By Shantel E. Meek, Ph.D., Policy Advisor for Early Childhood Development
April is Autism Awareness and Acceptance month. It is a time to celebrate the accomplishments, great strengths, and contributions of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to our society. It is also a time to recommit ourselves, as a nation, to ensuring that individuals with ASD have ample opportunities and appropriate services and supports to help them reach their full potential. President Obama understands this commitment and issued a presidential proclamation to recognize World Autism Awareness Day earlier this month.
Our commitment to individuals with ASD begins with our youngest children. All children should have access to individualized, inclusive, high-quality early learning experiences with high expectations, and appropriate supports that maximize their learning, development, school readiness, friendships and sense of belonging. We do this by partnering with families to set high goals for their children and working hand in hand with them to support their children in reaching those goals. We do this by ensuring that children with ASD feel as much a part of their communities and early learning programs as every other child. We do this by embracing and valuing diversity of all types. And we do this by recognizing the potential inside every child and working tirelessly to make sure that potential is realized.
Individualized learning and developmental supports are critical for all children. All children learn differently and they all have diverse interests, strengths, and needs. Often, children with ASD have a strong interest in one or a handful of topics. Teachers and providers, in partnership with families, should hone in on those interests and use them to individualize the early learning experiences of these children. For example, if a child is particularly interested in trains, teachers and families can use trains to share enjoyment and practice critical social skills; talk about how trains work to shape language and conversational skills; count trains or talk about their dimensions to work on early math skills; and read books about trains to shape early literacy. Who knows! This child may eventually develop our country’s next generation rail system! There are countless learning opportunities that can start by focusing on children’s interests and leveraging those interests to support children’s learning and development.
Head Start has been providing individualized, inclusive, high-quality early learning programs to young children with disabilities and their families for 50 years. Head Start understands and embraces the fact that every child is unique and uses that uniqueness to individualize supports for all of the young children and families they serve, including those with ASD.
This year, we are partnering with the Department Education to further show our commitment to ensuring that every child has access to individualized, inclusive and high-quality early learning experiences. Part of our efforts will focus on the release of a joint policy statement on the inclusion of young children with disabilities in early learning settings, including public and private preschool programs, family and center-based child care programs, and Head Start. Including young children with disabilities in general early childhood programs can set a trajectory for inclusion across the life course.
I hope you will join us in celebrating the contributions of people with ASD this month, and in recommitting ourselves to supporting the strengths and needs of all of our children through high-quality inclusive early learning experiences for all.
- To learn more about ACF’s work in ASD, click here.
- To read more about early developmental and behavioral screening, click here.
- To read more about general child development and developmental milestones, click here (PDF).
- For more resources for individuals with ASD across the life span, check out Autism Now .