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The field of special education has come a long way with regard to providing services for young children with disabilities; but, more investigative research is needed. From the very beginning, young children with disabilities were not served in our public schools. This created turmoil for families and parents, and advocacy groups then got involved to spearhead the development of federal laws to support these young children. Through these federal laws and with the help of teachers, researchers, and other key professionals, young children with disabilities were more openly identified, assessments were created and evaluated, and interventions for their success were created and measured. Family-centered services were created so that parents could be involved with the development of their children. In the same vein, evidence-based practices were developed and enacted. Another area that has helped these children is assistive technology with a focus on literacy, communication, and other educational areas. While the field of special education has come a long way, there is more to do. This chapter and volume highlight what has been done and what can be done to enhance the education of young children with an array of disabilities.

The term intellectual disability is broad and encompassing. Regardless of the severity of a child’s intellectual disability, early education is important. This chapter discusses educational considerations of young learners with intellectual disability. Specially, the chapter focuses on academics, life skills, social skills and social development, and behavior. Instructional content and instructional strategies are shared for these areas considering young children, although particular attention in paid to preschool and early elementary age students.

Ensuring that young children with severe and multiple disabilities are active participants in all aspects of their lives and that they make meaningful progress toward valued life outcomes can be a daunting endeavor for families and early educators. In this chapter, we describe evidence-based strategies that can be harnessed to ensure that each child is provided with high-quality inclusive education. Initially, we lay the foundation for the chapter by asserting shared assumptions fundamental to early childhood/early childhood special education practices with topics including strengths-based approach, self-determination, all does mean all, and play as a right for all children. Next, components of a high-quality inclusive program for young children designed to support access, participation, and meaningful progress are described. These components include the following: (1) collaborative teaming; (2) family–professional partnerships; (3) authentic assessment linked to meaningful outcomes; (4) discipline-free, functional outcomes or goals; (5) responsive, developmentally appropriate environments; and (6) levels of instructional support (e.g. universal design for learning (UDL), differentiation, and individualization). A vignette is used to further illustrate how to apply the practices discussed.

In this chapter, my aim is to describe and analyse conceptually and provide direction for the identification, selection and use of assistive technologies (ATs) to support the education and development of young children with disabilities. The chapter discusses the quality of early intervention practices and the pragmatic role of ATs in delivering effective early intervention impacts. In making this case, the chapter draws upon Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory to illuminate how ATs can be selected and used effectively in schools to enable all young children to thrive in their learning and development in inclusive classrooms.

The intention is to introduce the conceptual framework proposed by Brown, Odom, and Conroy (2001) for the implementation of social interaction intervention. This tiered system organizes intervention strategies for early childhood professionals to make informed decision on how to promote social interactions of young children who are at risk for social competence difficulties in inclusive early childhood programs.

Children with disabilities are made to be invisible, excluded from school, hidden by their families, and abandoned by their governments, especially in developing countries. These children are less likely to start school; and if they do, they are unlikely to transition to secondary school. Access to quality programs or schools for children with disabilities is often limited by the lack of understanding about their needs, well-prepared or trained teachers, classroom supports, learning resources, and facilities. Denying these children their right to education has a lifelong impact on learning, achievement, and employment opportunities, and thus hinder their potential economic, social, and human developments. To ensure that all children enjoy their basic human rights without discrimination, the inclusion of children with disabilities should be promoted in all programs and schools. In addition, they must be included to ensure their presence, participation, and achievement. Regardless of ability, all children have a right to reach their full potential. It is critical to build the political will, policies, and infrastructure for truly inclusive programs. In this chapter, we examine historical trends, important relevant issues, and legislations that protect young learners with disabilities (the 13 categories) and the challenges and advances made in special education advocacy and policy to enable or enhance positive direction for the education of young learners with disabilities.

This chapter discusses issues and strategies on engaging first generation immigrant parents of young children with exceptionalities. It describes challenges and obstacles faced by immigrant families and the professionals who serve them with a focus on Latino and Chinese immigrant families, given that Latino and Chinese are two largest immigrant groups to the United States. Available literature in early childhood education and nursing suggests that communication, financial stress, and cultural values are critical issues faced by immigrant families of young children with exceptionalities, regardless their immigrant status. Effective engagement with these families can only be achieved through positive attitudes, care, empathy, and sincere communication. Building the cultural competence, collaboration skills, and repertoire of early childhood professionals on assisting these parents access school and community resources will make the work of engaging these parents more fruitful. Most importantly, early childhood professionals must recognize and capitalize on the strengths of immigrant parents of young children with exceptionalities and encourage their participation as an equal partner to support their child’s education. The chapter is concluded with a list of practical strategies for early childhood educators to better collaborate with immigrant parents of young children with disabilities.

Young children write to learn the alphabetic code, take notes to help them remember, and provide meaningful text to others. These are cognitively and linguistically complex processes. Reciprocal relationships among the development of writing, the purposes of writing, and the learners of interest impact instructional approaches and student outcomes. Teachers can increase success when they provide explicit and systematic self-regulation and writing instruction, view children as collaborators in the process, provide scaffolding that gradually shifts the responsibility to the children, and adapt instruction to meet the abilities and interests of the children. Effective instructional practices for young children with disabilities or who are at risk, are presented, for example, scaffolded writing, the use of graphic organizers, and self-regulated strategy development.

We reviewed three existing reviews of literature: two related to cultural and linguistic diversity in well-regarded special education research outlets including Advances in Special Education, and the third regarding constructions of culture, race, disability, and risk in early childhood and early childhood special education (ECSE) literature. Some of our findings reflected ongoing oppressions for young children at the intersections of race, disability, and other forms of social difference to which negative treatment has been attached, including static and deficit-based framings of disability, reliance on whiteness, and English as the norm for developmental benchmarks, and failure to account for disability beyond medical models. We present a preliminary framework for special education research and practice considerations in order to remediate these issues in ECSE for young learners of color, among others, with disabilities.

Early in the 20th century, many began to voice growing concern over such issues as infant mortality, childhood diseases, and child labor (Anastasiow & Nucci, 1994). At this time, physicians, child advocates, and the general public began to speak out about social concerns regarding children, including those living in orphanages and those with mental illness or intellectual disabilities. These concerns came about at a time when psychologists studying young children began to accept that a child's intelligence was impacted by both genetic and environmental factors (Hunt, 1961). Prior to this point, experts believed a child's IQ was set at birth with little that could be done to influence it over time. Although we were beginning to better understand the importance of environmental influences on young children, at this point, most children with disabilities such as intellectual disabilities, cerebral palsy, and epilepsy were institutionalized rather than treated. On the other hand, children who were deaf or blind were more likely to be treated, but were typically sent away to “schools” and were segregated from their families and peers while receiving treatment and education.