As the drive to educate children with special needs in a least restrictive environment increases many preschools find themselves enrolling children with special needs in programs originally tailored for typically developing children Although early childhood educators may exhibit good intentions in their desire to accommodate children with special needs are their programs geared to adequately meet the needs of these children. If not what changes must be engineered in the curriculum to bring about this accommodation.
One of the key influences in guiding early childhood education practices over the last 20 years has been position statements on implementing developmentally appropriate curriculum issued by the NAEYC. The term developmentally appropriate practice means teaching in ways that match the way children develop and learn so as to promote their optimal development. ECE professionals decide on what curriculums to choose on the basis of the following criterion: (Neugebauer, 2010)
Child development concepts that explain how children learn and development. These principles are developed on theories advocated by experts such as Ericson, Freud, Piaget etc
Individual strength needs and interests of each child
The child’s family community and cultural influences.
Knowing how a child develops and learns is critical to planning the program’s curriculum, selecting materials and guiding the child’s overall learning. Areas of a child’s learning are all interrelated but child development experts usually focus on four major areas: Cognitive Socioemotional, physical and language development. In addition it is essential to discover the child’s individual interests, their unique qualities, learning styles, special needs and make accommodations in the curriculum.
A curriculum in a early childhood setting usually has the following components.(Neugebauer, 2010)
Goals: These are the objectives that ECE professionals have regarding the kind of concepts that the children in the program are expected to learn. These can be academic, social or emotional in nature.
Environment: What role the child’s environment is expected to play in their learning. A Reggio Emilio inspired curriculum for example places a significant emphasis on the child’s natural environment in determining how they learn.
Role: What roles will the parents play in the child’s learning. Will they be playing a more interactive role or will their involvement be passive and limited to dropping and picking up the child.
Materials: The Materials that the program will use. These can be both open ended and closed ended. Open ended materials advocate a more process oriented rather than product oriented approach in curriculum implementation. Activities using these materials are flexible enough to allow children with different abilities to participate at their developmental levels.
Sound child development Principles: Curriculums should be based on principles advocated in the scientific studies on child development.
When it comes to adapting curriculum to accommodate the special needs of differently abled children the emphasis should be on introducing supports that allow children to participate in inclusive activities with typically developing children. This can be a challenging proposition especially when the needs of differently abled children can be very diverse. For example the curriculum the child who is in a wheelchair but has no cognitive challenges will need to be adapted differently than the child who has Down syndrome. Both have special needs but the nature of their disabilities is very diverse and must be addressed individually when it comes to creating an inclusive learning environment for all children.
The articles I read on adapting preschool curricula for accommodating children with special needs advocated different approaches. Doctrofff in his article “Adapting the physical environment to meet the needs of all children for play (2001) encourages administrators and teachers need to make a list of criterion that are essential for an inclusive indoor and outdoor environment. The greater the number of affirmatives in the checklist the greater the readiness of the program to support inclusive curriculums. The article primarily is concerned with tailoring the physical environment in the preschool program. It outlines the need for parent teacher communication tools, the use of re-inforcers to support positive behaviors and teacher support for social interactions with peers. The article does not focus solely on curriculum but rather on the overall integrative process. It does not really discuss NAYEC standards for developmentally appropriate curriculum. However it does offer some good ideas for creating an inclusive preschool environment.
The second article by Conn-Powers (2006) discusses the concept of universal design and creating architectural spaces such as schools, homes offices etc that are accessible to everyone irrespective of their ability. The article does not discuss NAYEC statements on developmentally appropriate practices. The focus is on building the concept of Accessibility and how all children should be able to access materials teachers and peers with equal frequency regardless of their ability. The article also discusses similar ease in providing greater accessibility to classroom routines, schedules, curriculum and teaching strategies
Curriculum does not only focus on academics it also includes providing opportunities for outdoor play The third article by Flynn and Klieff 2002 is entitled “ Including Everyone in outdoor play”. It places emphasis on strategies for inclusive outdoor play activities. When providing opportunities for children with special needs it is important to create experiences which enable them to participate in the same activities as their typically developing peers. This may require procuring special materials such as adapted bicycles, adapted swings, creating ramps for wheelchairs in the playground etc. The article does not mention NYAEC statements but it does make reference to the Americans with disabilities act and the stipulations that have now became legal mandates for most businesses.
The fourth article by Klienn Cooks and Richardson-Gibbs (2000) is entitled Strategies for including children with special needs in Early childhood settings. It does focus on NAYEC principles and discusses how the curriculum should be adopted to reflect the needs of the child. It discusses how developmental observations can be used to plan curriculum. It also discusses how classroom materials for examples book, dolls etc should be used to portray people with diverse disabilities performing everyday tasks. These images are important to facilitate a smooth integration in the classroom environment. It also discusses how curriculum should include supports such as picture schedules and the inclusion of picture exchange system for non verbal children and how all children should be familiar with these communication strategies and react positively if the child walks up to them and hands them a integrated environment. It further stipulates the need for special software programs and hardware devices to be installed on classroom computers that allow children with special needs to participate in computer activities just like their peers.
The fifth article entitled Creative curriculum for early childhood by Dodge and Colker focuses on NAYEC criterion of developmentally appropriate practices and advocates the use of open ended materials. The focus in such creative curriculums is on the process not on the product. There are no rights and wrongs and the child has the freedom to experiment with material regardless of their abilities. The article also talks about the use of cues to encourage children to participate in these activities. The cues could be verbal or non verbal. The teacher would use them to encourage participation and then fade them out as the child becomes more independent in participation.
All five articles present varying perspectives on adapting curriculum to accommodate children with special needs in the early childhood settings. They present valuable insight for the early childhood educators on various strategies they could adopt to achieve an inclusive classroom. I feel that some of these strategies would be really useful and should be considered by directors of early childhood programs interested in enrolling more children with special needs in their classrooms.
Works Cited
Conn-Powers (2006) “The Universal Design for Early education. Moving forward for all children.” Young Children Journal 127
Dodge D and Colker L(2002) “The Creative Curriculum for Early Childhood”. Teaching Strategies Journal 45.
Doctoroff S (2001) “Adapting the physical environment to meet the needs of all young children”. Early Childhood Education Journal 29.
Flynn & Kleff (2000) “Including Everyone in Outdoor Play”. Young Children 57 (20-26)
Klienn Cooks and Richardson-Gibbs (2000) “Strategies for including children with special needs in Early childhood settings”. Early Childhood Education Journal 16
Neugebauer (2010) “The Art of Leadership Managing Early Childhood Organizations”. Childcare Information Exchange.
