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Description: Preschool LRE Reference Points and Discussion Prompts is a summary of the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) provisions of the IDEA as it applies to preschool aged children with disabilities can be used as both a quick reference guide and training tool. Topics under the five sections outline reference points and discussion prompts. Reference points are drawn from several sources such as IDEA regulations and Federal Register comments. Discussion points are intended to help state and local teams...
Description: This guide highlights evidence-based practices to be used by adults or, in some instances by other children, to facilitate children’s participation in everyday routines, learning experiences, and activities. Each section (e.g., prompting, scaffolding, modeling, descriptive talking, wait time, and reinforcement) includes a description of the practice, examples of how it might be implemented, and links to additional information.
Description: A Guide to Adaptations - Adaptations, such as those shared in this guide, can ensure that each and every child, including young children with disabilities, can fully participate and engage in STEM [and other] learning opportunities and experiences at home, in early childhood programs, and in the community.
Description: Learning Paths are small collections of curated activities that focus on an early intervention topic. To learn about the topic, you will complete each activity on the path. Activities might include reading an article, taking an online module, watching a video, etc. Once you complete the learning path, you will take a final quiz to earn a certificate documenting the professional development hours earned. Autism Pathways Functional Assessment Pathways Transition from Early Intervention Pathways...
Description: When including children with disabilities in regular early childhood programs, it is important to carefully consider class size and the proportionate amount or limits to the number of students with IEPs. This resource outlines requirements and regulations that impact the number of students with IEPs placed in a classroom as well as offers guidance for best practice. This resource should be used to plan and schedule for inclusive classes. This can include VPI, Head Start, Title 1,...
Description: The Making Sound Preschool LRE Decisions guidance document lists important actions in the Individualized Education Program (IEP) development process that should inform placement decisions for young children with disabilities. Organized by important actions within the IEP process. It includes reference to the corresponding IDEA rules and regulations to each action. A guiding principle is listed within each action, followed by additional guidance and resources. Most of the principles in this...
Description: The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), with the collaboration and support of Early Childhood Technical Assistance (ECTA) Center and Center for IDEA Early Childhood Data Systems (DaSy) (for Sections II and III), developed this voluntary self-assessment tool to help local education agencies (LEAs) strengthen their child find system. The goal is to ensure that children eligible for special education and related services are referred and enrolled. This toolkit can also be used by state...
Description: Transitioning from early childhood programs to kindergarten involves a lot of moving parts for all young children. However, transitioning from the preschool to kindergarten classroom for the child with ASD can be especially tricky. This process involves the child, their family, the preschool teacher, the receiving kindergarten teacher, and a multitude of other people including related service providers such as speech and language pathologists (SLPs), occupational therapists (OTs), and other team...
Description: Register for the Just the Basics: Educating Young Children with ASD in Early Care and Education - Just the Basics is a foundational training for early childhood educators looking to take confident steps toward enhancing their teaching strategies and creating supportive learning environments for young children with autism. All course materials and activities are conveniently available online, making it easy to learn at your own pace throughout the school year. Participants also...
Description: A standards-based Individualized Education Program (IEP) describes a process in which the IEP team has incorporated state content standards in its development. The IEP is directly linked to and framed by Virginia’s course content Standards of Learning (SOL) for the grade in which the student is enrolled or will be enrolled. The components are the same as the traditional IEP. It should be noted that in a standards-based IEP, the PLOP and some or all of the annual goals are...
Description: This document includes a list of currently approved early childhood curricula options. This document will be updated on a monthly basis. Find information on the curriculum vetting process on the Early Childhood Curriculum webpage.
Description: Specifically designed with school administrators in mind, this module offers guidance on how to support and facilitate the development and implementation of high-quality IEPs, including the monitoring of student progress (est. completion time: 2 hours). If you have not done so already, consider completing the following module: IEPs: Developing High-Quality Individualized Education Programs
Description: The Inclusive Classroom Profile (ICP) complements the CLASS by providing a more in-depth look at the strategies that support young children with disabilities in inclusive settings. These documents share the correlation between ICP and CLASS areas, providing examples of what it looks like in the classroom.
Description: IECMHC is a prevention-based approach that pairs a mental health consultant with adults who work with infants and young children in the different settings where they learn and grow, such as child care, preschool, home visiting, early intervention and their home. Mental health consultation is not about “fixing kids.” Nor is it therapy. Mental health consultation equips caregivers to facilitate children’s healthy social and emotional development.
Description: Instructional practices are a cornerstone of early intervention and early childhood special education. Teachers, other practitioners, family members, and other caregivers use instructional practices to maximize learning and improve developmental and functional outcomes for young children who have or are at risk for developmental delays/disabilities. Included on this page are "Instruction Checklists" and "Instruction Practice Guides for Practitioners" for Naturalistic Instruction, Embedded...
