Early Childhood Special
Education
• Dunst model
interest
mastery
engagement
competence
Ecological Theory of Human
Development.
• The microsystem is the setting where the child
spends most of his or her time. This level
includes the home, child-care setting, and in the
case of a medically fragile child, may include the
hospital.
• The mesosystem contains the relationships in
the microsytem. In the case of a child with
disabilities this could include the parentprofessional relationships, (teachers, therapists,
doctors) or the professional-to-professional
relationships.
• The exosystem can be described as
organizations in the larger community
surrounding the child, local agencies,
churches, schools, social groups,
medical providers, etc.
• The macrosystem encompasses the
cultural aspects of society, federal and
state government, regulations and laws,
values and norms of the society, and
attitudes of society
Transactional Theory of Child
Development
• The transactional theory of child
development describes the process of
maturation, growth, and differentiation as a
dynamic process in which outcomes are
neither a function of the child’s abilities
alone nor their experiences in their
environment.
• A regulation model
• Development of the child is a result of
the transactions that occur between the
environtype, phenotype and genotype
• The environtype is the external
experiences of the child.
• The phenotype is the physical makeup
of the child.
• The genotype is the biological
organization of the child.
Models of EI
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Professionally centered
Family allied
Family focused
Family centered
Family directed
Developmentally appropriate
practices
• result from the process of professionals
making decisions about the well-being and
education of children based on at least
three important kinds of information or
knowledge:
• what is known about child development
and learning -- knowledge of age-related
human characteristics that permits general
predictions within an age range about
what activities, materials, interactions, or
experiences will be safe, healthy,
interesting, achievable, and also
challenging to children;
• what is known about the strengths,
interests, and needs of each individual
child in the group to be able to adapt for
and be responsive to inevitable individual
variation; and
• knowledge of the social and cultural
contexts in which children live to ensure
that learning experiences are meaningful,
relevant, and respectful for the
participating children and their families.
• 1. Domains of children's development -physical, social, emotional, and cognitive -are closely related. Development in one
domain influences and is influenced by
development in other domains.
• 2. Development occurs in a relatively orderly
sequence, with later abilities, skills, and
knowledge building on those already
acquired.
• 3. Development proceeds at varying
rates from child to child as well as
unevenly within different areas of each
child's functioning.
• 4. Early experiences have both
cumulative and delayed effects on
individual children's development;
optimal periods exist for certain types
of development and learning.
• 5. Development proceeds in predictable
directions toward greater complexity,
organization, and internalization.
• 6. Development and learning occur in and are
influenced by multiple social and cultural
contexts.
• 7. Children are active learners, drawing on
direct physical and social experience as well
as cul-turally transmitted knowledge to
construct their own understandings of the
world around them.
• 8. Development and learning result
from interaction of biological
maturation and the environment, which
includes both the physical and social
worlds that children live in.
• 9. Play is an important vehicle for
children's social, emotional, and
cognitive development, as well as a
reflection of their development.
• 10. Development advances when children
have opportunities to practice newly
acquired skills as well as when they
experience a challenge just beyond the level
of their present mastery.
• 11. Children demonstrate different modes of
knowing and learning and different ways of
representing what they know.
• 12. Children develop and learn best in the
context of a community where they are safe
and valued, their physical needs are met, and
they feel psychologically secure.
NAEYC position statement
• http://www.naeyc.org/resources/position_s
tatements/daptoc.htm
What are we trying to do?
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Functional skills
Independent skills
Social skills
Appropriate skills
Adult directed
Adult facilitated
Child directed
Engagement
Lack of engagement
Cognition
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Intelligence
Information processing
Concept development
Functional cognitive skills
– Allow children to function in an environment
• Cognitive skills are measured through their performance of
skills in other domains
• They overlap with skills in other domains
• Collection of many other skills
• Cognitive skills are teachable
• Should be viewed longitudinally
• Best taught when there is a reason to learn them
Motor
• Fine motor skills requires engagement
with objects
• Gross motor skills function to support
independence in mobility and positioning
Communication
• The process of sharing and relating to
others… it is central to human interactions.
• Must be a sender and a receiver
• 1. Must be comprised of a gesture,
vocalization, and or verbalization
• 2. Must be directed toward a person
• 3. Must serve a communication function
Social emotional
• Ability to selectively and appropriately
carry out their interpersonal goals
• Effectiveness of influencing a peer’s social
behavior
• Appropriateness in a given setting, culture
or
• Context
– Context
• context
Adaptive
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Self care
Feeding
Dressing
Eating out
Strangers
Independence
Independence
Independence
Independence
Independence
Behavior
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Intervention
Observable
Measurable
Repeatable
Identified by research as
supporting positive behaviors:
Respond to child’s specific needs.
• PBS requires that services and programs
are responsive to preferences, strengths,
and needs of child with challenging
behavior.
• Example, programs may need to add selfdetermination skills to their curriculum.
Identified by research as
supporting positive behaviors:
Alter environments.
• If something in the child’s environment
influences the challenging behavior, it is
important to organize the environment for
success.
• Example, clearly defined play spaces and
quiet sleep areas may assist a child who is
noise-sensitive.
Identified by research as
supporting positive behaviors:
• Explicitly teach new skills to the child
with challenging behavior and his peers.
• Children frequently need to learn
alternative, appropriate responses that
serve same purpose as the challenging
behavior.
Identified by research as
supporting positive behaviors:
• Genuinely appreciate positive
behaviors.
• Important to reinforce and acknowledge
ALL positive behaviors consistently.