Early Childhood Special Education and Assistive Technology Blog

By: Lori Vigeant, EC-SEAT Scholar, New Hampshire Early Childhood Special Educator I teach in an intensive special needs preschool classroom.   My students have a wide range of disabilities and abilities. There are typically developing students integrated into my classroom as well as Dual Language Learners (DLLs) with and without disabilities.   The students range in age from 3-5 years olds.   The materials and strategies that I use for students who are DLLs are also effective tools for all my students.   Also, the strategies and materials that I use with students who have special needs are effective tools for children who are DLLs    Because my students are so young, they are all English language learners and benefit from the teaching strategies and materials that are used in the classroom. Boardmaker – Boardmaker is a software program that I use to make visual supports for my students.   I am able to create schedules, communication boards an...

By: Lori Vigeant – NH Early Childhood Educator, Nashua School District and Kim Chouinard – NH Early Childhood Educator, Merrimack School District, EC-SEAT Scholars FACTS TO KNOW Did you know that in the United States 1 in 4 children live with at least one parent who speaks a language other than English?  They will help make up a large portion of America’s diverse workforce when they grow up.  Did you know that research shows that bilingual children demonstrate more advanced executive function skills ?   When their language is supported and they are able to become proficient in both languages.  Are we properly supporting them in the early years of development and throughout their education?  Help support our dual language learners grow up to meet their true potential ! It is important to encourage parents to continue home language development . Maintenance of home language development has important cultural value in f...

By: Kelly Hopkins , EC-SEAT Project Massachusetts Institute on Technology (MIT) researcher Deb Roy wanted to understand how his infant son learned language — so he wired up his house with video cameras to catch every moment (with exceptions) of his son's life, then parsed 90,000 hours of home video to watch "gaaaa" slowly turn into "water." Astonishing, data-rich research with deep implications for how we learn. After listening to MIT researcher Deb Roy on Ted Talk, I was encouraged and felt more confident about my knowledge and understand of language development in infants and toddlers. I used the information from this in my work with families and children.   Listen to this inspiring research by Deb Roy and get excited about the future of child development research. https://www.ted.com/talks/deb_roy_the_birth_of_a_word For more information on Speech and Language development before the age of 3 the National Institute of Deafness and Communi...