Description: Sensitive and responsive interactional practices are the foundation for promoting the development of a childs language and cognitive and emotional competence. These interactional practices are the basis for fostering all childrens learning. For children who have or are at risk for developmental delays/disabilities, they represent a critical set of strategies for fostering childrens social-emotional competence, communication, cognitive development, problem-solving, autonomy, and persistence. This...
Description: Young children who have or are at risk for developmental delays/disabilities learn, play, and engage with adults and peers within a multitude of environments such as home, school, child care, and the neighborhood. Environmental practices refer to aspects of the space, materials (toys, books, etc.), equipment, routines, and activities that practitioners and families can intentionally alter to support each child's learning across developmental domains. This page include Practice Checklists,...
Description: All young children (Birth to 5) with and without disabilities have the right to experience settings, relationships, and interactions that will support and futher their development and learning. This infographic from VCPD helps families to understand the importance and value of inclusion in early childhood.
Description: Co-teaching team, Shannon Mackey (Special Education Teacher) and Danielle Sentz (General Education Teacher) present a webinar on the basics of co-teaching in an inclusive Pre-K setting. As the first Pre-K team to join VDOE’s Excellence in Co-Teaching Initiative, they provide insight on how to incorporate Dr. Marilyn Friend’s co-teaching models in a setting with young children both with and without disabilities.
Description: This guidance document is designed to assist Virginia’s school divisions and early childhood communities in identifying, developing, and sustaining inclusive opportunities within high-quality early childhood programs for young children with disabilities. The guidelines are presented in three sections: 1. Why Inclusion? 2. What is Inclusion? 3. How to Implement Inclusion. In addition to other changes, the revised guidelines contain important updates to the research supporting early...
Description: Practice-based coaching is a cyclical process for guiding practitioners’ use of evidence-based practices for promoting positive child outcomes. Practice-based coaching involves the following components: collaborative partnerships shared goals and action planning focused observation reflection and feedback On this site, we will provide resources for using PBC to promote practitioners’ use of the Pyramid Model Practices. While many of our existing products are designed to support...
Description: This module explores the importance of scaffolding and modeling for students as they learn new skills and strategies (est. completion time: 1 hour). In this module, you will learn about several different approaches to instructional scaffolding and how to use them, including Content scaffolding, Task scaffolding, and Material scaffolding.
Description: Learn about the practice of embedded interventions to help children participate in a variety of early learning opportunities and environments promoting high quality inclusion.
Description: This module will help you: Describe assistive technology interventions to promote children’s access to and participation in inclusive settings. Use a decision-making process to help integrate various sources of evidence and determine whether assistive technology interventions are appropriate for use within a specific context.
Description: Embedded Instruction for Early Learning is based on a recommended instructional practice for preschoolers with or at risk for learning challenges. In embedded instruction, teachers, families, and other caregivers learn how to provide developmentally appropriate, intentional instruction to advance children’s engagement and learning as part of their everyday activities, routines, and transitions.
Description: Develop your expertise on leveraging Embedded Learning Opportunities (ELOs) to support young children's individual goals, with the resources in this training package.
Description: This module, a DEC-recommended resource, offers information on how to set up effective inclusive early childhood classroom environments for young children. It also provides details about the interrelated physical, social, and temporal components of those environments, as well as adaptations to help teachers meet the needs of children with disabilities (est. completion time: 1 hour).
Description: Evidence-Based Practices, a three part series, from IRIS Center: Evidence-Based Practices (Part 1): Identifying and Selecting a Practice or Program discusses the importance of identifying and selecting evidence-based practices (est. completion time: 1.5 hours). Evidence-Based Practices (Part 2): Implementing a Practice or Program with Fidelity discusses implementing an evidence-based practice or program with fidelity (est. completion time: 1 hour). Evidence-Based Practices (Part 3):...
Description: Practice-Based Coaching (PBC) is a professional development strategy that uses a cyclical process. This process supports teachers’ use of effective teaching practices that lead to positive outcomes for children. PBC occurs in the context of collaborative partnerships. View the videos below to learn more about PBC.
Description: Early CHOICES and the Early Intervention Training Program at the University of Illinois recently launched a new series called Understanding Inclusion. The Understanding Inclusion series contains 6 topics that explore key ideas about inclusion in early childhood. Developed for families with family input, it is just as meaningful and useful for practitioners working with families who have children from birth to 5. In each module topic, a topic guide is available for reflecting and applying what...
