Early childhood special educators have the responsibility to make thoughtful choices when designing individualized instruction for young children with delays or disabilities. When designing instruction, a key to success is to include experiences that enhance learning both in the classroom and at home. Instruction needs to be flexible and include family members. Using the team approach with a focus on current research and recommended practices will influence the ways early childhood educators create the best possible educational experiences in the most appropriate environments.

Before beginning your DB submission- read the Persona that focuses on Emerson and read our text, Chapter 9. When reading Chapter 9, focus on the four recommended strategies that guide early childhood educators when designing individualized instruction for young children with delays or disabilities. These strategies are included in these four categories: teacher mediated, peer-mediated, routine-based, and naturalistic (milieu)
Once you have read about Emerson and Chapter 9, identify one home experience and one classroom experience that might be used to support Emerson’s cognitive, language and/or motor development within daily routines. Make sure to explain in detail each experience( one home and one classroom) and the strategies selected from Chapter 9 used to enhance the experiences. What category from Chapter 9 did you select your strategy from? Each of the strategies should be discussed and include an explanation as to why you chose that strategy/experience to support Emerson.
Persona: Meet Emerson

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Emerson Emerson is three years old. She lives at home with her mother, father, and baby brother, Cody. Emerson loves the Disney princesses and the color pink. She also enjoys playing with baby dolls and loves giving them bottles, burping them, and taking them for rides in a toy shopping cart. Emerson is almost toilet trained and has a vocabulary of about 20 words or signs. Emerson is friendly and outgoing. She participates in morning meeting by clapping her hands to songs and imitating fingerplays. Emerson also has Down syndrome which was diagnosed at birth. She receives specialized services, including occupational therapy and speech/language pathology from her local school district. While Emerson enjoys playing with the other children, she has difficulty following 1-step directions and has limited pre-academic skills (i.e., color naming, counting to 5, naming shapes). She has difficulty understanding how to ask a friend to play and doesn’t really understand the concept of sharing toys.