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Many early educators struggle with how to address challenging behaviors that they feel are persistent, and in fact, challenging behavior is identified as teachers' most pressing training need. Feeling unprepared to prevent and intervene on challenging behavior can lead to increased teacher stress, burnout, and turnover. In the most extreme situations, children are excluded "permanently" from their early childhood program through expulsion. Young children with disabilities are at a higher risk for exclusionary discipline and therefore more likely to have negative outcomes because of these practices. In addition to concerns surrounding the equitable and just treatment of individuals with disabilities, exclusionary practices raise concerns around racial equity and justice. The purpose of this article is to share information on the use of suspension in early childhood settings and discuss alternatives to this disciplinary practice. Suggested changes to practices are woven throughout the article to bring to life salient features of disciplinary practices, common concerns about the use of suspension, and strategies practitioners can use in place of exclusionary practices, aligned with the Division for Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional Children (DEC) Recommended Practices.

Bagless intervention is a term used by professionals to describe early intervention (EI) services in which the provider refrains from bringing a bag of toys into the home for sessions. Instead of using a toy bag to work on child outcomes, the service provider uses materials in the child's home, as well as family routines, to address the developmental outcomes that each family has for their child. Bagless intervention has become a recommended practice, replacing more traditional methods of therapy in which practitioners bring toys into homes to work on specific outcomes outlined on the Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP). The purpose of this article is to share information about bagless intervention based on the EI principles, using a question and answer format. Answers include references to research and position papers in the field of early childhood special education. Bagless intervention can be used by all EI professionals including special instructors, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech and language pathologists.

Through play and physical activities (PAs), children have many opportunities to develop gross motor skills that require the use of large muscles for movement and control. Young children use gross motor skills as they engage in daily tasks such as sitting upright, maintaining control and balance while seated, walking down the hallway, moving forward and backward using a variety of locomotion strategies (i.e., tiptoe, gallop, and march), and manipulating objects (i.e., playing with balls, and carrying books and backpacks). The National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE; 2002, 2010) recommends that preschoolers engage in at least 120 min of structured and unstructured PAs each day, recognizing that motor development occurs when children are provided with multiple opportunities for PA. Given the impact of motor skills on other areas of development, and the need to ensure that young children engage in high levels of PA, it is critical that teachers consider ways to intentionally embed opportunities to engage in and practice motor skills into the preschool day for all young children and particularly for those who may be experiencing delays. The purpose of this article is to provide early education practitioners with strategies for creating more opportunities for children to engage in gross motor activities within their already busy preschool day. Strategies for creating brief gross motor opportunities by inserting physical activity breaks throughout the day and enhancing the gross motor opportunities inherent in regularly occurring transitions are described. [For the corresponding grantee submission, see ED595406.]

For many early childhood (EC) professionals, interacting with children and families who bring varying perspectives and experiences can be both challenging and rewarding. Professionals' skills, belief systems, and knowledge are often challenged when they work with families whose lifestyles, traditions, beliefs, languages, and situations are unfamiliar or different from their own. Researchers have long asserted the importance of professionals developing critical knowledge and skills when working with children and families from backgrounds different from their own. While there is much more to learn about the diverse children and families served in EC programs, little has been written about military families in the EC literature and, in particular, in the early intervention (EI) and early childhood special education (ECSE) literature. In this article, the authors share facts about military families and the ways in which their unique circumstances impact their engagement with EI/ ECSE services for their children with disabilities. The authors present this information first through four myths that are typical assumptions about military families and that, if held by professionals, can be detrimental to family-professional relationships. The authors attempt to debunk each myth with facts, figures, and research-based information. The goal is to help broaden the field's understanding of military families for professionals to be able to better serve children with disabilities and their families.

Many young children engage in challenging behaviors that could have short- and long-term negative effects for both the children and their families. Challenging behaviors refer to "any repeated pattern of behavior, or perception of behavior, that interferes with or is at risk of interfering with optimal learning or engagement in prosocial interactions with peers and adults" (Powell, Fixsen, Dunlap, Smith, & Fox, 2007, p. 83). If challenging behaviors are not addressed early with appropriate intervention and evidence-based practices, there is an increased likelihood that children will struggle with poor academic achievement, peer rejection, and mental health concerns in the future. Challenging behavior could also have negative effects on a person's family, peers, and the community at large (Dunlap et al., 2006; Powell et al., 2007). Heward (2005) posited that behavioral strategies are highly effective for teaching children new skills and modifying existing behaviors. Nevertheless, many parents and educators experience difficulties understanding and using these practices effectively with young children. One of the major obstacles facing parents and family members, as they attempt to address their child's challenging behavior, is confusion or unfamiliarity with the terminology and the technical jargon of behavioral interventions. Therefore, initial efforts should focus on helping family members understand the terminology used to assess and analyze challenging behavior, so they can collaborate with others to develop interventions that effectively address challenging behaviors. This article discusses basic behavioral concepts to provide family members and professionals with practical and essential knowledge about challenging behavior, the reasons it occurs, and the process by which adults can effectively select strategies to prevent or intervene on these behaviors. This information can help family members and professionals feel better prepared to take an active role when working with children who engage in challenging behaviors

