Helping Early Education Providers Support Children With Disabilities 

November 4, 2024

By Sarah Johns

Before the children began arriving for the day, Ms. Tamara reflected on the changes she had made to her preschool classroom. Since Ariel, a young child with muscular dystrophy, joined her classroom, Ms. Tamara has been looking for ways to better support Ariel’s participation and foster positive interactions with other students.  

Ms. Tamara and Ariel’s instructional assistant completed online training on inclusion. They also held weekly consultations with Ariel’s occupational therapist and instructional assistant. The training and meetings helped Ms. Tamara feel more confident in her ability to support Ariel in class. She replaced the standing bulletin board with a mobile one to engage all students in group activities and, together with Ariel’s assistant, helped Ariel use her standing frame to interact at eye level with her peers.  

Simple changes, like adding red and green signs to the bathroom door, made transitions smoother for everyone, and Ms. Tamara noticed that these adjustments were benefiting all students, not just Ariel. 

This fictional story about Ms. Tamara and Ariel serves as a prime example of how professional development can positively impact the common experience of teaching young children with disabilities in early education settings. According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children, professional development can include training, technical education (such as coaching, mentoring, or consultation), and formal education through an institute of higher education. 

In this blog post, we share what we learned from local education agency leaders and early education staff about building educators’ capacity to serve children with a broad range of disabilities in inclusive early education programs. 

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Preschoolers With Disabilities in Early Education Settings 

In 2022, over 300,000 children with disabilities, ages 3 to 5, protected under the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) attended early childhood programs alongside typically developing children.  

Decades of research indicate that children of all ability levels benefit from high-quality inclusive early education. But how do educators know what adjustments to make? Every child is unique, and each type of condition or disability can vary. In many cases, educators are the first ones to notice that a child may need additional evaluation or services and to begin the process of working with a child’s family to seek out these services. Professional development can help educators in these settings make adjustments to the classroom environment, curriculum content, instruction, or evaluation strategies so that every child in the classroom can participate and feel welcome.   

Evaluation of California’s Inclusive Early Education Expansion Program 

WestEd partnered with the California Department of Education to conduct an evaluation of the Inclusive Early Education Expansion Program (IEEEP), a statewide grant program in California designed to expand access to inclusive early education programs for children with disabilities, including those with severe or significant conditions. In a previous blog post about the IEEEP evaluation, we highlighted the importance of collaboration between general and special education entities, as well as key investments that supported successful efforts to expand inclusive education across early learning programs in California.  

One goal of the IEEEP funding was to provide early education staff with training and coaching on inclusion. Existing staff were required to complete a training series within the first 2 years of the grant period, while new hires had 2 years from their start date.  

The training topics covered a variety of areas, including conducting developmental assessments, universal design for learning, adaptations and accommodations, and supporting inclusive practices.  

School districts and county offices of education could also use IEEEP funding to implement additional professional development supports such as practice-based coaching on inclusive practices or promoting children’s social–emotional development. 

Every 3 months during the evaluation, IEEEP grantees completed online progress reports about professional development implementation and attendance. To understand educators’ experiences, WestEd researchers surveyed 1,300 early education providers, including nearly 1,000 teachers, and conducted focus groups with 68 early education providers.  

Across the surveys and focus groups, results from the evaluation shed light on the value of professional development on inclusion for early education providers, as well as some common challenges experienced by the local education agencies funded by the grant. 

Benefits of Attending Professional Development on Inclusion 

Over the first 4 years of the IEEEP grant, grantees reported that more than 15,000 early education staff from over 1,000 early education programs attended professional development on inclusion.  

In surveys, 75 percent of early education staff reported that the professional development on inclusion they attended had “somewhat” or “a great deal of an impact” on their awareness of the benefits of early childhood inclusion, confidence supporting young children with disabilities in their classrooms, and knowledge and implementation of inclusive practices.  

In focus groups, local education agency leaders, early education program leaders, and teachers described how the professional development series 

• increased their capacity to have inclusive early education classrooms at their program, 
• reduced their hesitation and increased their openness to inclusion of young children with disabilities in early education programs, and 
• increased their knowledge and implementation of inclusive early education practices. 

“The professional development training and adaptive equipment we have been able to provide through IEEEP have made a difference in the capacity to serve children with disabilities through strengthening of knowledge and skills, building confidence, and shifting mindsets around inclusive practices.” 
—IEEEP grantee representative, Quarterly Progress Report Survey 

Although the focus of the IEEEP grant was to increase early childhood inclusion in the state-subsidized preschool program, IEEEP-funded professional development opportunities reached well beyond the funded agencies. The majority of IEEEP grantees—75 percent—offered professional development opportunities on inclusion to early education providers in local communities. 

