Excerpted from chapter 5 of Preschool Inclusion, by Claire C. Cavallaro, Ph.D., & Michele Haney, Ph.D.

Copyright © 1999 by Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

The goal of inclusion is that children with disabilities be able to participate fully in general education or child care environments. Their being present in the classroom is simply not enough. If a child with disabilities has separate activities, a separate teacher, and no interaction with typically developing peers, then there is little reason for him or her to be placed in a general education environment. Therefore, inclusive education is more than just a placement option; educators must support the child's full participation in the environment and his or her social integration with typically developing peers.

To participate fully in an inclusive classroom, many children with disabilities need extra support and assistance. Compared with typically developing children, children with disabilities spend less time engaged with toys (Krakow & Kopp, 1983), peers, and adults (McWilliam & Bailey, 1995). Some children with disabilities may also demonstrate less curiosity and persistence (Jennings, Connors, Stegman, Sankaranaryan, & Mendelsohn, 1985). Finally, they may lack the cognitive, social, or motor skills needed to engage unassisted in many activities in the preschool classroom.

Supporting a child's participation in the general classroom requires that classroom teachers and transdisciplinary teams implement a combination of recommended practices drawn from ECE and ECSE (see Chapter 1 for a list of recommended practices in each discipline). The strategies actually used in the classroom to support a child's participation must be acceptable to the classroom teacher and compatible with that teacher's approach and philosophy. When incompatible strategies are introduced, they are not likely to be used consistently or effectively.

For example, a consultant might try a strict behavior modification technique, such as demanding that children imitate adult speech or using food as rewards for appropriate behavior, in a preschool classroom. The preschool staff might believe that the technique is intrusive and inappropriate; therefore, it is not used after the consultant leaves. If the consultants were more aware—and respectful—of the beliefs and values of the classroom staff, and if the preschool staff had shared their concerns with the consultants, they all might attempt to modify the technique, and the staff would probably incorporate it into their daily activities with greater success. To use approaches that are compatible with the philosophy of the general preschool staff, special educators and other professionals must understand the basic principles of early childhood education, the most important being attention and responsiveness to children.

Attention and Responsiveness to Children

One of the most important principles of early childhood education is that adults should interact with children in a positive manner that is responsive to the ideas and feelings that children express. In other words, adults should respond to children directly in a manner that is appropriate for each child's style and ability and convey respect for each child as a person. For example, when a child cries, a teacher in a developmentally appropriate program responds by comforting the child and trying to find out why the child is crying. If the child responds to hugs (as most young children do), then the teacher gives the child a hug and verbal reassurance. If the child is uncomfortable with physical touch (as some children with disabilities are), the teacher verbally reassures the child, at a level he or she can understand, instead of giving hugs.

Attend to Children's Behavior

Being responsive to children requires adults to be attentive—to listen to and observe children carefully and pay attention to what children's behavior communicates. Being attentive means responding positively when children show that they are interested in particular activities, places, or objects. Children are most motivated to learn while doing activities that they initiate; therefore, child-initiated activities provide the best opportunities for teaching. The challenge for staff is to find ways to facilitate children's learning in these activities.

Sometimes teachers find that children are not interested in the activities they planned. Often teachers or inclusion assistants plan an activity designed to meet certain IEP objectives only to find that the child for whom they have planned the activity has a different idea in mind for what to do that day. In this case, the best approach is usually to let the child explore, even if only briefly. It is possible that the same objectives can be met in the child-selected activity. After a few minutes, try to redirect the child's attention by resuggesting the planned activity. Sometimes the child will follow and sometimes you may realize that the planned activity is not as interesting or appealing to the child as you thought it would be. At that point, the activity or materials need to be modified.

Respond to Children's Intent

Part of being responsive means responding to children's intent rather than the form of their communication. In other words, respond to what children are trying to communicate rather than how they communicate.

Justin is a 4-year old with severely delayed language skills. He seems to understand simple language, but he has difficulty using words to express himself. He usually initiates interactions with peers by running up to them and shoving or hitting them. This results in other children crying and, ultimately, trying to avoid him.

How do Justin's teachers cope with this behavior? When it occurs, teachers first respond by comforting the child who is the victim. Then they calmly tell Justin that hitting is not acceptable. They also focus on Justin's intent, which is to establish interaction, by teaching him a more acceptable way to initiate interactions—by approaching a peer and offering a toy to share, for example. The teachers begin to observe Justin carefully so that the next time he approaches a peer, they can prompt a more acceptable way to initiate interactions. (Chapter 7 provides more detailed guidelines for coping with inappropriate behavior and supporting positive behavior.)

Alicia is a 3-year old who is just starting to talk. Her words—when she uses them—are often garbled and difficult to understand. This results in frustration for both Alicia and the adults who work with her. Her teachers want to help her by modeling the "correct" way to say things (form), but first they have to figure out what she is trying to say (intent).

Sometimes it is difficult to understand a child's intent, especially the intent of children who are just starting to talk or who are not familiar with English. If you cannot understand a child after a couple of tries, ask the child to show you instead. Or ask a peer to help to translate ("Marta, can you help me understand what Alicia is saying?"). These strategies may help teachers to understand a child's speech and/or what the child intends to communicate more and more.

Responding to children's intent—before trying to teach children new ways to say it—helps to encourage children's communication overall.

Alicia walked over to a teacher during free play and said something completely unintelligible. The teacher asked Alicia to show her what she meant, and Alicia ran over to the kitchen area, indicating that she wanted to play there. The teacher said, "Oh, play in the kitchen! Yes, I'll play with you."