As the field of early childhood mental health continues to expand and evolve, the evidence base is growing, and early childhood mental health consultation is viewed as a promising practice. However, there continues to be a need for further research, with particular attention given to the utility and effectiveness of this approach with infants and toddlers and their families. The purpose of this article is to provide information about the evolving field of young children's mental health. A question and answer format is used to clarify some basic concepts and to describe a consultation approach for providing assistance to meet the mental health needs of young children in early care and education settings. In particular, the vignette of a toddler illustrates how this particular consultation process may be utilized to address the social-emotional needs of infants and toddlers in a childcare setting.

The Division for Early Childhood/National Association for the Education of Young Children's (2009) joint position statement on inclusion stresses the importance of (a) developing practices that support young children of diverse abilities in inclusive learning environments, (b) being part of supportive school communities, and (c) engaging in positive social relationships and friendships with peers. Specifically, the statement notes the importance of creating "a sense of belonging and membership, positive social relationships and friendships, and development and learning" (p. 2). According to Odom (2000), preschoolers with disabilities engage in social interactions with peers less often than typically developing peers. Studies have repeatedly shown that preschoolers prefer to include typically developing peers in play as opposed to their peers with disabilities (Diamond, Hong, & Tu, 2008; Diamond, Le Furgy, & Blass, 1993; Guralnick & Groom, 1987; Odom et al., 2006). While positive peer interaction is associated with the social acceptance of children with disabilities, children with special needs are at risk of being socially rejected and marginalized in early childhood inclusive settings without curriculum to support greater acceptance of these children (Favazza, 1998; Favazza & Odom, 1996, 1997; Favazza, Phillipsen, & Kumar, 2000). Considering these facts, the use of classroom materials and resources to counteract the risks of marginalization and rejection is critical. This article discusses the impact of reading on child development, the use of books featuring characters with disabilities, children's understandings about and interactions with peers with disabilities, including books about disabilities in early childhood classrooms, and using guided discussions to support young children's positive attitudes about individuals with disabilities. It concludes that the careful selection of children's books and thoughtfully structured discussions provide a direct path for supporting acceptance of children with disabilities, which is consistent with the attitude construct. At the very time when young children are forming early perceptions about peers and adults in the community, children are provided "indirect experiences" to disabilities through the use of high-quality books and guided discussions, with an emphasis on similarities.

The goal of prompting a child is to prevent him or her from making errors while learning a new skill, and to decrease the amount of time it takes to learn the new skill. As a child shows improvement in performing the skill, adults can fade the amount of assistance provided until the child reaches his or her level of independence. Several prompting procedures that educators and parents can use to promote children's learning are described in the literature. In this article, the authors focus on two prompting procedures, least-to-most and most-to-least. Within the two prompting procedures are five different types of prompts. They discuss each type of prompt and describe how adults can use these prompts within the least-to-most and most-to-least prompting procedures.

When teacher preparation is disconnected from classroom practice, preservice teachers are left to try to make this connection without the guidance and support of skilled mentors. Practicum or field experiences are essential for effective personnel preparation. Practicum experiences can provide situated learning for preservice teachers to "practice" newly acquired skills and apply new knowledge in real-life settings (Macy, Squires, & Barton, 2009). However, a fundamental disconnect often exists between what happens in early childhood field placements and what happens in college classrooms. Microteaching is one way to bridge this gap. The purpose of this article is to introduce microteach lessons as a powerful teaching tool for early childhood personnel preparation and to share the authors' experiences using microteach lessons within early childhood special education (ECSE) preservice training at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). The authors begin with a vignette followed by a description of microteach lessons and a brief review of literature on the use of these lessons in personnel preparation. Then, they share information about how the use of microteach lessons evolved at UIUC and provide a detailed description of the steps they follow when incorporating these lessons during ECSE preservice personnel preparation. They conclude with implications for practice. (Contains 3 tables.)

Challenging behavior is often a source of frustration for parents. Challenging behavior is defined as any behavior that interferes with children's learning and development, is harmful to children and to others, and puts a child at risk for later social problems or school failure (Bailey & Wolery, 1992; Kaiser & Rasminsky, 2003). Children's challenging behaviors can affect a family's ability to participate in home routines and community activities. When children engage in persistent challenging behavior, the importance of designing effective behavior interventions in collaboration with parents cannot be overstated. The purpose of this article is to help early childhood practitioners collaborate with parents to identify the purpose of challenging behaviors, determine effective strategies to address these behaviors, and create a behavior support plan that "fits" the needs of the child as well as the family. Guidelines for observing challenging behaviors and creating behavior support plans also are described. Throughout the article, examples are presented to illustrate ideas that are presented; however, these examples are not meant to be comprehensive or exhaustive. (Contains 3 tables.)

