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The present article focuses on achieving four critical competencies that are essential for children's successful transitions from preschool special education programs to the primary grades: readiness to maximize academic achievement, prosocial and age-appropriate social skills, appropriate responsiveness to various instructional styles, and appropriate responsiveness to new and different environmental structures. Children may obtain these four competencies within the context of natural, literacy-rich classroom environments, in which they participate in authentic and personally meaningful language activities. The development of such literacy-based intervention programs that can prepare young children with disabilities for successful transitions is addressed in this article.

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Preschool children with speech and language impairments (SLI) are at significant risk for later literacy learning difficulties. Current emerging literacy theory dictates the inclusion of reading and writing in preschool programs for children with SLI. Early literacy interactions are directed at developing all modes of communication and providing normalizing experiences for children with SLI. In addition, these experiences may lessen future academic learning problems. The purpose of this article is to describe a preschool program that fosters emerging speaking, listening, reading, and writing in children with SLI. Strategies used to incorporate literacy-related events and artifacts into the daily classroom schedule are discussed, and sample activities are given.

Face-to-face communication supports for persons with disabilities appear to be more readily available than the assistive technology, educational, and policy-based strategies needed to develop the written communication abilities of this population. Changes in understanding of how one becomes literate, as well as advances in assistive technology development and use, open doors to building needed supports for helping persons with disabilities to become as literate as possible. The current article summarizes and synthesizes the existing research on assisting persons with disabilities to become literate, highlighting the use of assistive technology to help achieve this goal. Policy development and implementation toward this end is also discussed.