Linda+Mitchell

My name is Linda Mitchell. My email is rugratsunlimited@yahoo.com. I am the administrator of Rugrats Unlimited Child Development Center. I have a 2 star Step Up to Quality program with my accreditation in family childcare.

3 things that I want to learn: I would like to learn how to better serve all children with special needs. I would like to provide parents with more resources that would help their child with a disability. I would like all children in my care to be respectful and helpful of children with disabilities or special needs.

2 things that I can contribute: On the topic of special needs, it is important to make all children feel loved and respected. It is important to keep an open line of communication with all parents.

1 question to ponder: I have a child with an auto immune deficiancy. This special need is unfamiliar to me. Do you have any resources for this special need?

Inclusion Strategies for Young Children:

This summary is on the chapter, Inclusion.

All children have the same basic needs including children with special needs. These include their physical and psychological needs.Since children with special needs have developmental delays that are unique to their condition, they require supportive instruction, curricula, and environmental accommodations to support their growth and development. It also reduces the effects of their disability.

Previously, it was believed that children with special needs thrived in an environment separate from typical children. Recently, research and experience has shown that children with special needs thrive better in an environment with children without special needs.

Terms such as exceptional, handicapped, and special education children should no longer be used to refer to children with special needs, as it draws attention to their disability, negating that they are children first.

To receive early intervention services under the //Individuals with Disabilities Act,// children fit into various catagories listed below:
 * Specific learning disability
 * Speech or language impairment
 * Serious emotional disturbance
 * Visual impairment (including blindness)
 * Hearing impairment (including deafness)
 * Mental retardation
 * Orthopedic impairment
 * Other health impairment
 * Traumatic brain injury
 * Autism
 * Attention deficit disorder
 * Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

In order to determin eligibilty for receiving special education services, labeling of young children is necessary. However, children with special needs that share the same label, must be provided with curriculum that is based on their individual needs and skill development relative to how they function in the environment. It is the specifics of the child's condition that need to be focused on rather than the label. Collectively, parents and educators should focus on the child's strengths, talents, and positive qualities as well as limitations.

Sometimes, labeling of young children is a challenging process as some delays may correct themselves by the time a child reaches the third grade. To help determine if the delay will continue due to a disability beyond third grade, it is important to know the culturtal and experimental background of a child relative to his environment. For example, has the child has been exposed to books, opportunities for interaction with language, development of small and large motor activities, and emotional and social interactions.

To date, legislation, experience, and research supports servicing children with special needs in the same environment as children without special needs. This practice is called Inclusive Education or Inclusion. All children have equal access to curricula and programs. The special education teacher goes to the child in the normal school setting rather than the child going to special education teacher in a separate setting.

As a federal law, The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ensures services to children with disabilites throughout the nation. This service provides early intervention and special education to over 6.5 million eligible infants, toddler, preschoolers, and schoolagers with disabilities. It also supports the practice that children with disabilities should be placed in the **least restrictive environment** that meets their needs.

Using an Individual Educational Plan, the educators and the parents determine how to best meet the needs of the child in a inclusiive setting. Educational systems must adapt to the child rather that the child needing to adapt to the system. In a least restrictive environment, modifications, adaptations, and support is needed for children with special needs, just as if in a separate setting. However, the delivery system for providing these elements is different. Collaboration between professionals and parents to provide the most appropriate experiences for young children in a requirement.

As young children are placed in inclusive setting, their social skills increase as a result of their sociializing with their peers. From their observation and interaction with peers, they experience social behaviors appropriate for their age. It promotes a better sense of belonging, a basic need that must be met before one is able to achieve a sense of self-worth.

For some children, a sense of self-worth can be supported by being a part of a peer group. Having a positive self-worth motives a child to put forth more effort into his learning and future performance in society.

The benefits of inclusion are great for all children as it minimizea the effects of labeling of young children. Children with special needs have opportunities to develop friendships with normally developing peers. Children without disabilities have an opportunity to learn about others who are different from them.

Cara's Kit, Creating Adaptations for Routines and Activities

In the Cara's Kit, it is interesting to learn that human behavior and actions can be shaped by the environment. In order to change an unsastifactory situation to something postive,adaptations can solve the problems. The goal of adaptations is to promote children's successful participation in everyday activities and routines. By having Cara's Kit easily accessible in the classroom, the teachers can use it as a excellent resource to make adaptations in any learning environment. We have so many children in our classroom that will benefit from Cara's Kit. I am very excited to begin using it and observing how well it work.

General Strageties for Working with Young Children:

Expections for young children should be based on what they can do in specific areas. Open communication with the parents is very important regarding having the same expectations for their children. Since children grow so rapidly, it is important to review the expectations frequently.so that adjustments can be made, if needed. When setting expectations for children with special needs, it is important to keep the functional performance level as well as the age of the child in mind. Although children with developmental delays acquire their skills at a slower pace, the sequence of the acquisition of skills is similare for all children. Children with special needs need more time to take information in, manipulate and process it compared to their typical counterparts. Give children more time, when needed, to process and respond to your request for information. Teach all children to have empathy for children who need more time to process information by modeling this behavior when interacting with a child with this special need. Observe what time of day is the peek time to engage a child with his most diffucult activity.

To help support success of the child, the environment plays an important role. Have a quiet space where professionals can meet to discuss the needs of the child. Children with special needs respond better in small group activities than in large group. An inclusive setting should be structured so that all children have an opportunity to have a space where they can have some alone time if required. Creat harmonious environmental sounds such as nature sounds, classical music, and yoga to calm children down when needed. The lighting in the environment plays a critical role in the learning and behavior of children. Lighting that is indicative of natural sunlight supports positive learning and behavior. In order to make children more focused and feel calmer, exposing them to a variety of different colors and allowing them to utilize those colors has proved effective in their performance. Blues and greens are calmer colors than reds and oranges.

Children need a well balanced nutrional diet of fresh fruits and vegetables, milk, water, complex carbohydrates as too much refined sugar can make some children hyperactive or have learning disabilities. Provide parents with resouces on healthy meals and snacks so they can serve nutrtional foods at home as well.

Providing multisensory activities provides stimulation to the brain needed to develop the young child's small and large motor coordination, linguistic abilities, and body awareness.

It is important to never give up on a child as when one strategy doesn't work try different modification until some progress is observed.

CARA'S Kit

I chose the following activities: Children are tearing the pages when looking at books--I provided the child with magazines so that she could rip them up Children are waking up too early from nap time and are disturbing the other children--Allowed children to help set the table for snack