This eye-opening set looks at young children with special needs, their families, and the laws, policies, programs, and services designed to help them. The three-volume Early Childhood Intervention: Shaping the Future for Children with Special Needs and Their Families is a unique, comprehensive, and much-needed examination of a critically important issue. In its pages, a diverse array of experts discuss key aspects of policies, laws, rights, programs, and services available to children today. Examinations range from historical roots to present-day considerations, such as culturally and linguistically diverse children, use of technology, and contemporary testing and teaching methods. Throughout, the most current and best available research is combined with professional and clinical experience, wisdom, values, and family perspectives. The work explores issues affecting both children with psychological disorders and those with physical challenges, such as children who are blind or hearing impaired. Coverage includes all aspects of life-skills, medicine, health sciences, education, and child welfare. Although it is focused on programs in the United States, this comprehensive set offers additional insights by including comparisons of U.S. programs and services with their international counterparts.

The assessment of young children's development and learning has recently taken on new importance. Private and government organizations are developing programs to enhance the school readiness of all young children, especially children from economically disadvantaged homes and communities and children with special needs. Well-planned and effective assessment can inform teaching and program improvement, and contribute to better outcomes for children. This book affirms that assessments can make crucial contributions to the improvement of children's well-being, but only if they are well designed, implemented effectively, developed in the context of systematic planning, and are interpreted and used appropriately. Otherwise, assessment of children and programs can have negative consequences for both. The value of assessments therefore requires fundamental attention to their purpose and the design of the larger systems in which they are used. Early Childhood Assessment addresses these issues by identifying the important outcomes for children from birth to age 5 and the quality and purposes of different techniques and instruments for developmental assessments.

Early childhood education has reached a level of unprecedented national and international focus. Parents, policy makers, and politicians have opinions as well as new questions about what, how, when, and where young children should learn. Teachers and program administrators now find curriculum discussions linked to dramatic new understandings about children's early learning and brain development. Early childhood education is also a major topic of concern internationally, as social policy analysts point to its role in a nation's future economic outlook. As a groundbreaking contribution to its field, this four-volume handbook discusses key historical and contemporary issues, research, theoretical perspectives, national policies, and practices.

An Introduction to Young Children with Special Needs: Birth Through Age Eight is a comprehensive introduction to educational policies, programs, practices, and services for future practitioners serving young children with delays or disabilities in early intervention-early childhood special education (EI-ECSE). Thoughtfully addressing the needs of children at risk for learning or development delays or disabilities, revered authors Richard M. Gargiulo and Jennifer L. Kilgo offer evidence-based interventions and instructional techniques that provide students with a broad understanding of important theoretical and philosophical foundations, including evidence-based decision making, developmentally appropriate practices, cultural responsiveness, and activity-based intervention. The Fifth Edition includes the latest developments in and influences on the field of early intervention and early childhood special education, including the Division for Early Childhood’s (DEC)Recommended Practices, which are infused throughout the text. With the support of this current and innovative book, readers will gain a firm understanding of the complex field of EI-ECSE to assist them in their future study and careers. A Complete Teaching & Learning Package SAGE Premium Video Included in the interactive eBook! SAGE Premium Video tools and resources boost comprehension and bolster analysis. Interactive eBook Your students save when you bundle the print version with the Interactive eBook (Bundle ISBN: 978-1-5443-6571-8), which includes access to SAGE Premium Video and other multimedia tools. SAGE coursepacks SAGE coursepacks makes it easy to import our quality instructor and student resource content into your school’s learning management system (LMS). Intuitive and simple to use, SAGE coursepacks allows you to customize course content to meet your students’ needs. SAGE edge This companion website offers both instructors and students a robust online environment with an impressive array of teaching and learning resources.