The purpose of this article is to offer preschool teachers strategies for preventing challenging behavior and supporting the development of social skills and emotional competencies. This article is framed in a question and answer format using questions from teachers who the authors have worked with in the past. These questions and strategies are organized around the four levels of the Teaching Pyramid: (1) developing nurturing and responsive relationships; (2) designing social and physical environments to support children's social emotional development and prevent challenging behavior; (3) teaching social skills and promoting emotional competencies; and (4) designing individualized interventions for children with ongoing challenging behavior. Implementing the practices associated with only a single level of the Teaching Pyramid is not likely to effectively address the range of challenging behaviors found in many early childhood classrooms; rather, it is the comprehensive, intentional implementation of all levels of the Teaching Pyramid that is needed to effectively address challenging behavior. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

In this article, the authors present parent-educator conversations, which were selected to illustrate common communication patterns and provide links to some of the Division for Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional Children's recommended practices for communicating and collaborating with parents. Using conversation analysis, researchers have identified many details of talk in conversations between teachers and parents. Positive communication plays a significant role in the initiation and development of parent-professional partnerships as do other help-giving practices. When early childhood educators listen for details in their talk with families, they can make purposeful improvements in parent-professional communication, collaboration, and relationships. This article presents transcript excerpts that were taken from several parent-teacher conferences from early childhood special education and Head Start programs. These conferences appear representative of parent-professional talk in other programs and in other venues. The conference communication characteristics are presented in the following sections: wait time, overlapping talk, topic changes, and technical terms. These four communication techniques were chosen to highlight early childhood educators' and service providers' ability to facilitate interactions with families. (Contains 2 tables.)

Inclusive programs and community settings are important contexts to help foster acceptance and understanding among all children. Research has shown that children enrolled in inclusive programs become more accepting of people who are different from them. Inclusion of children with disabilities in classroom activities requires the involvement of typically developing children in order for children with special needs to develop and expand their repertoire of peer-related social skills. Thus, children's development of attitudes toward peers with disabilities must be examined. Only then will it be possible to support the development of positive attitudes so that all children are accepted as members of the classroom community. This article discusses the importance of supporting young children's positive attitude development and describes six guidelines that have been shown to foster positive attitude development toward individuals with disabilities: (1) consider adults' attitudes; (2) foster friendships, not feelings of pity; (3) guide children to see similarities; (4) avoid judgments based on physical characteristics; (5) provide information to all families; and (6) provide children with developmentally appropriate facts. (Contains 1 table.)

One of the challenges for young children with communication disabilities and limited expressive language is learning to communicate in effective ways. Often, children communicate using idiosyncratic behavior and unconventional means. Their communication may even mirror that of very young children who are prelinguistic (e.g., reach for an item or vocalize to gain attention). Caregivers often misunderstand these communicative behaviors, therefore, the use of repair strategies is crucial to enabling children to influence others in intended ways. Researchers have found that children often repair their failed messages when responding to breakdowns. By supplementing other "tried and true" environmental and milieu strategies with programmed, intentional communication breakdowns throughout the day, parents and early childhood educators can encourage and enhance young children's communication skills. In this article, the author provides several guidelines that will help caregivers program communication breakdown in the natural environment for children with disabilities. (Contains 1 table.)

Preservice teachers and current teachers alike face daily challenges that necessitate problem-solving skills. Conducting problem solving as a part of a group of professionals and the child's family can be beneficial because it encourages the offering of many perspectives, which allows for better understanding of the problem context. However, a systematic approach to problem solving is not always used. In this article, the authors propose a six-step process for problem solving that can be implemented to address issues that preservice teachers face. Preparing student teachers to use this process in preservice programs has the potential to help future educators consider alternate ideas when confronting problems that need to be addressed or solved. These steps include: (1) Describing the problem; (2) Analyzing the problem; (3) Brainstorming ideas for addressing or resolving the problem; (4) Prioritizing and evaluating the suggestions in terms of what might work to resolve the problem; (5) Making a decision and implementing the decision; and (6) Reporting back to the group about the outcome of the solution.

This article describes peer coaching as a method for teacher improvement and offers guidelines for establishing a peer coaching program for early childhood and early childhood special education teachers and related services professionals. It also identifies common problems and possible solutions of peer coaching programs. Sample forms for use in the peer coaching process are offered. (Contains references.) (DB)