Children with Special Needs: Putting Together the Pieces

1
Children with Special Needs Putting Together
the Pieces

• NYSAEYC Conference
• Rochester, NY
• Saturday, April 16, 2005

2
Where to get these slides

• http//www.udel.edu/cds/conferencematerials.html

3
Lunchtime Topics

• Individually appropriate
• Age appropriate
• Culturally appropriate
• Exceptionality appropriate
• Inclusion
• Standards and indicators of learning
• Outcomes and measures

4
History of Early Childhood Special Education

• 1799-Wild boy of Aveyron
• 1840s-Seguin and Schools for Students with mental
  retardation
• Early 1900s-Settlement House Movement
• Skeels and Dye (1939)
• 1950s-Isolated public school programs
• 1958-1961-Samuel Kirk and James McVicker Hunt
  publish seminal books on mental retardation and
  intelligence
• 1965-War on Poverty begins
• 1965-First Head Start programs

5
Early Intervention Law

• Public Law 90-538 (1968) Handicapped Childrens
  Early Education Assistance Act
• Public Law 92-142 (1972) Head Start Disabilities
  Requirement
• Public Law 94-142 (1975) Education for All
  Handicapped Act
• Public Law 99-457 (1986) Amendments to EHA and
  Infant/Toddler/Family Program
• Public Law 101-476 (1990), New EHA Title
  Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
  (I.D.E.A.)

6
Roots of Early Childhood Special Education

• Special Education (Behavioral analysis)
• Compensatory Education (e.g., Head Start)
• Early Childhood Education (DAP)

7
Early Care and Education Goals

• to promote development in all domains
• to build and support childrens social competence
• to promote child engagement, independence, and
  mastery
• to promote generalized use of skills
• to support families as they support their
  children
• to prevent the emergence of future problems or
  disabilities

8
An Early Childhood Special Education Goal

• To improve childrens acquisition and use of
  important motor, social, affective,
  communication, and intellectual behaviors that,
  in turn, are integrated into response repertoires
  that are generative, functional, and adaptable.

9
Goals of families who have a child with a
disability

• Normalcy
• Friends
• Stability--financial and emotional
• Long-term planning
• Equality
• Happiness
• (Turnbull Turnbull, 1990)

10
Developmentally Appropriate Practices

• Individually Appropriate Programming
• Age Appropriate Programming
• Culturally Appropriate Programming

11
DAP Goal To help children

• Develop positive self-concept
• Develop curiosity about the world, confidence as
  a learner, and creativity
• Develop positive relationships with adults and
  peers
• Know about the community and social roles
• Communicate effectively and facilitate thinking
  and learning

• Problem solve
• Construct knowledge of the physical world and
  understand their relationships to one another
• Acquire knowledge of and appreciation for fine
  arts, humanities, and sciences
• Become competent in the care of their bodies and
  to acquire basic physical skills
• Maintain a desirable level of health and fitness

12
Similarities between DAP and EI

• Both use Piaget and Vygotsky as
  philosophical/theoretical bases
• Both are child initiated and child directed
• Both use adults to support and expand childrens
  choices
• Both emphasize the whole childs development
• Both use the environment to provide structure to
  the learning environment
• Both avoid external rewards and use intrinsic and
  naturalistic motivation to shape and monitor
  childrens behavior

13
Old Recommend Practices in Early Childhood
Programs Serving Children with Disabilities

• Segregation
• Traditional assessment
• Academic orientation
• Exclusive 11 instruction
• focus on skills and products
• Mass trial instruction
• Highly structured
• Adult initiated
• Isolate therapy
• Classroom teacher role

14
New Recommended Practices for Inclusive Programs

• Inclusion
• Blending of EI and DAP principles
• Naturalistic assessment
• Play-based orientation
• Individualized, small group instruction
• Focus on interactions and process
• Activity-based instruction
• Child initiated, adult supported
• Integrated therapy
• Collaborative/consultative roles

15
Regression to former practices

• Increase in segregated preschool classes in many
  states
• Increase in teaching strategies that emphasize
  repetition out of context
• Increase in rote instruction
• Increase in teacher-directed and whole group
  instruction

16
Inclusion/Integration Benefits

• For children with disabilities
• Increase in language/communication skills
• Increase in social skills
• Increase in families satisfaction with
  programming
• Increase in family contacts in the community

17
Inclusion/Integration Benefits

• For children without disabilities
• Increase in language skills and communication
  abilities
• Increase in social skills
• Increase in tolerance of differences among
  individuals