Grantees described how offering professional development on inclusion in the community created a network of child care providers who were not only equipped to serve the children with disabilities currently enrolled in their programs but also more open to serving children with significant or severe conditions in the future. 

“We know if we can build their skills and confidence to serve the currently enrolled children with disabilities, they will be more receptive to serving more children with disabilities and eventually children with severe disabilities.”  
—IEEEP grantee representative, Quarterly Progress Report Survey 

Ongoing Training, Coaching, and Collaboration Deepen the Impact of Professional Development 

In alignment with prior research on early childhood professional development, the IEEEP evaluation found that ongoing training, coaching, and collaboration between general and special education deepened the impact that professional development had on early educators’ inclusive practices. 

On average, survey results suggest that early educators completed between 11 and 15 hours of professional development on inclusion between the 2019 and 2021 school years, and between 6 and 10 hours of professional development on inclusion in the 2022 school year.  

In focus groups, teachers described the benefits of having access to coaching on inclusion. Coaching helped them to restructure their classroom to make it more accessible and to improve their instructional strategies in supporting children with moderate to severe disabilities in their classrooms. 

“We were able to be coached as a team on, okay, this is what a third person or an outside viewer is kind of observing during our inclusion time and how can we either better the practice or figure out what strategies we might need to support a little bit more.”  
—Teacher, focus group participant 

Focus groups also revealed how collaboration between general and special education helped educators translate knowledge learned through training into classroom practices. 

“One of the most important things, I believe, after attending a training, is coming together as the team, and we talk about a strategy that caught our attention and we put it to work. And that has been what has helped us. So whatever one of us learns, we put them together, we bring the ideas together, and then it has helped. … It has made a huge difference in our classroom.”  
—Teacher, focus group participant 

Overcoming the Challenges of Staffing Shortages and Turnover 

California, like much of the United States, faces a shortage of special education teachers. These shortages impacted many aspects of the IEEEP grant, including districts’ ability to open and maintain inclusive classrooms, provide special education services, consult or coteach with general education teachers in inclusive settings, and ensure all early education staff completed the trainings on inclusion required by the IEEEP grant. 

To address staffing shortages and turnover, grantees offered multiple opportunities to complete professional development, such as at an annual in-service day each year or through online asynchronous trainings. Previous research suggests virtual training for early educators on inclusion can be effective, and in survey responses educators appreciated the flexibility to attend trainings when they could. Grantees also boosted participation by offering stipends for training outside classroom hours. Some grantees worked to sustain training efforts by using a train-the-trainer model, ensuring professional development could continue after IEEEP funding ended.  

Ensuring Equitable Access to Quality Professional Development Opportunities 

Previous research has found that there are inequities in early education providers’ access to coaching—educators have the greatest access to coaching in urban areas (vs. rural); in center-based, Head Start, and publicly funded preschool programs (vs. other types); and in preschool classrooms (vs. infant-toddler).  

The IEEEP evaluation revealed inequities in access to coaching and ongoing training opportunities. While 75 percent of IEEEP grantees reported offering coaching to early education providers, survey results from 2022 and 2023 (years 3 and 4 of the grant) showed a smaller reach of coaching among educators. Only 22 percent of lead teachers in inclusive classrooms reported receiving coaching on inclusion in 2022, and this increased only slightly to 33 percent in 2023. Assistant teachers had even less access, attending fewer hours of professional development on inclusion compared to lead teachers and program leaders.  

These findings highlight the urgent need for early education leaders to collect and monitor data on the types of professional development being accessed and by whom to ensure equitable opportunities for ongoing training, coaching, and collaboration. 

High-quality professional development on inclusion empowers early education providers with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to create inclusive environments and support children with disabilities and their families. However, not all professional development meets this standard. 

To maximize the impact of professional development on inclusive practices, local education leaders must ensure that early education professionals serving young children with disabilities have consistent access to ongoing training, including coaching and dedicated time for collaboration with special education staff. Leaders should also explore strategies to boost professional development participation, particularly in the face of teacher shortages and turnover, such as offering flexible, online options or providing stipends for attending training outside of regular classroom hours. 

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Dr. Sarah Johns is a Senior Research Associate. Her work at WestEd includes evaluations of the Inclusive Early Care and Education Expansion Program funded through the California Department of Education and the Fresno Cradle-to-Career portfolio of investments designed to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in maternal and child health outcomes, early care and education access, and family economic well-being.

The findings and content in this blog post represent the dedicated efforts of a collaborative team: Sarah Johns, Lynneth Solis, Amy Yanchick, Tatiana Hill-Maini, Osnat Zur, Erika Vasquez-Chilin, Ericka Muñoz, Danielle Munguia, Amy Cordier, Rosalie Odean, and Gina Morimoto. Their expertise and commitment were essential to designing, conducting, analyzing, and sharing the IEEEP evaluation results.