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How do you come up with interventions for young children with disabilities?

Walk step by step through the jargon-free Carolina Curriculum

The Carolina Curriculum is an assessment and intervention program designed for use with young children from birth to five who have mild to severe disabilities. Professionals in home-, school-, or center-based environments will improve children’s outcomes by systematically using this easy-to-use, criterion-referenced system that clearly links assessment with intervention and lets them work closely with the child’s teachers, family members, and other service providers.

In each of the age-specific volumes, all the areas to be assessed are clearly laid out in logical sequences in an Assessment Log. Each item on the assessment tool is linked directly to a curriculum item that describes procedures for teaching the assessed skill. Assessment is linked to intervention through hierarchies of developmental tasks that are both relevant to typical routines and pertinent to long-term adaptation—thus integrating the intervention in a meaningful way into the child’s life.

Step 1

Conduct a brief (15–20 minute), informal observation of the child playing with the caregiver using familiar toys and objects, making notes on the Assessment Log; for items you have not observed, ask the caregiver to try particular activities and record results (60–90 minutes)

Step 2

Transfer the information on the Assessment Log to the Developmental Progress Chart, giving you a graphic representation of the child’s relative strengths and weaknesses

Step 3

Referring to the Assessment Log and Developmental Progress Chart, make a note of the next skills to be learned in each of the major domains of development

Step 4

Collaborating with the caregivers, determine the child’s intervention objectives for the next intervention period, and monitor progress over time

At a glance

What is it?

This curriculum is an assessment and intervention program designed for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers with mild to severe disabilities

What are its components?

• The Carolina Curriculum for Infants & Toddlers with Special Needs (CCITSN), Third Edition is designed to curricular intervention strategies for use with children who are functioning in the birth to 36-month developmental range

• The Carolina Curriculum for Preschoolers with Special Needs (CCPSN), Second Edition is designed to curricular intervention strategies for use with children in the 24–60-month range

• Assessment Logs and Developmental Progress Charts are available on CD-ROM, as downloadable e-forms, or in print

Who implements it?

Interventionists who work with children with a wide range of disabilities, from mild to severe

How long does it take to complete?

About 60–90 minutes (can be split up into 2 sessions)

Which areas does it examine?

CCITSN and CCPSN consist of logical teaching sequences covering five developmental domains:

• cognition
• communication
• personal-social
• fine motor
• gross motor

What is a sample activity?

Curriculum items (intervention objectives) should be embedded in activities that challenge the child in two or more domains. An example of combining goals into one activity would be to teach a child to pull to standing (Item 22-Ie) by placing desirable toys out of reach on top of a support. The toys are ones that serve different functions such as a squeaky toy and a pull toy (Item 7j). The ring stacker also invites the child to remove the rings (Item 18q). Three objectives are addressed in this one activity.

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