This user-friendly book presents research-based best practices for serving families of children with special needs from birth to age 6. Expert contributors demonstrate how early intervention and early childhood special education can effectively address a wide range of family concerns, which in turn optimizes children's development and learning. Tightly edited, the volume offers indispensable tools for assessing families; identifying and capitalizing on their strengths; providing information, support, and coaching; collaborating with parents and teachers to address children's functional needs in the context of everyday routines; and coordinating care. Over a dozen reproducible checklists and forms help professionals immediately implement the techniques and strategies described.

Teachers will find practical guidelines for collaborating with families, applying early childhood intervention, using transition services, involving community agencies and businesses, and identifying post-high school options.

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.

Introduction to the core concepts of teaching and supporting children with disabilities alongside their peers will help teachers ensure that all children meet their potential.

For preservice students taking special education courses as well as inservice educators seeking professional development. An engaging discussion of the legal, ethical, practical, and cultural considerations of working with families of special needs children. With a strong focus on the families of special needs children, this first edition text provides students with both the information to understand the challenges and needs of these families as well as the skills and strategies required of educators working with such families. Containing a thorough discussion of the common legal and ethical concerns surrounding children with special needs and their families, this book also emphasizes the many individual differences among families. With that in mind, the authors focus on diversity in families with special needs children, cultural considerations, age, and communication with special needs families. In addition, a distinctive final chapter called "A Family's Voice," gives students the special opportunity to hear about the unique thoughts and experiences of a large selection of family members of children with special needs.

Strengthen programs of family and community engagement to promote equity and increase student success! When schools, families, and communities collaborate and share responsibility for students′ education, more students succeed in school. Based on 30 years of research and fieldwork, the fourth edition of the bestseller School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action, presents tools and guidelines to help develop more effective and more equitable programs of family and community engagement. Written by a team of well-known experts, it provides a theory and framework of six types of involvement for action; up-to-date research on school, family, and community collaboration; and new materials for professional development and on-going technical assistance. Readers also will find: Examples of best practices on the six types of involvement from preschools, and elementary, middle, and high schools Checklists, templates, and evaluations to plan goal-linked partnership programs and assess progress CD-ROM with slides and notes for two presentations: A new awareness session to orient colleagues on the major components of a research-based partnership program, and a full One-Day Team Training Workshop to prepare school teams to develop their partnership programs. As a foundational text, this handbook demonstrates a proven approach to implement and sustain inclusive, goal-linked programs of partnership. It shows how a good partnership program is an essential component of good school organization and school improvement for student success. This book will help every district and all schools strengthen and continually improve their programs of family and community engagement.