18
Barriers to Inclusion/Integration

• Fear of losing services for children with
  disabilities
• Fear of inadequate services for children without
  disabilities
• Fear of physical harm
• Fear of psychological/emotional harm
• Lack of planning and teaching time
• Lack of resources and equipment
• Lack of training and knowledge
• Lack of administrative support

19
Pressure from Three Points
Developmentally Appropriate Practice
Special Education Strategies
CHILD Program
Standards And Indicators
20
The Study

• A four year longitudinal study of kindergarteners
  who entered school in the 1997-98 school year
• Purpose To determine the impact of
  pre-kindergarten services for students with
  disabilities and students living in poverty

21
The Sample

• 717 students who entered kindergarten during
  1997-98
• 217 students with active IEPs
• 250 students living in poverty
• 250 students from the general population

22
Sample Categories
23
Students Having Received Pre-K Services

• Pre-k service records were reviewed to determine
  if students had received pre-k intervention in
• Head Start
• Early Childhood Assistance Programs
• Birth to Three services (Part C of IDEA)
• Preschool special education

24
Sample Students Receiving Pre-K Services
The 49 students receiving ECAP/HS services all
were in the Poverty group of the sample the 89
students receiving PSE Services were all in the
IEP group of the sample
25
Variables Tracked

• Students family backgrounds, including
• family form (number of siblings, parents,
  extended family members in the household)
• parents/guardians education
• Parents/guardians employment

• Services students received including
• Special education services
• Extended school day
• Extended school year
• K-3(4) early intervention
• Students behavior
• Students grades
• Students 3rd grade DSTP results

26
Comparison Groups

• In order to determine the impact of
  pre-kindergarten services, comparison groups
  needed to be created from the sample
• Two groups were created
• Students who were living in poverty who did not
  receive ECAP or Head Start services
• Students who did not have their disabilities
  identified until kindergarten, 1st, or 2nd grade

27
Comparison Groups
28
Analysis

• The variables of the groups receiving
  pre-kindergarten services and the comparison
  groups were analyzed using comparison of means
  procedures such as t-tests and analysis of
  variance

29
Students with Disabilities

• Students receiving preschool special education
  services had significantly higher 3rd grade DSTP
  scores than those students not identified with
  disabilities until K, 1, or 2
• 65.2 met or exceeded the reading standard (vs.
  33.3)
• 55.6 met or exceeded the math standard (vs.
  33.4)

30
Comparative 3rd Grade DSTP Results for Students
with Disabilities
31
Students with Disabilities (cont.)

• Significantly more students receiving preschool
  special education services had satisfactory or
  higher 3rd grade academic grades in language
  arts, math, and listening skills than students
  not identified with disabilities until K, 1, or 2
  (73 vs. 59)
• Students receiving preschool special education
  services had a grade retention rate of 5.56 per
  100 students compared to 26.1 per 100 students
  for students not identified with disabilities
  until K, 1, or2

32
Pressure from Three Points
Developmentally Appropriate Practice
Special Education Strategies
CHILD Program
Standards And Indicators
33
How do we make it happen?
What are the setting demands?
What are the goals for the child?
What are the childs strengths?
How is the child doing?
What are the instructional strategies needed?
34
We need to do three things

• Assess, assess, assess
• Assess childrens strengths
• Assess environmental demands
• assess families preferences for skills and
  behaviors
• Instruct
• With reinforcers
• With specific instructional strategies
• Document

35
Curriculum Adaptation Process

• Same Task, Same Materials--adaptations are how
  the materials are arranged, displayed, the type
  of directions provided, and how the directions or
  teacher interactions are presented to the
  children
• Same Task, Easier Steps--students participate in
  general curriculum activities with the adaptation
  that the steps to the activities are simplified
  or shortened. Often response modes are adapted
  (e.g., listen rather than speak, point rather
  than verbally label)

Adapted from Christine Salisbury, Ph.D.
36
Curriculum Adaptation Process

• Same Task, Different Materials--the materials or
  equipment of the activity may be changed to
  enable the student to participate in the activity
  (e.g., use a glue stick instead of a brush for a
  collage activity)
• Same Theme, Different Task--the activities that
  the child with a disability participates in are
  different but linked to the other activities by
  the theme or topic being addressed (e.g.,
  students in a kindergarten are working with
  attribute blocks and grouping according to
  characteristics while a child with a lower
  cognitive ability is making block patterns with
  the same materials)

