Early Intervention and Child Care

Looks at ways you can work with your child care provider to address in consistent and appropriate ways the most common and perplexing behavioral challenges.

The purpose of this resource book is to help child care personnel to recognize and work with children whose physical, social, emotional, speech and language, overall communication skills, and/or cognitive development is different from that of other children their age.

This handbook gives preschool and kindergarten teachers tools aligned with NAEYC and DEC standards to support all young learners by building relationships and providing positive classroom experiences.

Offers recommended practices for family-centered, evidence-based intervention and team collaboration to ensure the best possible outcomes for infants and young children involved in early intervention programs.

Gives parents new ways to think about their relationship with their child care provider and offers strategies for partnering with them to create a satisfying experience for their child.

Answers, tips, checklist and resources make this a useful parenting reference on a wide range of practical concerns that come with parenthood, including child care, financial planning, and balancing work with family.

This book provides clear definitions, practical strategies, and useful scenarios to help educators and administrators understand and comply with the law. It includes guidelines on making program accommodations as well as writing appropriate policies and procedures.

This book contains a variety of topics involving partnerships and teams in the EI field. Chapters include an overview of transdisciplinary teaming in early intervention, how to establish successful teams, and a case study of a family. It also includes several chapters on what others should know about different professionals working in the field.

Buddy Bear is cuddly, friendly, and a little anxious about his first day at preschool. This video features imaginative exercises and songs that encourage working together, peer respect, and the fun and learning a day in preschool can inspire.

This program explains how the Americans with Disabilities Act affects child care programs. It includes two segments that demonstrate how programs are making inclusion work in conventional settings.

Children receiving EI services in child care settings increases each year. This video acts as an introduction for child care providers and highlights the benefits of partnerships for both child and family outcomes.

Presents six stories that demonstrate recommended practices, as a therapist or early childhood specialist works collaboratively with a family to achieve meaningful goals for their child in everyday activities, and places. Facilitator’s guide by Larry Edelman.

Explore benefits and tips to building partnerships between education staff and Part C providers in support of infants and toddlers with disabilities and their families, and hear directly from families, educators, and early intervention providers in the field.

The Center for Inclusive Child Care is a comprehensive resource network supporting inclusive care for children in community settings. It includes several podcasts, recommended links, and resource articles.

The Early CHOICES inclusion initiative promotes increasing high quality inclusive early care and education for each and every child birth to age 5. The goal is to increase the number of children with disabilities receiving specialized services in regular early care and education settings.

This article describes a study that investigated the characteristics of child care providers in inclusive and noninclusive center-based classrooms and family child care homes, the observed quality of care in a subset of these programs, and families’ perceptions of quality and satisfaction with child care services.

This study examined a comprehensive modularized inclusion training program provided to 1,298 diverse early child care providers (center-based, family home, and license exempt settings) on providers’ attitudes and perceived competence toward inclusion. The study examines the factors (number of trainings attended and provider characteristics) associated with positive changes.

Parents, including parents of children with disabilities, are often challenged to find preschools that meet their families’ various needs and desires. Research on preschool quality is prevalent, but these studies rarely consider how parents perceive quality. This descriptive study asked what parents value most when choosing a preschool for their child with disabilities.

This article focuses on the inclusion of young children with special needs into community child care centers, preschools, and kindergartens. It addresses the provision of effective programs for children with special needs and their families, the impact of care and education services on children, and factors that influence the inclusion of children with special needs in early childhood settings.

This article provides ideas on how early childhood providers and early intervention providers can work together.

This article presents the findings of a study on infants and toddlers with disabilities in child care settings from the perspectives of professionals. Results suggest that the great variability of experiences across children, professionals, and programs contributed to an uncertainty of professional roles and responsibilities, challenges to communication among providers, and alignment to professional recommended practices.

This tip sheet for parents of children with special needs details concerns and questions they may have about child care related to their child’s unique developmental needs.

This document helps providers and caregivers/parents engage in a conversation about family activities and routines.

This post includes advice for child care providers who care for young children with special needs. There are links to additional resources related to relevant laws as well as links to resources related to specific special needs, such as hearing or learning disabilities.

This policy statement sets a vision and provides recommendations to States, local educational agencies (LEAs), schools, and public and private early childhood programs, from the U.S. Departments of Education (ED) and Health and Human Services (HHS), for increasing the inclusion of infants, toddlers, and preschool children with disabilities in high-quality early childhood programs.

This 9-session training was developed as a part of the SpecialQuest program. Session topics include developing a vision for inclusion, enhancing staff comfort, getting started, and transition. All handouts, training scripts, and videos are provided. Select Including Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities in the search menu.

This fact sheet lists many of the benefits of high quality inclusive care for all children.

The SpecialQuest Multimedia Training Library supports the inclusion of young children with disabilities birth–five and their families, in early care and education settings. The SpecialQuest materials and approach have been used nationwide, refined over a period of ten years, and have been shown to create and sustain change. Materials on this website are provided at no cost with funding from the Office of Head Start.

An early child care program that practices inclusion is designed to assess and address the interests, strengths, and needs of each child. The chart on this page helps describe what inclusion is and isn’t.

This booklet, written by the Early Intervention Training Program, describes how child care providers can support families whose children may be eligible for or are enrolled in the early intervention program.

The National Professional Development Center on Inclusion (NPDCI) is working with states to ensure that early childhood teachers are prepared to educate and care for young children with disabilities in settings with their typically developing peers.

This post begins with a definition of inclusion and then details the benefits of inclusion, the role of the teacher, and plans for successful inclusion.

Child care providers are an important part of a child’s life and can be a valuable resource during an EI visit and as part of the EI team. This brief handout provides an overview of EI services in Illinois, what to expect during an EI visit, how child care providers work to support EI and additional resources.