26.5: Promoting Inclusive Practices

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Amanda Taintor & Emily Elam

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Inclusion in the Classroom

Inclusion embodies the values, policies, and practices that support the right of every child and their family, regardless of ability, to participate in a broad range of activities and contexts as full members of families, communities, and society. The desired results of inclusive experiences for children with and without disabilities and their families include a sense of belonging and membership, positive social relationships and friendships, and development and learning to reach their full potential. The defining features of inclusion that can be used to identify high-quality early childhood programs and services are:[1]

Access – providing access to a wide range of learning opportunities, activities, settings, and environments
Participation – even if environments and programs are designed to facilitate access, some children will need additional individualized accommodations and support to participate fully in play and learning activities with peers and adults.
Supports – an infrastructure of systems-level supports must be afforded to those providing inclusive services to children and families.^[13]

Even if children with disabilities are not currently enrolled in an early childhood education program, educators can still promote inclusive practices. One way is to have pictures, books, and materials that present children with disabilities in a general setting. How people are alike and different naturally arises in an early childhood education setting; a caregiver can take advantage of these opportunities to discuss them. Language use is also critical in developing an atmosphere of inclusion. The best practice is to use "person-first" language when one is talking about people with disabilities. This practice simply means putting the person before the disability: "a child with autism spectrum disorder" rather than "an autistic child."[2]

Exploring inclusion with families, colleagues, and children will suggest other ways to expand inclusive practices. For example, planning staff discussions on specific changes in philosophy, attitudes, and practices goes far toward including children with special needs in a childcare setting. Outside the immediate early childhood education program setting, adults with disabilities in a community might contribute to a care provider's expanding knowledge of issues related specifically to inclusion and to disabilities in general.[2]

[1] Introducing developmental disability through a disability studies perspecitve by Emily Brooks and Mariette Bates. This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

[2] Chapter 15: Families of Children with Special Needs or Special Health Care Needs by Krischa Esquivel; Emily Elam; Jennifer Paris; and Maricela Tafoya CC BY