**3. Foundational responsibilities of preschool educators**

*Early Childhood Education*

are all relevant issues.

and inclusive classrooms.

rejection of play initiations [8].

for her social development may result.

for children with disabilities. At this point in time, however, the state of preschool in the United States paints a grim picture of the quality, appropriateness, and inclusiveness of classrooms in relation to children's social and behavioral challenges. With thousands of preschool children suspended or expelled each year (on average, 250 per day), preschool programs wield punitive disciplinary actions at a rate higher than at any other level of education—up to three times the rate of K-12 in pre-K and as high as 13 times the K-12 rate in child care for 3- to 4-yearolds [6]. A portion of the explanation for such disturbing statistics lies in a failure of the system of early childhood education (including preparation programs, administrators/policy makers) to fulfill its obligation to support teachers in playing an active role in understanding and influencing the complex system illustrated in **Figure 1**. A lack of cultural responsiveness or awareness of bias, insufficient focus on developing relationships with families and children, a lack of supportive services or interventions, and a low investment in professional development and increasing the status, licensure, and compensation of early childhood educators

In the end, the greatest influence on the success of young children in early childhood education is the educator himself/herself. The misinterpretation, rejection, and punishment of children with disabilities or developmental differences in the absence of inclusivity, supports, and developmentally appropriate interventions represent one of the key social justice issues of the field of early childhood education, particularly at a time when the majority of children under five do not have access to early childhood education programs to begin with. While these are clearly systemic issues affecting educators and not originally created by them, in many ways the teacher still holds the key to healthy, developmentally supportive,

For a variety of reasons, many children fail to adequately develop key social skills, thus lowering their overall competence and placing them at risk for punitive discipline and failure in school. In particular, children with disabilities experience peer rejection at a higher rate and are much more likely to miss out on highly impactful social experiences with peers. This may be a result of differences between their social and play skills and those of typical same-aged peers and will worsen with time in the absence of high-quality instruction and/or support. Examples of such differences that are observable from a very young age (some behaviors present by infancy) include lower rates of social initiation, positive social behavior, appropriate responses, a higher rate of more disruptive entry to play activities and problematic behavior, and poorer turn-taking skills [7]. As a result, young children with special needs experience a high rate of social rejection, i.e., social isolation and

Differences and deficits in social competence in preschool-aged children are evident in children with many different types of needs (including autism, speech/language disorders, cognitive disabilities, and emotional and behavior issues, and developmental delay), as well as in children who placed at risk as a result of poverty, abuse, or engagement with child welfare agencies. Young children with disabilities tend to play with others less frequently and have fewer conversations than their typical peers; they may also lose social skills more quickly if teachers do not acknowledge these and encourage their consistent use [9]. As a result, such children are presented with fewer natural opportunities to develop and test out their social skills. For example, if it takes a particular child twice the number of peer interactions to learn an important skill (such as imitating and expanding on a peer's play), but she has only half the opportunities due to isolation from or rejection by peers or adults, serious consequences

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Ensuring that the preschool classroom provides effective, systematic, and developmentally appropriate instruction to support children's social competence requires collaborative planning, instruction that is informed by assessment, and targeted strategies that are implemented throughout the year. All of these dimensions of instruction must be provided in a high-quality learning environment that is inclusive of all children and supported by teaming and professional development.

#### **3.1 Sustaining culture vs. acknowledging diversity**

A first step in effectively addressing social competence involves reaffirming one's commitment to the inherent inclusiveness of the field of early childhood education. Developmentally appropriate practices, or DAP, as defined by the NAEYC place a high value on the developmental knowledge of teachers and their understanding of the milestones and key goals of the preschool years [10]. But instructional decision-making involves two other components which are intended to hold equal weight in determining the extent to which one's teaching practices are developmentally appropriate. First, educators must consider a child's individual interests, abilities, and developmental progress. Subsequent planning must take into account the inside out factors included in **Figure 1** at an individual level—in other words, planning for the interests of young children is not sufficient and is not considered developmentally appropriate practice unless the interests and needs of each and every child are considered and integrated. NAEYC's guidelines also stress that educators must consider what is culturally important to children and families, thus supporting their belief systems and practices. This does not mean that the classroom must mirror the home but rather that teachers (particularly when their backgrounds differ from those of the children they teach) examine the ways in which their backgrounds and biases influence their teaching aim to develop more empathetic, trusting relationships with children and families [11]. It is from these relationships that more meaningful antibias materials, activities, and teaching practices must be embedded, rather than through simply acknowledging diversity. This way preschool educators are more likely to begin the work of sustaining children's and families' culture rather than simply acknowledging it [12]. Culturally sustaining practices reject the notion that family culture can be subsumed or subordinated within a classroom or school culture and are actually reflected in NAEYC's DAPs which state the families should partner in curriculum planning and child assessment (see [10]). These guidelines are much more inclusive of diverse children and families than many educators may realize.

#### **3.2 Acknowledging the effectiveness of inclusive models and commitment to the LRE**

In one sense, the majority of programs serving preschool-aged children already have an inclusive structure. Head Start programs are required to serve a proportion of children with disabilities, just as they are children from households considered low income, and preschool programs funded by states must serve children aged 3–5 with disabilities in the least restrictive environment. Diversity is the everyday reality of the preschool classroom, and many of the practices that support successful inclusion also support not only children with disabilities but also those who require support to develop social competence in preschool. They include [13]:


When children with identified disabilities are included in the preschool classroom, these four sets of practices provide a strong supportive context for better inclusiveness of the classroom as a whole and for addressing individual needs. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and its subsequent amendments mandate services for children aged 3–5 with disabilities within the least restrictive environment (LRE), which is defined as the educational environment as close to where nondisabled same-aged peers would be served as possible. In states where this results in a higher percentage of children with disabilities in general education classrooms for the majority of the time, the use of punitive disciplinary measures is lower. This means that collaboration to further the inclusive aims of IDEA through the classroom practices described above further provides a potentially direct remedy to the social justice issue of excessive suspension and expulsion of preschoolers.
