Children with Disabilities

Young children vary in their skills, knowledge, backgrounds, and abilities. Effective teaching requires individualized teaching and chances to learn for all children to access, participate, and thrive in early learning settings. Individualizing for children who need more support helps ensure effective teaching for children with disabilities and other special needs across all the Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework domains. Using children’s Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) and Individualized Education Program (IEP) goals is part of effective teaching, individualizing, and creating environments to support children’s positive outcomes.

Roundtable Introductions at the Meeting

Learn about the role of each attendee at a typical Individualized Education Program (IEP) meeting.

Signing the Individualized Education Program

Watch as a facilitator recaps an Individualized Education Program (IEP) meeting highlights. The next step is to have all attendees sign the IEP document.

Informal Wrap Up

In this video clip, a family support specialist closes a Individualized Education Program (IEP) meeting. She gives parents the chance to provide feedback and ask questions.

Communicating with Your Child’s School Through Letter Writing

This guide teaches parents how to clearly and effectively express concerns, ideas, or suggestions to the professionals involved in their child's special education.

How Teachers and Parents Can Accommodate for a Child’s Temporary or Permanent Hearing Loss

Resources Supporting Individualization

This collection of resources provides information about evidence-based practices that support individualization and associated resources .

Adult Support

This in-service suite provides strategies for using adult support. These strategies can be used to increase the participation of children who need more support or challenge. Also, find examples that illustrate what the strategies look like in the classroom.