2025 International Inclusion Institute

All children have the right to meaningful participation in early care and education environments. Yet, children 
with disabilities are often excluded from routines and activities within these environments. This session will 
support practitioners in understanding how to use adaptations to promote participation and belonging within 
classrooms. This session will also explore several online resources that are available at no-cost to support 
adults in providing access and meaningful participation for each child.

 Active learning is essential for social emotional development, health, wellness, and learning growth. Get Up and Move (GUM) activities help to engage children with diverse abilities socially, academically, and physically. This session centers on the importance of integrating active play, kinesthetic instruction, and physical movement into inclusive early childhood experiences. Participants will engage in “GUM” warm-ups, games, and simulations designed to get bodies moving, brains thinking, and smiles beaming. Participants will also explore and discuss high-leverage strategies to actively include children with a wide range of strengths and needs. And participants will leave with ready-to-implement ideas to meet the needs of all children through meaningful play.
 

Co-regulation in early childhood is more than deep breathing and counting to ten. Adults can co-regulate with children throughout the day, during both challenging and low-stakes interactions with young children.Learn about the co-regulation/self-regulation continuum and how to develop a habit of promoting emotional intelligence and social-emotional development throughout the day and across activities.

This interactive session will:
 1. Review the research related to the role of access, participation, and belonging within the early childhood school and classroom 
2. Hear from families and learn about their experiences navigating and partnering with their child’s school and early educators
3. Reflect upon the 3 Universal Design for Learning Principles (UDL) and apply the UDL principles to provide high-quality teaching and learning environments that support children’s development and allow all children to meet high expectations

Self-advocacy is crucial for individuals with disabilities- especially kids! Self-advocacy is also challenging for individuals with disabilities- especially kids! It is a taught, learned, and practiced skill. Revamping the familiar “All About Me” activity is a fantastic way to equip children of all ages, stages, and abilities to make informed, authentic, empowered decisions about school, life, and play.  During this session, we will engage together in hands-on, minds-on, hearts-on "All About Me" activities.  Participants will leave with practical and meaningful ideas for strategy implementation.
 

In this interactive session, participants will learn about the Teacher Impression Scale (TIS), a 14 item impression scale completed following a 5-mintue center-time observation. The TIS is a practical tool that teachers can use to assess preschool children’s strengths, identify children who may experience challenges with peer social competence skills, and assess progress of children for whom programs have been developed to support peer social competence. Presenters will provide information for how teachers can use the TIS in their settings. Videos will be used for examples for teachers to practice coding the TIS. Discussions will focus on how teachers can use this measure in their own settings. 

This presentation centers on cultural and linguistic factors for assessing bilingual children. Fundamental components and strategies for framing an assessment that integrates these aspects will be discussed. Specific focus will be given to guiding principles for assessing language and communication skills. Key considerations relevant to working with families of children from bilingual backgrounds will be addressed as well.

This session aims at presenting current evidence of everyday practices for nurturing peer interactions and supporting positive social engagement in early childhood classrooms. Participants will review recommended practices, watch video clips of classroom implementation, and discuss ways inclusive practices can be individualized to support the diverse learning profiles of children.

Research has shown that the primary challenge to supporting children with disabilities in regular early childhood settings like child care and Head Start rests within our own attitudes and beliefs. Therefore, in order to find innovative approaches to challenges, we should start by reflecting on our own mindset. How did we come to our understanding of the notion of disability in the first place? Are these beliefs getting in the way of our approaches toward children, families and colleagues? Let's explore it together! Join us to consider alternatives to the common definition of disability and how this alternative way of thinking can impact programs and practices. Together we will reflect on our attitudes and beliefs about disability, learn through storytelling and reflection, and consider an approach for supporting children with disabilities to foster change and create solutions. Together we can expand our thinking and find solutions!

In my work with tribes one of the things that has stood out has been that every full tribal language immersion school or classroom has almost no behavior issues. We will look at some of the commonalities of why this may be happening when another school or classroom  from the same community may show different results. This includes schools in the Southwest, Northern Woodland areas, Northwest, Alaska and Hawaii, all of them seem to have this in common. We will talk about how language and culture can influence behavior and what is so unique in these settings, such as tribal languages being verb driven instead of noun driven as English is. How sign language impacts behavior. I have looked at the methodologies over the years used in these learning environments and we will have a open discussion on what I have learned, along with the natural process of inclusion being built into the language and culture.

Emergent literacy is the foundation for later reading and writing development for all children. Emergent literacy activities help children develop understandings of the forms and functions of print, while developing essential language and communication skills. Children with extensive support needs often face barriers to participating in emergent literacy activities. Their combined language, communication, physical, sensory, and cognitive needs often result in limited learning opportunities. Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) is one essential support for children with extensive support needs. In this session, we will describe ways to incorporate AAC into comprehensive approaches to emergent literacy and provide hands-on practice using AAC during shared reading and using alternative pencils for writing.