37
Curriculum Adaptation Process

• Different Theme, Different Task--in very limited
  circumstances where a child has a very severe
  disability, a different task and theme might be
  planned for him or her this should only occur in
  very rare instances and never related to any
  social activity in the program (e.g., snack,
  circle time, outside time)
• The goal of this approach is to make adaptations
  as simple as possible and to address each childs
  needs within the routines and activities of the
  program day

38
Peer Adaptations

• Make sure that you are using MANY materials that
  promote social interactions
• Create activities where children need to work
  cooperatively and group children who have
  disabilities and those who do not have
  disabilities (e.g, mural painting)
• Use routine times to group children with
  complementary skills together (e.g., at snack
  time have a child with good language modeling
  skills sit with a child with lower level language
  skills)

39
Characteristics of Materials that Encourage
Social Interactions

• Accessible--children with all different levels of
  abilities can use the materials (e.g., the glue
  stick vs. a brush that needs to be dipped in a
  bowl of glue)
• Adaptable--children of different skill levels can
  play with the materials at different conceptual
  levels (e.g., block play materials often have
  this quality--cars can be used for rolling or for
  complex role playing)
• Cooperative--materials that either require or are
  more efficiently used when two children use them
  (e.g., many outside materials are like
  this---wagons, swings)

40
Teaching Specific Objectives

• Teaching is the process of manipulating the
  environment so that learning will occur.
• Characteristics that can be manipulated
• materials
• equipment
• routines
• peer behavior
• teacher and other staff behavior

41
Phases of Learning

• Acquisition--learning the new skill or behavior
• Fluency--using the new skill at a normal rate
• Maintenance--using the skill without support or
  external rewards
• Generalization--using the skill in situations
  outside of the circumstances in which it was
  learned

42
Reinforcement for Learning

• Start with natural reinforcers (play, social
  interactions, objects, actions)
• Identify specific reinforcers from caregivers
  (parents, child care providers, relatives)
• Observe child to determine why he or she does a
  behavior repeatedly
• Test for reinforcer preferences

43
Using Reinforcers Effectively

• CLEARLY identify the behavior you want to
  reinforce
• Ensure that the reinforcer occurs IMMEDIATELY
  after the behavior or an approximation of the
  behavior
• Pair non-naturally occurring reinforcers with
  social reinforcers
• Once acquisition has occurred, mix reinforcers
• Once acquisition and fluency has been achieved,
  fade non-natural reinforcers and replace with
  natural reinforcers
• In generalization phase, move to intermittent
  reinforcement

44
Teaching Strategies

• Arranging the environment
• Providing models
• Using childrens material and activity
  preferences
• Violation of expectancy
• Time delay
• Transition teaching
• Structured play activities
• Shaping behaviors with reinforcers
• System of least prompts
• Stimulus modifications

Least intrusive to most intrusive.
45
Teaching Strategies (Continued)

• Violation of expectancy--the teacher or other
  staff member incorrectly does a step in a
  familiar routine
• Time delay--With holding a material or action
  from an expected routine sequence
• Transition teaching--presenting a learning
  opportunity during transition times
• Structured play activities--scripting childrens
  interactions and play scheme
• Shaping--reinforcing approximations of a skill or
  behavior and withholding future reinforcements
  until the behavior is more closely approximates
  the desired behavior
• System of least prompts--providing the child with
  the level of support needed to accomplish a
  specific skill

46
System of Least Prompts

• Hierarchy of prompts from least to most intrusive
• 1) Present the stimulus (e.g. What do you want
  to eat?
• 2) Wait for a response.
• 3) Use least prompt (usually a verbal or partial
  verbal prompt).
• 4) Move to more intrusive prompts (toward
  physical assistance).
• 5) Once desired behavior is acquired, move
  backward in the sequence of prompts until only
  the presented stimulus triggers the behavior.

47
Example of System of Least Prompts

• Presentation of stimulus
• Model
• Visual cue
• Visual cue, model, and minimal or partial verbal
  prompt
• Visual cue, model and full verbal prompt
• Visual cue, model, verbal and partial physical
  prompt
• Model, verbal and full physical prompt

48
And, finally

• We need to document.
• We need to collect data.
• We need to compile data.
• We need to report data.
• And we need to share it with funders, sponsors,
  boards, and directors, superintendents and head
  masterseveryone!

49
Where to get these slides

• http//www.udel.edu/cds/conferencematerials.html

50
Contemporary Early Intervention Approaches

• Incidental Teaching
• child selected
• child initiated
• adult responded
• use of graded prompts

• Milieu Teaching
• Arrangement of the environment
• Assess the childs functioning
• Find methods for the child to interact with the
  environment