EARLY CHILDHOOD & DISABILITY
All staff members who provide early education need training on working with children with disabilities. When I was young, my friend had a brother who had Down Syndrome. He did not go to child care nor to school because the family was told by the programs in our area that they did not accept children with mental retardation. His mother stayed home and took care of him because the only other choice was to send her son to live in a state school. Well, those days are gone. Early education programs cannot legally turn away a child with a disability. Head Start programs, which provide the majority of early childhood education on most reservations are not only required to accept children with disabilities, but, in fact, Head Start sets aside 10% of slots for children with special needs, regardless of income . Off the reservation, even private child care centers are covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that says they cannot turn away a child because of a disability. Although ADA does not apply on the reservations, it is important to know the regulations because many of the families you serve will live or use services off of the reservation.
Legal Requirements for Child Care Centers
Centers are required by ADA to make reasonable modifications for children with disabilities. A lot of this is common sense, for example, removing barriers if this can be easily done. If your furniture is arranged in such a way that a wheelchair or a child on crutches cannot get through the room, you are required to re-arrange the furniture. If toys scattered on the floor are a hazard for a child with poor balance, you are required to keep the floor clear. The key test is if the removal of barriers is 'easily achievable'.
For more information, go to this page by the Association for Retarded Citizens for fact sheets on various topics and requirements related to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, including child abuse, ADA requirements for child care centers and more.
Benefits of child care
Children with disabilities can learn social skills from being in a child care with other children. They can learn how to share, take turns, and play games. It is Head Start policy that children with disabilities are to be included in all activities. While this may seem pretty obvious, stories from parents that you will hear in this workshop will show that the most common sense solutions aren't always common. So, we start our workshop with a discussion of experiences including all children in early childhood education, and then move on to modifying the classroom to make that possible.