In this case, the teacher responds to Alicia's intent by playing with her in the kitchen area. The teacher does not attempt to "correct" Alicia's pronunciation, but rather provides a simple model of the words, "play in the kitchen." By helping Alicia understand that communicating produces results, the teacher encourages Alicia to try to communicate. With this encouragement, Alicia will continue her attempts to communicate using words, and she will have many opportunities to practice and learn to say the words more clearly.

Value Each Child's Cultural and Family Background

Finally, being responsive requires adults to be aware of each child's family and cultural background. A child's early experiences in the home and community—usually the only experience a child has had before entering a group child care or early education environment—have a profound influence on how the child will feel and act in the new environments.

2-1/2-year-old Mohammed had a very difficult time separating from his mother when he first entered the child care program. After his mother hugged him good-bye, he would cling to the gate and cry, initially for the entire morning. Although many children have difficulty with separation at first, Mohammed seemed to have a particularly difficult time.

Mohammed's parents told the child care staff that he had a language delay in his native language (Farsi) and that he was receiving speech-language therapy privately. He did not know any English words, and English was not spoken at home. Mohammed's mother had stayed with him at home since he was born, but now she needed to return to work and enroll Mohammed in preschool.

The case of Mohammed exemplifies the experience of many children from immigrant families as they enter preschool or child care programs. Imagine entering a new place where you cannot understand the language and where the only adult who has always been with you is suddenly gone. You do not understand why she is gone or know whether she will return. In Middle Eastern and many other cultures, mothers usually devote most of their time to their young children (Sharifzadeh, 1998), and Mohammed's never having been apart from his mother was fairly typical.

To be responsive, adults must be sensitive to the impact of children's experiences, especially family and cultural background, on their behavior. In Mohammed's case, inclusion assistants made his separation from his mother easier by waiting with him at the gate until his mother's car was out of sight. Although he insisted on staying by the gate for the entire morning at first, he started to move into the classroom a little more quickly each day. Staff also asked Mohammed's mother for a list of words that he knew in Farsi so that they could communicate with him more easily as he started to acquire some English words. Finally, an adult in the child care center who knew Farsi made sure to stop by each day to talk a little with Mohammed in his home language.

As discussed in Chapter 2, although teachers may not be able learn the nuances of every culture, they can become familiar with the cultures of the children with whom they work. Staff can learn cultural responsiveness by being aware of their own values, beliefs, and biases (see Harry, 1992b; Lynch & Hanson, 1998). Several resources related to cultural and linguistic diversity are provided in Appendix B.

Staff can also learn about each child's family and cultural background. Children's experiences at home often do not prepare them for the expectations that teachers have in the preschool classroom. West provided a particularly compelling example:

Mine is often one of the first words of middle-class children, but some children never think in terms of "my" crayons, "my" room. They have been taught that ownership is by the group rather than by the individual. At school, then, using or even taking crayons or a pencil from another is not considered stealing. Children from a relatively communal subculture or from extreme poverty, who may share a single coat or pair of shoes with siblings, simply cannot perceive of taking another's lunch in the same way that a middle-class child would perceive it. Yet we, as teachers, sometimes behave as though children are born understanding the concept of private ownership. (1992, p. 128)

In addition to understanding how children's culture and family background differ from their own, teachers must demonstrate that they value the children's different cultures. Children's self-identity is framed within their cultural background, and although children may need to learn to function in mainstream American culture, they should not feel that they have to give up their own cultural identities. Rather, they need to be able to become bicultural—to learn to function in both cultures (Bowman, 1992).

The importance of valuing children's home cultures can be illustrated by examining negative practices that have evolved in some schools. For example, some teachers have discouraged African American children from using Black English, or Ebonics, implying that Black English is inappropriate or "bad English." By doing so, the teachers implied that the children's home language and community are not acceptable, a very destructive message. If children receive the message that their community is unacceptable, they feel unacceptable, too. Furthermore, they may believe that they must choose between the school's culture and their community's and family's culture. This is a choice that no child should have to make.

Finally, two caveats regarding cultural diversity should be mentioned. First, just as it is important to be aware of children's background, it is important to avoid stereotyping. Within every culture there are many cultural variations based on income level, education, geographical origin, and opportunity. Furthermore, within each community, each family is different, and each individual in each family is different. Thus, although we should recognize that there are some values and customs that are more common to particular cultures than to others, we must be careful not to assume that each individual holds all of the values of his or her larger culture.

Second, cultural differences are often confounded by the effects of poverty. As noted by Bowman,

To what extent particular characteristics represent a group's adaptation to limited resources and to what extent they represent critical aspects of cultural heritage is difficult to disentangle. School achievement is based, more or less, on the acquisition of middle-class, White values and behaviors. For low-income minority children, this means two layers of potential conflict as the issues of class and racial, linguistic, and ethnic identity merge. (1992, p. 129)

Simply stated, both cultural background and socioeconomic status have an impact on children. An awareness of these factors can help staff to understand children's behavior. However, it is essential that staff respond to children as individuals, with an appreciation of the uniqueness of each child's and family's background.

In summary, attention and responsiveness to children are fundamental strategies that teachers use in developmentally appropriate programs. Teachers are attentive and observe carefully to understand the intent of children's behavior, and they respond in ways that convey respect and value each child as a person. To implement both strategies well requires that teachers be aware of each child's family and cultural background as well as each child's abilities and disabilities.