This latest volume in the "Yearbook in Early Childhood Education" comes at an opportune time for early childhood educators. As more and more "exceptional" young children are being placed in mainstream settings, there is an increasing need for all early childhood educators, not just special educators, to be playing a new role in the education of young at-risk or disabled children. The chapters in this volume, as compiled and synthesised by editor Philip L. Safford and series editors Bernard Spodek and Olivia N. Saracho, do a valuable job in summarising and making accessible the latest research and information, and in addition address important applications for practice. Chapters focus on different topics of interest to early childhood educators: foundations, collaboration with family, social competence, play, instructional models, the Individual Education Programme (IEP), transitions to and from preschool, special health-care needs, technology, and preparing educators. Also discussed, in the introduction and in the chapters, are the plethora of complex social policy provisions and legal mandates that weave through all aspects of early childhood special education.
Contributors include Nicholas Anastasiow, Phillippa H. Campbell, Michael J. Guralnick, Toni Linder, Jeanette A. McCollum and Nancy L. Peterson.