About the EC-SEAT Project

Federal funding for this project has concluded. The opportunity to study Early Childhood Special Education and Assistive Technology is still available. 
From 2012 through 2019, The EC-SEAT project faculty, staff, and community partners helped prepare 40 scholars with skills in early childhood special education and assistive technology. Scholars earned Master of Education degrees and Graduate Certificates in Assistive Technology at UNH. The project combined AT competence with teacher education to help reduce the national and regional shortage of teachers in special education. Interdisciplinary Curriculum, Clinical Learning, and Community Collaboration provided students’ knowledge, skills, and experiences in research-based practices to effectively meet the needs of young children with disabilities. Interdisciplinary community-based partners in local schools and area agencies gave graduate students opportunities for hands-on learning and practice integrating assistive technology into young children and families’ lives.

EC-SEAT Scholars benefited from community mentors to better support the learning and AT needs of young children birth to 3rd grade. Scholars became highly skilled evidence-based special educators and practitioners for early childhood centers, early intervention centers, elementary schools serving children with special needs, among other leadership and administrative positions in and outside the state of New Hampshire.



EC-SEAT Project Faculty - Leslie Couse, Eun Kyeong Cho, and Therese Willkomm
Visit the EC-SEAT Blog to learn more about the project and read posts from scholars and staff. The blog was developed under a grant from the US Department of Education, H325K120176. The contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the US Department of Education. You should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government Grant Project Officer: Maryann McDermott.












































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Low-Tech Ways for Adapting Books for Fine Motor

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By: Teresa Loos , EC-SEAT Scholar Part of teaching children with special needs includes providing them with a least restrictive environment in which they have access to the curriculum, opportunities to participate, and can be supported and accommodated in their education. As an educator, I live by  Universal Design for Learning  and the  National Association of Education for Young Children and the Division for Early Childhood’s Position Statement on Inclusion , which ensures that children with special needs have access, participation, and support. When people think of assistive technology, the assumption is some sort of device they can use. However, according the Assistive Technology: principles and practices, assistive technology is a broad range of devices, services, strategies, or practices that can be implemented to eliminate or alleviate problems of an individual with special needs (Cook & Hussey, 2002). Assistive technology can also be low-tech and does n...
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