Reaching consensus on the meaning of professional development is needed to integrate professional development across various sectors of the early childhood field, distinguish various professional development approaches, match learning opportunities to learner characteristics, and evaluate its effects on professional practices and child and family outcomes. This article proposes a definition and conceptual framework for professional development across all sectors of early childhood and describes methods used to validate them. A case example illustrates how the definition and framework can be used to organize and plan professional development. Future directions for how a shared definition could move the field closer to a shared vision for planning, implementing, and evaluating professional development are discussed.
Families of children in mainstreamed environments have varying expectations associated with these integrated placements. Although previous studies have described some of these expectations in a retrospective fashion, no study has assessed expectations prior to the initiation of mainstreaming or documented the extent to which such expectations change during the course of a mainstreaming experience. This article describes the expectations of families of both handicapped and nonhandicapped children prior to the introduction of handicapped children into a day care center that had previously served only nonhandicapped youngsters. A follow-up assessment was conducted after 9 months of mainstreaming. Stability and change in parents' expectations are described and the implication of the findings for planning individualized family services are discussed.
The provision of Individualized services to families with young handicapped children has been hampered by the lack of a practical model. This article describes a functional model for assessing family needs, specifying family goals, implementing family services, and evaluating effectiveness. The model draws on the "goodness-of-fit" concept to individualize family services in order to optimize the "fit" between family, child, and services provided. 0 The importance of family involvement is a recognized principle in early intervention. Even though a recent meta-analysis of research suggests that empirical data to sup-
The movement toward inclusion has made educating and caring for children with disabilities an increasingly critical part of the early education teacher's role. The goal of this paper is to describe the extent to which early childhood teacher preparation programs are including early childhood special educationlearly intervention content and experiences as part of their core course and practicum requirements. A nationally representative survey of 438 chairs and directors of early childhood teacher preparation programs revealed that while a large proportion of programs consider early childhood special educationlearly intervention to be a part of the mission of their program, the amount of coursework and practicum experience vary considerably by content area and level of degree offered by the program. Implications are offered for policy and future research.The right of young children with disabilities to be cared for and educated with typically developing peers is perhaps one of the most radical and profound outcomes of federal disability legislation. The movement toward inclusion for preschool children gained momentum with the passage of Public Law 99-457
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