Children With Special Needs
Resources to support increased access for children with disabilities to inclusive high-quality education programs that provide them with individualized and appropriate support.
The National Center on Early Childhood Quality Assurance hosted this national webinar on September 20, 2022, to learn about inclusion research, laws, policies, and practices as well as the disparities that exist in access to inclusive settings based on race and category of disability. This context was brought to life through the story of how Illinois and other states are working to foster inclusion through licensing standards, quality initiatives, and other innovative state and community strategies.
This brief explores the importance of inclusion for young children with disabilities and the relationship between inclusion and quality in early childhood education. The brief includes a table with state examples of inclusion-related indicators in Quality Rating and Improvement Systems, and a list of related resources.
This brief provides state, territory, and Tribal Lead Agencies with research to support the need and benefits of inclusive environments, descriptors of four strategies for increasing access, state examples for review, and resources.
Additional Resources
Caring for Children with Special Health Care Needs (CHSCN) in Early Care and Education is a collection of 146 nationally recognized health and safety standards that have an impact on infants, toddlers, and preschoolers with special health care needs in early care and education settings. These materials and the associated six Appendices are a subset of materials available in Caring for Our Children: National Health and Safety Performance Standards; Guidelines for Early Care and Education Programs (CFOC). CFOC is a collection of nationally recognized best practice health and safety standards for the early care and education environment.
The ECTA Center supports state Part C and Section 619 programs in developing high-quality early intervention and preschool special education service systems, increasing local implementation of evidence-based practices, and enhancing outcomes for young children with disabilities and their families.
The purpose of this policy statement is to set a vision and provide recommendations to states, local educational agencies, schools, and public and private early childhood programs, from the U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services, for increasing the inclusion of infants, toddlers, and preschool children with disabilities in high-quality early childhood programs. Early childhood programs refer to those programs that provide early care and education to children birth through age five, where the majority of children in the program are typically developing.
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