Review

Teaching Practices and Interventions: Beautiful Beginnings provides minimal guidance on embedding teaching practices or other interventions into learning experiences or daily routines for children with disabilities, suspected delays, or other special needs. It suggests using a child's functional age to select learning experiences, focusing on a child's strengths, coordinating with other specialists, and encouraging a child to use other senses. The curriculum lacks additional principles or specific guidance embedded throughout the "Experiences" on how to intentionally support the development and learning of children with disabilities, suspected delays, or other special needs.

Learning Environment: The curriculum does not address how to ensure that the physical environment and learning materials are accessible to children with disabilities, suspected delays, or other special needs.

Teaching Practices and Interventions: The curriculum includes some guidance on how to embed teaching practices and other interventions in daily routines and learning experiences to support the development of children with disabilities, suspected delays, or other special needs. Tender Care and Early Learning includes a few examples of teaching practices to support children with disabilities (e.g., using sign language as a communication bridge, accompanying vision-based activities with auditory options for children with impaired vision). Lesson Plans for a Strong Start suggests teachers use the scaffolding charts to provide accommodations for children with disabilities or other special needs. It also suggests choosing and implementing the developmental level that most closely matches the child's current ability. Finally, the curriculum recommends that teachers use Individualized Family Service Plans (IFSPs) and ongoing communication with families to guide plans and strategies to meet the individual needs of children with disabilities, suspected delays, or other special needs.

Learning Environment: Tender Care and Early Learning includes the brief section, "Modifying the Learning Environment to Accommodate Children with Special Needs," which offers general guidance. It includes some specific ideas for adapting materials (e.g., making brush handles and crayons easier to grip by wrapping them with masking tape, pasting fabric shapes into storybooks to make them more tactile) and accommodating wheelchairs (e.g., adding ramps, checking table heights), as well as possible specialized purchases (e.g., eating utensils with special grips, puzzles with knobs). The Lesson Plans for a Strong Start books do not embed specific examples of how to modify the learning environment or materials throughout the lesson plans.

Teaching Practices and Interventions: Welcome to Frog Street Infant includes general strategies to support children with visual challenges, hearing challenges, and delayed motor development. Some of these strategies are research-based teaching practices, such as inviting a child to participate partially if a complete activity is too challenging, or using visual representations to teach new concepts. However, these teaching practices and interventions are not embedded throughout the Activity Cards, and they are limited to only three kinds of disabilities. Therefore, they lack the comprehensive support a teacher needs to provide routines and learning experiences that are fully accessible to a child with a disability, suspected delay, or special need.

Learning Environment: Welcome to Frog Street Infant offers few strategies to ensure the environment and materials are accessible for children with visual challenges, hearing challenges, and delayed motor development. Suggested strategies include seating a child to optimize vision (e.g., consider lighting and glare); using line drawings with minimal background clutter; providing simple adaptive devices; and changing a child's position. However, the curriculum lacks overall guidance on how to ensure the physical environment and learning materials are accessible to all children, nor does it include any specific examples to support children with a wider range of disabilities, suspected delays, or other special needs.

Teaching Practices and Interventions: Welcome to Frog Street Toddler includes general strategies to support children with visual, hearing, or cognitive challenges, delayed motor development, speech or language delays, and behavioral, social, or emotional challenges. Some of these strategies are research-based teaching practices, such as breaking down a challenging task into shorter segments or providing information in a variety of ways (e.g., verbal cues, gestures). In addition, some Activity Guides offer "Adaptations" to modify activities for children with specific disabilities (e.g., describing colors to children with visual challenges by using things they can smell). However, not all Activity Guides include "Adaptations" specifically for children with disabilities or other special needs, and even those that do include only one or two teaching practices for the entire four-week set of activities.

Learning Environment: Welcome to Frog Street Toddler offers a few strategies to ensure the environment and materials are accessible for children with visual, hearing, or cognitive challenges, delayed motor development, speech or language delays, and behavioral, social, or emotional challenges. Suggested strategies include seating a child in order to optimize vision (e.g., consider lighting and glare), using line drawings with minimal background clutter, providing simple adaptive devices, and changing a child's position. In addition, the Activity Guides give specific examples of how to adapt materials for children with specific disabilities or other special needs (e.g., providing wider-grip paintbrushes).

Teaching Practices and Interventions: The curriculum offers minimal guidance on how to embed intentional teaching practices in daily routines and learning experiences to support the development and learning of children with disabilities, suspected delays, or other special needs. Innovations: Infant and Toddler Development includes one example of how teachers may understand and support a child who is not talking. Through this example, the curriculum offers some specific strategies to support a child who is not talking, such as adult and peer support and collaboration with families or other specialists. However, the curriculum lacks comprehensive guidance or additional examples on how to support the development and learning of children with disabilities, suspected delays, or other special needs.

Learning Environment: The curriculum lacks guidance on how to ensure the physical environment and learning materials are accessible to children with disabilities, suspected delays, or other special needs.

Teaching Practices and Interventions: The curriculum provides specific guidance on how to embed intentional teaching practices in the daily routines and learning experiences to support the development and learning of children with disabilities, suspected delays, or other special needs. Volume 1: The Foundation offers general tips around caring for and teaching infants and toddlers with disabilities or special needs (e.g., learn about disabilities to know what adjustments need to be made; work closely with families and specialists). The Intentional Teaching Cards feature the section, "Including All Children," with strategies to ensure all children can participate, such as adult support (e.g., demonstrate how to move through tunnels), peer support (e.g., pair children of different skill levels), temporal modifications (e.g., shorten duration of activity), and simplifying the activity (e.g., provide activity simple enough for children to complete).

Learning Environment: The curriculum offers specific guidance on how to ensure the physical environment and learning materials are accessible to children with disabilities, suspected delays, or other special needs. Volume 1: The Foundation includes examples of how to provide an accessible physical environment for children with physical disabilities, visual, hearing, and sensory impairments, and tactile defensiveness. Volume 2: Routines & Experiences reviews how the toileting area may need to be adapted for children with disabilities, suspected delays, or other special needs, as well as provides examples of modifications for toys (e.g., handles or built-up knobs, playboards). The Intentional Teaching Cards feature the section, "Including All Children," with suggested material adaptations to ensure all children can participate (e.g., use items that are easier to grasp and manipulate, provide books with highly contrasting pictures, record song into child's communication device).