood Inclusion Institute. NNCC provides a website with a general child-care and education agenda. The link above takes you to one example of NNCC's work. This article helps child-care providers understand the laws that affect children and families of children with disabilities and suggests ways that providers can create environments and experiences to best meet the needs of all children.
The NPDCI works with states to create a system of high-quality, cross-agency professional development for early childhood personnel to support inclusion. NPDCI offers a variety of resources, ranging from a website to a national cadre of trainers and consultants, professional development tools, rubrics for evaluating performance, research syntheses, training modules, listservs, publications, and institutes.
The Preschool Options Project is a DPI-funded project that provides training to assist local school districts in developing a range of options in least restrictive environments for young children with disabilities. This website shares information related to the project, along with tools and resources.
The Project Participate website has lots of inclusion strategies and assistive technology and adaptation ideas. It also includes tip sheets for various partners on the special education team.
The RTI Action Network works to inform districts, schools, teachers, and families about how best to utilize Response to Intervention (RTI). Their goal is to guide those who work with children as they identify and take steps to support those who need support. The website includes a variety of Pre-K pages with information specifically for the early childhood community.
Special Quest presents information and ideas that promote inclusion of young children with special needs. The website includes the Special Quest Multimedia Training Library, which is the launchpad for SpecialQuest Birth–Five: Head Start/Hilton Foundation Training Program. The library has a wealth of training materials on a variety of topics related to inclusion of children with special needs into the general curriculum.
These web-based resources may be beneficial as you study and explore the ideas related to specific disabilities and issues such as assistive technology.
The ACB website is a simple list of links to information and publications that support those who are or those who serve individuals with visual disabilities. From here you can access current and back issues of The Braille Forum, ACB Radio, affiliate organizations and information about the ACB.
The AFB offers a guide to toys that are appropriate for children with vision problems and provides a myriad of other support resources for parents and professionals, including Family Connect, a website for parents of children with visual impairments.
CSEFEL—a national resource center funded by the Office of Head Start and Child Care Bureau for disseminating research and evidence-based practices—is focused on promoting the social-emotional development and school readiness of young children from birth to age five. CSEFEL is.
The Disaboom website includes educational articles such as "Using Art Therapy with Your Special Needs Child." This article explains why it is important to expose young children with disabilities to creative art experiences as well as how adults should respond to young children's expressions.
Dragonfly offers free downloadable computer games, as well as articles that provide educational tips related to a variety of impairments.
The FPGCDI website is a one stop shop for education focused projects that are funded by this institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Many of the projects deal with early childhood and/or supporting the education of children with disabilities. The Recognition and Response (RTI for Pre-K) pages will be very helpful to those researching or planning to adopt and RTI approach. There are RTI classroom examples that are quite informative. Another very informative website is the Early Childhood Community which includes the Connect professional development Modules and a Resource Library which includes a variety of multimedia presentations and video examples. Kinderart provides ideas for appropriate art experiences for children (and adults) with disabilities. The art activity ideas include a materials list, some objectives for the experience, and a simple explanation of what to do. Be aware, though, that (although this is not the only commercial website on the list), the website does seem to have an abundance of advertisements on it.
At this website, you'll find resources on practical ways to adapt and modify toys. The site encourages users to "look here for information on selecting toys for play, toys for children with disabilities, adapting toys to make them easier to use, locating specially designed toys as well as other resources to promote play."
The NCLD offers support to America's children, youth, and adults who have learning disabilities and to those who serve this community. While it does not deal with only the needs of young children, it does provide worthwhile information about learning disabilities across age groups. One especially helpful article on the website is Preschool Math Grows Up: Tips for teachers by Kristin Stanberry. However there are many other appropriate issues in the Especially for Teachers section. The NIMH provides online information on a variety of mental health issues and disorders that effect all ages from the population. (such as autism, depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and attention deficit disorder) For example, there is a section which explains Bipolar Disorder using both text and video based information and links to a publication for parents and teachers on Bipolar Disorder in Children and Teens. The special-needs-child.com website focuses more on children than do some of the other websites on this list. The link above takes you to an article with tips for gross motor activities for younger children. This is just one of a number of articles you'll find on a variety of topics including development, diagnosis of a disability, therapies that target the disability, routines of the day, behavior, and more.
Fisher-Price has developed a partnership with experts from the Let's Play! Projects, a federally funded program that supports family play experiences and activities for children with special needs. (Not surprisingly, the site has links to Fisher-Price products.)
UCP provides a website filled with general information on living with disabilities and specific information about cerebral palsy. The link above takes you to an article that discusses the importance of doing music activities with special needs children.
The Access Board provides this online series of informative pages to keep the public informed about the accessibility requirements for outdoor and other play spaces. The training is easy to use and will be helpful to directors and program staff who make decisions about children's play spaces. The GPS IEP website links to and explains this very helpful tool which provides guidance for writing IEPs for children and for linking those IEPs to standards. The tool is based on A Seven-Step Process to Creating a Standards-based IEP which was compiled by state directors of special education and the US Department of Education.
These Ohio based agencies may be beneficial to Ohio early childhood teachers who work in inclusive classrooms.
The Center for Special Needs Populations houses the Early Childhood Quality Network (ECQnet) to provide professional development and technical assistance to early childhood teachers who seek to grow professionally. The programs at ECQnet involve early literacy, school readiness, and emergent content knowledge. Professional development modules developed with support from the Ohio Department of Education provide continuing education for individuals serving in a variety of capacities within the early childhood community.
OCALI is an agency that provides assistance, information, and resources to families, educators, and other agencies regarding young people with autism and low-incidence disabilities. OCALI's seeks to build leadership, facilitate collaboration, and provide training across the state and school systems. On the website you can find webcasts, videos, online training, and text based information about autism, other disabilities, Universal Design for Learning, and Assistive Technology.
The OCDBE launched a new website during the summer of 2010. The center provides information, training, consultation, and technical assistance to families and teachers of young people who are dealing with deafblindness. Deafblindness is a disability that includes some degree of both vision and hearing loss.
The Ohio Department of Education's Office of Early Learning and School Readiness offers extensive early childhood special education resources at its website. The site provides information about the requirements, responsibilities, funding, transportation, and other general issues of programs and services for children identified as having a developmental delay or disability. Important documents used by those in preschool special education, including the Early Learning Standards, can also be found here.
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Inquiry Projects Can Meet Individual Needs
Come see the documentation of Let's Learn projects, like the Bread-Making Project, that met the individual learning needs of children.
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