60 Janice K. Lee, Jaclyn Joseph, Phillip Strain and Glen Dunlap
Incorporating all young children in the classroom
Quality early childhood inclusion requires that the social competence of all
children (i.e., children with and without disabilities) is promoted through planned,
varied, and regularly occurring social opportunities (Buysse et al., 2002; Strain,
2014). For example, Strain and Bovey (2011) and Kohler and Strain (1999) note the
importance of teaching peer-mediated strategies and friendship skills to children
with and without disabilities and of providing subsequent embedded and naturally
occurring opportunities for children to practice these skills and to receive rein-
forcement for using the skills throughout the day. Diamond and Huang (2005) and
Brown, Odom, Li, and Zercher (1999) also note the utility of peer-mediated inter-
ventions in addition to specifying other intervention strategies that can be used
to promote positive social interactions such as incidental teaching, teaching chil-
dren without disabilities about what it means to have a disability, and considering
environmental manipulations such as the seating arrangements of young children.
Overall, EI/ECSE practitioners must place high priority on the social development
and competence of all young children in inclusive settings, and opportunities to
learn and practice such skills, both independently and with the facilitation of adults,
is critical (Hollingsworth and Buysse, 2009).
Utilizing tiered models of support
Tiered models of support (e.g., Building Blocks [Sandall and Schwartz, 2008],
Pyramid Model for Supporting Social Emotional Competence in Infants and Young
Children [Fox, Carta, Strain, Dunlap and Hemmeter, 2010], and Recognition and
Response [Buysse and Peisner-Feinberg, 2010]) are viable ways to implement
high-quality early childhood inclusion (Barton and Smith, 2015). Tiered models of
support focus on the prevention of problems in young children (e.g., learning diffi-
culties, challenging behavior) and intervention for young children who need more
intensive instruction (Barton et al., 2015; Coleman, Buysse and Neitzel, 2006). Tiered
systems progress from the universal tier that focuses on instruction for all children
to the most individualized tier that involves the development of assessment-based
plans that outline how and when instruction will occur for particular skills for
specific children (Grisham-Brown, Pretti-Frontczak, Hawkins and Winchell, 2009).
Thus, these frameworks provide practitioners guidance for planning and scaffolding
classroom instruction in order to promote the engagement and learning of children
with and without disabilities in high-quality inclusive early childhood environments
(Buysse and Peisner-Feinberg, 2010; Grisham-Brown et al., 2009).
Measuring and assessing inclusion
With the varying factors that promote quality early childhood inclusion, it is
imperative that measures at different levels (i.e., child, classroom) are in place to
ensure that inclusive practices are implemented as they are intended to be, based on