On July 24, 2023, the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) of the U.S. Department of Education (US ED) released a Dear Colleague letter (DCL) and lengthy guidance related to the responsibilities states have to oversee the education of students with disabilities in their schools and to ensure that those students are afforded all of their…

Homelessness is a traumatic experience with long-term consequences, particularly for infants and toddlers in their most critical stages of development. Yet homelessness among young children is hidden. Lack of shelter, fear of having children removed from parental custody, and restrictive eligibility criteria for housing programs mean that most…

The federal government provides child development, elementary and secondary education, and educational assistance to Indian children, in a federal school system and in public school systems that predominantly receive state and local funding. The Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) in the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) oversees the federally…

Early care and education providers are subject to monitoring by multiple agencies and organizations. In this brief provides an overview of monitoring and the major early care and education monitoring systems. It then offers possible goals for a coordinated monitoring system and describes some approaches to addressing those goals. Eleven dimensions…

Program administrators and policy makers have placed a priority on expanding access to inclusive, center-based early care and education (ECE) for low-income children with special needs, a "doubly vulnerable" population characterized by academic and social-emotional achievement gaps at kindergarten entry. Yet, no research has documented…

Infants and toddlers who live in poverty are more likely to experience developmental delays or disabilities and less likely to access early intervention (EI) services. The federal initiative Race to the Top--Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) was designed to increase access to high quality early learning programs for children at risk for…

The early childhood field encompasses a wide variety of service types and settings, as well as funding streams and regulatory systems. For those in the field, it can seem like a maze, or even a heavy fog. Local resources are often blurred because communities tend to rename programs at the local level and may even create their own policies and…

The federal government provides child development, elementary and secondary education, and educational assistance to Indian children, in a federal school system and in public school-systems that predominantly receive state and local funding. The Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) in the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) oversees the federally…

Research Findings: A 2003 amendment to the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) required states to develop plans to ensure that children younger than the age of 3 years who are victims of substantiated abuse or neglect have access to developmental screenings. Programs authorized under Part C of the Individuals with Disabilities…

The implementation of Part C of IDEA has continued to evolve as states have built and modified service delivery systems. The number of children served has increased dramatically with nearly 350,000 children and their families now receiving early intervention services. Meanwhile, challenges to the provision of quality services--such as securing…

Raising a child with a disability often makes it difficult to find child care. Many families learn that child care programs are simply unable to meet the special needs of their children, while specialized facilities have limited space, and specialized private care is expensive. To meet the needs of all children, Head Start and Early Head Start…

The physical, social, and economic health and well-being of adults and society are strongly influenced by experiences in early childhood. The most cost-efficient time to build foundational skills, to assure the healthy development of all young children, to break the cycle of disadvantage for vulnerable children, and to prevent achievement and…

The physical, social, and economic health and wellbeing of adults and society are strongly influenced by both positive and negative experiences in early childhood. The most cost-efficient time to build foundational skills, to assure the healthy development of all young children, to break the cycle of disadvantage for vulnerable children, and to…