Description: This page provides resources and materials that include web-based learning opportunities and evidence-based instructional strategies. The goal of the center is to increase the competence, confidence and effectiveness of personnel in Head Start programs to include children with disabilities.
Description: The Advancing Effective Interactions and Instruction (AEII) initiative is all about helping education leaders make data-driven decisions that support teachers and provide high-quality learning experiences for children in Virginia’s early childhood classrooms.
Description: These documents support inclusion in early childhood by demonstrating the benefits to various groups, including children with disabilities, children without disabilities, families, direct service staff, and adminstrators.
Description: UDL offers a framework that integrates what we know about the learning brain to inform the design of environments that support all learners. Discover the connections between UDL and the brain in this article.
Description: This article provides a brief overview of evidence-based UDL practices, with a specific focus on the use of engagement strategies for young children.
Description: This page contains previous years, as well as the most recent data, on Indicator 6: Least Restrictive Environment. It is updated on an annual basis.
Description: This clearly written article provides a great introduction to what UDL is and how it works. It can be a good way to start learning about UDL for teachers and families.
Description: The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. The UDL Guidelines can be used by educators, curriculum developers, researchers, parents, and anyone else who wants to implement the UDL framework in a learning environment. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure...
Description: Laura Taylor has been teaching Kindergarten for ages. When she first learned about UDL, she was skeptical that it was anything different than good teaching. Once she dug in, though, she realized she could reach her students in ways she never had before. Listen to the examples of how UDL enabled her to engage her students in new ways and to offer them choices for showing what they know and can do.
Description: This chapter from the DEC Recommended Practices Monograph on Environments describes how to promote access and participation by using universal design strategies and making individualized modifications.
Description: This document is Virginia's new set of comprehensive early learning and development standards for young children, birth to age five. The new standards focus on five Areas of Development: Approaches to Play and Learning; Social and Emotional Development; Communication, Language, and Literacy Development; Health and Physical Development and Cognitive Development.
Description: The STEMIE Center recently released three videos on why inclusion is important. Below is the three part series link and the corresponding description. For access to the transcript, watch the video through YouTube. Part 1: "Let’s Change Attitudes and Beliefs:"In this video, you will learn what does the literature tell us about high-quality inclusion. Part 2: "Key Characteristics of High Quality Inclusive Education:" This video focuses on the features that are essential for high-quality...
Description: This instructional document provides answers to frequently asked questions regarding Indicator 6. It is designed to assist Local Education Agency personnel in accurately collecting and reporting Indicator 6 data. Please utilize the Indicator 6 Decision Tree as you determine the child’s educational environment. Also, read Instructions for Preschool Environments for additional information.
Description: Virginia Indicator 6 Data December 1, 2019 Indicator 6: Early Childhood Placement* Indicator 6: Early Childhood Environment for Children with IEPs Target A – Regular early childhood program and receiving the majority of special education and related services in the regular education childhood program; Target B – Separate special education class, separate school, or residential facility State Target for FFY 2018: Target A: Greater or equal to 35% Target B: Less than or equal to 17%...
Description: This instructional document provides definitions to key vocabulary as well as steps for determining the accurate educational environment classification using the Indicator 6 Decision Tree. Also, read Questions and Answers for Preschool Environments for additional information
Description: From the Virginia Department of Education, this webpage is dedicated to the transition from Early Intervention (Part C) to Early Childhood Special Education (Part B): Smooth transitions from Early Intervention to Early Childhood Special Education are important. Families, children, sending and receiving programs all need to share information and support each other. Transition activities need to be timely to assure access to appropriate services for the child. The transition should also be smooth...
Description: The instructions for Indicator 12 are linked on the VDOE site below.
Description: This eWorkshop is intended for those team members that participate in the COS process, whether new to the process or as a refresher. It is designed for participants to learn to complete the COS process correctly and with fidelity. The United States Department of Education (USDOE) requires states to report data for Indicator 7, Child Outcomes. States report on the percent of preschoolers with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) who demonstrate improved child outcomes in three areas: Positive...
Description: This tool, developed by the Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center, provides an application for determining the accurate educational environment classification. Click on “Virginia” to use the customized tool aligned with Virginia’s data reporting format. To begin, click on "Decision Tree" in the tool bar. To practice using the tool or to train others, click on Scenarios on the tool bar and then click on Scenario on the dropdown menu in the middle of the screen.
Description: A comprehensive online module has been developed jointly by the Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center (ECTA) and the Center for IDEA Early Childhood Data Systems (DaSY) to support those who provide instruction or related services to infants, toddlers and preschoolers with disabilities. The module provides key information about the COS process, and the practices that contribute to consistent and meaningful COS decision-making. The course can be used by an individual or can be used to...