Social inclusion in the early years 65for families and progress through pre-kindergarten programs, transition planning,
and advocacy preparation.
In Walden Programs, most children enter as toddlers and continue until kinder-
garten. Children receive at least 30 hours per week of planned instruction through-
out the year. Toddlers attend half-day sessions at the center with additional hours
provided in the children’s homes through the Family Program. The preschool and
pre-kindergarten programs are six hours per day, five days per week, with before
and after care to ensure that children with ASD are kept productively engaged
while attracting typically developing children who need full-day child care set-
tings. This adds up to 17.5 additional hours per week of engaged time for chil-
dren with ASD. Generally, there are two typically developing peers for each child
with ASD at the center, and in the toddler and preschool classrooms there is one
adult for every three children. In order to prepare children for kindergarten, pre-
kindergarten classrooms have one adult for every six children.
Walden Early Childhood Program evidence. The Walden Program was devel-
oped as an inclusive setting to promote the language and social development for
all children while providing a rich environment for children with ASD to learn
the essential skills in preparation for kindergarten and beyond. Analyses of key ele-
ments have shown that children with ASD who participate in Walden Programs
can (1) learn to expressively use prepositions to describe where desired items
are located (McGee, Krantz, and McClannahan, 1985), (2) learn to use age-
appropriate social phrases (McGee and Daly, 2007), (3) enter preschool with func-
tional, expressive language (McGee, Morrier, and Daly, 1999), and (4) increase
reciprocal interactions with peers (McGee, Almeida, Sulzer-Azeroff and Feldman,
1992). Additional studies have demonstrated that incidental teaching increases the
appropriate social behaviors of all children in the program, including children
with ASD (Morrier, McGee, and Daly, 2009), and that toddlers with ASD increase
the amount of time they spend in close proximity to other children in classroom
settings and make significant gains in using meaningful words by the time they
entered preschool (McGee, Morrier, and Daly, 1999). Follow-up data showed that
79 percent of Walden graduates were successfully included in numerous kinder-
garten classrooms at their local public schools and a majority of the graduates were
successfully participating in their schools and communities (McGee, Morrier, and
Daly, 2000).
Key features and summary of models
Although the models identified and described are distinctive in many ways, they also
share common features. One obvious feature is that the programs are all designed
to serve young children with ASD in inclusive settings with typically developing
peers. It is logical that special efforts would be paid to the development of classroom
designs and interventions that would make inclusion possible for these children.
And it is also logical that such efforts would be accompanied by empirical research
and evaluation.