Adult support of 12 specific friendship dyads involving 3- to 5-year-old children with and without developmental delays was investigated through semi-structured interviews with the children's parents and teachers. Most respondents described these friendships as harmonious and important for the emotional benefits that these relationships provided…

The purpose of this study was to examine graphical feedback, a rarely used method for improving the quality of preschool teaching. Twenty-one lead and assistant teachers participated in the study, although data were analyzed by assessing how much incidental teaching the 10 participating preschoolers with disabilities received. After receiving…

The movement toward inclusion has made educating and caring for children with disabilities an increasingly critical part of the early education teacher's role. The goal of this paper is to describe the extent to which early childhood teacher preparation programs are including early childhood special education/early intervention content and…

Preschool programs for children with and without disabilities housed in public school settings have increased dramatically over the last decade. This study examined the perspectives of preschool teachers about who provides instructional supervision for their preschool programs and the behaviors these individuals use to influence their…

The case study of an integrated preschool classroom with six disabled children and six nondisabled peers found that structural changes in the environment of the classroom were essential for the development of positive social interactions among the children. (Author/JDD)

Ten mildly handicapped preschool children were taught to use problem-solving strategies to complete fine motor tasks. Qualitative and quantitative data indicated that the intervention had a positive impact on the task persistence of some children and that some children became more systematic in their approach to solving tasks. (Author/JDD)

Special education teachers (N=123) rank ordered a list of functional skills associated with two-year-olds. The factor-analyzed results revealed a classification of four types of children in greatest need of early childhood special education placement: children environmentally at risk, lacking gross-motor skills, lacking readiness and fine-motor…

A case study is presented of a seven-year-old girl with severe to profound mental retardation who exhibited excessive handmouthing. Contingent sensory reinforcement was successfully used to reduce her handmouthing to substantially lower levels. (Author/JDD)

Effects of constant time delay in teaching sight word reading to four disabled preschoolers were evaluated. The method was reliably implemented in a group setting, effectively taught all targeted stimuli in near-errorless fashion, promoted observational learning across students, and resulted in greater expressive labeling and receptive…

The study compared the effects of different play conditions (microcomputer, remote-control robot, or no toys) on the amount of time four dyads of handicapped/nonhandicapped children would interact during structured play. Results suggested that microcomputers may serve as social facilitators for children with significant social and language…