The purpose of this study was to examine the startup of a charter elementary school specifically designed to be fully inclusive. Twenty-one adult stakeholders, including parents, teachers, staff, and an administrator, were interviewed and asked a series of questions designed to solicit information about what they identified as strengths and challenges in the first year of the school. Four major themes emerged from these interviews: Components critical to the operation of the school, initial challenges overcome, positive outcomes, and ongoing challenges. Areas of interest emerging from the study include the distribution of services for students with disabilities, the need for a challenging curriculum for all students, and the university–school district partnership.

A practical model for systematic ecological assessment for daily planning purposes is described. The results of initial testing of this model are presented in a supported training and work experience program for special education inclusion assistants placed in inclusive preschools. In conjunction with traditional child-focused assessment results, the model provides a means for identifying and developing opportunities for facilitating child-to-child social interactions and the attainment of individualized goals and objectives in the routines and typical activities of inclusive preschool settings. Preliminary evaluation data suggest that, overall, the model produces more integrated developmental activities, more use of peer mediation, and a more play-based approach to discrete skill development. These results are compatible with the philosophy and methodology of developmentally appropriate early childhood education.Inclusion is more than the physical placement of a young child with disabilities into a mainstream preschool setting; inclusion means assisting that child to participate as fully as possible in that setting (Cavallaro, Haney, & Cabello, 1993; Demchak &c Drinkwater, 1992). Most normally developing children enter preschool able to explore and learn from the developmentally appropriate activities provided in a high-quality preschool setting, but a child with disabilities may lack some of the skills needed to partici-

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Integrating young children with disabilities into mainstream preschools with nondisabled children presents numerous challenges. One major stumbling block to integration is the seeming incompatibility of traditional didactic early intervention techniques with the developmentally appropriate practices common to quality mainstream preschool settings. We present strategies for intervention that are in harmony with developmentally appropriate practice and incorporate special educational principles that have enabled children with disabilities to participate more fully in integrated settings while achieving individualized goals and objectives. The strategies are grouped into four categories: attention and responsiveness to the child, environmental structuring, adult mediation, and peer mediation. The strategies are presented with examples to illustrate their use.As young children with disabilities have been integrated into regular preschool programs with their nondisabled peers, numerous challenges have emerged. Extensive research on integrated placement has demonstrated that true social integration occurs only through the use of strategies that enable the child to not only be physically present in the preschool classroom but to participate as fully as possible in that setting (Demchak & Drinkwater, 1992). In this article, we present an overview of educational strategies that we have found to be in harmony with the guidelines for developmentally appropriate practices (DAP) (Bredekamp, 1987) commonly followed in quality preschool TECSE 13(3), 293-307 (1993)

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