This handbook discusses early childhood special education (ECSE), with particular focus on evidence-based practices. Coverage spans core intervention areas in ECSE, such as literacy, motor skills, and social development as well as diverse contexts for services, including speech-language pathology, physical therapy, and pediatrics. Contributors offer strategies for planning, implementing, modifying, and adapting interventions to help young learners extend their benefits into the higher grades. Concluding chapters emphasize the importance of research in driving evidence-based practices (EBP). Topics featured in the Handbook include: Family-centered practices in early childhood intervention. The application of Response to Intervention (RtI) in young children with identified disabilities. Motor skills acquisition for young children with disabilities. Implementing evidence-based practices in ECSE classrooms. · Cultural, ethnic, and linguistic implications for ECSE. The Handbook of Early Childhood Special Education is a must-have resource for researchers, professors, upper-level undergraduate and graduate students, clinicians, and practitioners across such disciplines as child and school psychology, early childhood education, clinical social work, speech and physical therapy, developmental psychology, behavior therapy, and public health.

Services for families and children are rightfully the focus of intense scrutiny and debate, and there is a clear need to establish a knowledge of which services work well. This volume provides a comprehensive overview of research evidence from the UK and USA on the effectiveness of selected child welfare interventions. It addresses the challenges of measuring effectiveness in child welfare and explains the policy context for child welfare service delivery. Leading international contributors summarize the evidence of effectiveness in each core area, and consider the impact on children's development, parenting capacity and the wider community. Critically, the book also draws out the implications of the evidence for policy, practice and service delivery as well as for future research. This book is essential reading for policy makers, practitioners and commissioners of services in child welfare as well as students and researchers.

The general public often views early childhood education as either simply “babysitting” or as preparation for later learning. Of course, both viewpoints are simplistic. Deep understanding of child development, best educational practices based on development, emergent curriculum, cultural competence and applications of family systems are necessary for high-quality early education. Highly effective early childhood education is rare in that it requires collaboration and transitions among a variety of systems for children from birth through eight years of age. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Contemporary Early Childhood Education presents in three comprehensive volumes advanced research, accurate practical applications of research, historical foundations and key facts from the field of contemporary early childhood education. Through approximately 425 entries, this work includes all areas of child development – physical, cognitive, language, social, emotional, aesthetic – as well as comprehensive review of best educational practices with young children, effective preparation for early childhood professionals and policy making practices, and addresses such questions as: · How is the field of early childhood education defined? · What are the roots of this field of study? · How is the history of early childhood education similar to yet different from the study of public education? · What are the major influences on understandings of best practices in early childhood education?

The current practice of counseling, psychotherapy, and most helping professions often relies on clinical wisdom with little evidence of what actually works. Clinical wisdom is often a justification for beliefs and values that bond people together as professionals but often fails to serve clients since many of those beliefs and values may be comforting, but they may also be inherently incorrect. Improving the Effectiveness of the Helping Professions: An Evidence-Based Approach to Practice covers the use of research and critical thinking to assist helping professionals make the most effective choices in treating clients with social and emotional problems. The use of evidence-based practice (EBP) comes at a time when managed care and concerns over health care costs coincide with growing concerns that psychotherapy, case management, and counseling may not be sufficiently effective ways of helping people in social and emotional difficulty. Improving the Effectiveness of the Helping Professions provides an easy-to-read, inclusive approach covering EBP with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and terrorism, bereavement, substance abuse, mental illness, and problems experienced by older adults, among others. This text critically reviews the literature on self-help groups, religious involvement, and spirituality. It also includes sources to find best evidence, a simple overview of research concepts, a chapter on critical thinking, and numerous relevant case studies showing the application of EBP. Improving the Effectiveness of the Helping Professions is ideally suited for undergraduate and graduate students in social work, psychology, counseling, criminal justice, psychiatric nursing, and psychiatry. This book should also prove beneficial to all practitioners and specialists in the helping professions.

Designed for nurses and student nurses who work with this group, this book covers interventions for infants and children as clients, as well as the family as a client. Each chapter examines the theoretical and research literature support for the invention and links to appropriate nursing diagnoses and outcomes. A case study is presented to illustrate how each intervention is used in nursing practice. Implications for further research are presented with the goal of advancing nursing science by stimulating further study of nursing interventions.