Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/adults-with-disabilities-in-early-childhood-settings/5017982/
A personal storyWhat follows is a personal story of the transformative experience of including adults with disabilities in a campus child care center. Here are some highlights of what my staff and I gained through this process:
• We became much more aware of the full potential of each person who was different.
• We learned to think about abilities before disabilities.
• We learned the importance of an open mind and adopted a problem-solving attitude, thinking, “What can we do about that?”
• We developed an appreciation and tolerance for all of our similarities and differences, what we are able to do, and what we need help doing.
In sharing our experience, I hope to encourage others to be open to opportunities to work with adults with disabilities in early childhood settings.
Introduction
In the last 20 to 30 years, people with disabilities, their families, and advocates have brought considerable public attention to making environments accessible, mainstream, and inclusive. Early childhood programs have responded by including children with disabilities in our programs, but including adults with disabilities has received little if any attention at all.
With so little information at hand, I was largely on my own as director of a one-room child ...