Essays adapted from a conference held in 1979 at the University of British Columbia.

This title is only available as a loose-leaf version with Pearson eText, or an electronic book. Once again, the author team of Vikki F. Howard, Betty Fry Williams, Denielle Miller, and Estee Aiken have written a comprehensive introduction to early childhood special education and early intervention resource for professionals preparing to work with infants, toddlers and preschool children with disabilities and their families. Very Young Children with Special Needs: A Foundation for Educators, Families, and Service Providers, Loose Leaf Version, 5/e remains a foundational text that is practical, offering readers a thorough review of early intervention and early childhood special education, and the most detailed information available about the causes of disabling conditions in young children. Readers will be provided with "best practices" for supporting diverse families, five philosophical issues important to effective intervention and support to young children and their families, and unique coverage of typical child development across physical, emotional, language and cognitive domains.

This edited volume explores various issues pertaining to the education of children with disabilities in Africa, the Caribbean and Middle East. As a group, persons with disabilities have been subjected to social, cultural and educational exclusions of various forms and for various socially-scripted reasons. In education, for instance, individuals with disabilities have been altogether excluded from educational participation in many parts of the developing world or they have been excluded from pursuing meaningfully beneficial higher levels of education in developed countries like the United States. One of the social responses/remedies to the widely-acknowledged exclusionary practices experienced by learners with disabilities has been the widespread implementation of inclusive practices in the education of individuals with disabilities across countries, in the west and the developing regions of the world. A distinctive marker of difference in the way inclusive practices have been enacted in western countries versus those in the developing world has primarily stemmed from the fact that majority of western countries operate under funded mandates that also regulate the provision of education to persons with disabilities. While the ideal of inclusion has been highly desirable, many of countries in the developing world have floundered in their implementation due to lack sound legislative framework to guide implementation coupled with socio-cultural factors related to negative perceptions of disabilities and limited funding sources. Chapters in this volume explore inclusive education from a variety of perspectives.

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

This title is only available as a loose-leaf version with Pearson eText. Once again, the author team of Vikki F. Howard, Betty Fry Williams, Denielle Miller, and Estee Aiken have written a comprehensive introduction to early childhood special education and early intervention resource for professionals preparing to work with infants, toddlers and preschool children with disabilities and their families. Very Young Children with Special Needs: A Foundation for Educators, Families, and Service Providers, Loose Leaf Version, 5/e remains a foundational text that is practical, offering readers a thorough review of early intervention and early childhood special education, and the most detailed information available about the causes of disabling conditions in young children. Readers will be provided with "best practices" for supporting diverse families, five philosophical issues important to effective intervention and support to young children and their families, and unique coverage of typical child development across physical, emotional, language and cognitive domains.