Young children with disabilities have similar learning opportunities as typically developing peers

Dunst, C. . (2020). Everyday learning opportunities of young children with and without developmental disabilities or delays. International Journal of Early Childhood Environmental Education, 7, 23-41.

Two groups of children (birth to age 6) and their families participated in a study assessing similarities and differences in patterns of participation in everyday activities. One group of children (N=115) had identified disabilities or developmental delays; the other group (N=91) did not. The study was conducted at 14 research sites in eight states over a six-month period.

Researchers visited each family six times for a total of more than 16 hours per family. The six visits included observations of the children in everyday activities, interviews with the parents or other primary caregivers, coding of artifactual evidence (photographs, physical objects, etc.), and other information about the everyday activity settings in either a child's family life or a child's community life. About half of the participating families in both groups shared information about the types of activity settings and learning opportunities available to the child during family activities; the other half, during community activities. In each case, the focus of investigation was on informal, unstructured learning experiences.

Many of the family and community activities provided the children a variety of informal environmental learning opportunities involving different aspects of the natural environment. Family activities included such things as planting and tending gardens and trees, finding and exploring bugs and insects, playing with a family pet, and playing in water. The community activities took place is such learning settings as forests, meadows, and parks, and included such things as nature walks, a variety of water activities, visits to farms and zoos, tending a community garden, and walking through the woods. Both groups of children (special needs and typically developing) routinely participated in the same number of everyday family and community activities. Both groups also experienced the same number of learning opportunities in the family activities. There was a difference, however, between the groups in the learning opportunities afforded by the community activities, with the typically developing children experiencing more learning opportunities in the community than children with disabilities or delays. Factors influencing child participation and learning in the activities focused primarily on three key characteristics: child interests, the interestingness of the activities, and the role parents and other caregivers played in promoting child participation in the activities.

The results of this study differ in some ways from other investigations comparing the participation of young children with and without disabilities and delays in everyday activities. Other studies found that young children with disabilities or delays participated in fewer everyday activities compared to typically developing children. Such studies were based on self-report measures with a list of both informal, unstructured activities and formal, structured activities. The research methodology of the current study “captured the day-in and day-out child and family-specific experiences that made-up the everyday lives of the study participants.” The findings indicate that young children with disabilities and delays have much the same kinds of learning opportunities as their typically developing peers and, when outdoors, participate in a variety of nature-related activities offering many different kinds of learning opportunities.

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