Building Blocks for Supporting all Children in Inclusive Settings, by Ariane Gauvreau, Ph.D., BCBA-D and Ilene Schwartz, Ph.D., BCBA-D

Sponsored by Brookes Publishing

Are you wondering how to support children with disabilities in your early childhood setting? Or maybe you are thinking about how to meaningfully include children with disabilities in the routines and activities in your program? Join us as we explain how The Building Blocks Framework helps teachers, teams, and providers assess, plan, and implement strategies to ensure that all our environments, activities, and routines are accessible and engaging for everyone. This framework includes four components: 1) A High Quality Early Childhood Environment, our bottom block, 2) Curriculum Modifications, small changes we make to activities, materials, or our environment to promote participation and engagement, 3) Embedded Learning Opportunities, or short teaching episodes embedded into on-going routines or activities for children who need more practice to make progress on certain skills or learning targets, and finally 4) Child Focused Instructional Strategies, or highly individualized instruction for children who need more intensive support. This framework is designed to work in any early learning setting (including families homes for early intervention providers) and aligns with other early childhood curriculum.

We'll discuss updates to The Building Blocks for Teaching all Children in Inclusive Settings text and sharing specific tools for using this framework in your setting. If you are wondering how to make your program or setting more accessible for children with disabilities, or are curious how to better support a child who isn't fully participating, this workshop is for you!

In this workshop, participants will:

• Analyze a child's participation to determine which supports might be the most useful

• Identify several different types of Curriculum Modifications to promote the participation, engagement, and access for children who need additional support

• Create plans for supporting at least one child in their setting, using tools from Building Blocks