Interventions designed for children with disabilities and their families should be socially valid. Parent-implemented Communication Strategies-Storybook (PiCSS) is an intervention package designed to coach parents on shared storybook reading and naturalistic teaching strategies. In PiCSS program, the participating parents used the communication…

Online family education can be challenging but rewarding for both families and practitioners. Parents of children with disabilities are integral in fostering children's early development and in promoting independence across the life span. Practitioners and parents working collaboratively can enhance this development. Collaboration between parents…

Early childhood education (ECE) has always been intertwined with the use of developmentally appropriate practice (DAP). To support excellence in ECE, it is critical how the knowledge about individual children and child development principles combined with the knowledge of effective early learning practices. Effective early childhood education…

Early intervention for infants and toddlers began with high hopes, but became mired in overspecialization, bureaucracy, and turf guarding. Nevertheless, two important advances in the field have been (a) a recognition that the child's natural caregivers are in the best position to be the intervention agents and, concomitantly, (b) a rethinking…

Students with special needs require unique intervention strategies as they enter infant care and preschool environments. The techniques and materials discussed in this paper are designed especially for the child's unique abilities and disabilities. This paper will also focus on the skills needed for infants who have been identified as requiring…

A challenge for teacher educators in special education is to impact the beliefs and attitudes of preservice teachers in ways that cultivate or strengthen dispositions and inform practice. This study investigated the impact of service-learning experiences on the development of professional dispositions by undergraduate students in two preservice…

The bibliography on parents and siblings of the handicapped is divided into four sections: writings by parents on being the parent of a handicapped child; information, teaching suggestions, and training guides for parents; readings for the professional; and writings by and stories for siblings on being the sibling of a handicapped child. Almost…

Twenty-three parent/child dyads (16 normally developing and 7 developmentally delayed preschoolers) were observed in a study to describe the verbal-logical behaviors and content expressed while they were engaged in teaching/learning interactions, and to determine if the structure of the activity, the sex and/or the developmental status of the…

This article describes the communication roles of both caregivers and professionals who have contact with young children with disabilities. It presents principles that underlie adult communicative strategy use with this population, along with specific suggestions for facilitating communicative competence. (Author/DB)

Described is a systems analysis approach focusing on the use of objectives and feedback for teachers, administrators, and parents working with exceptional children. Terms such as "objective", "student performance", and "feedback" are explained as they relate to the systems approach. It is noted that parents, teachers, and administrators can use…

The collection of readings for children was developed as part of the Portage Project which serves approximately 150 rural preschool handicapped and nonhandicapped children by providing them with a home teacher who instructs parents on how to teach their children. Readings cover the following topics: definitions of terms to know; the home teaching…

What's the best way to find out what really works--and doesn't work--in education for students with disabilities? Listen to the experts: the students themselves. In this one-of-a-kind book, students with a wide range of disabilities give readers a rare inside look at their past and present school experiences, both in self-contained classrooms and…

This manual for a program to teach parents of handicapped children to participate in their children's career education consists of a facilitator's manual, a parent training program, and a parent information packet. The facilitator's manual contains an overview of the program with specific directions for conducting the lectures, discussions, and…

This final report discusses the activities and outcomes of the Self-Determination Synthesis Project (SDSP), a project designed to synthesize, corroborate, and communicate the professional knowledge base on the effects of self-determination and self-advocacy interventions for children and youth with disabilities. The SDSP used both quantitative and…

A product of a statewide (California) survey of 104 school districts and 9 county educational agencies, the report focuses on promising practices for use with handicapped children of limited English proficiency (LEP). In Phase One, seven categories of promising practices or program attributes were identified:(1) first and second language…