Program Description

Background Information

The Special Education: Early Childhood program at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire (UWEC) is a university system and State Department of Public Instruction approved program which prepares teachers for Wisconsin Special Education: Early Childhood certification. This certification is also recognized by many other states.

The teacher certified in Special Education: Early Childhood is a professional who is skilled in determining exceptional education needs and implementing programs which facilitate the attainment of habilitation and/or rehabilitation educational goals for children between the ages of birth and nine. The trained and certified Special Education: Early Childhood teacher possesses competence in the following areas:

• identification,

• assessment,

• individual and group instruction,

• curriculum development,

• interdisciplinary collaboration,

• parent involvement and training,

• interagency and interdisciplinary cooperation,

• management of paraprofessionals and volunteers,

• program administration, and

• evaluation.

The graduate of the UWEC program is qualified to work with infants, toddlers, preschool, and school age children who exhibit mild to profound developmental problems in adaptive, motor, language, and cognitive aspects of behavior, as well as students ages 6-9 who have special learning needs. As an integral part of their training the student will be prepared to work in various types of service delivery systems (i.e., centers, homes, schools, and clinics), to coordinate intervention efforts with the child's primary care provider (e.g., parents), to function in a multidisciplinary team setting and to work with children on a non-categorical basis. Teachers who are certified to teach young children with disabilities may be employed by one of the following types of agencies:

• school districts

• areas school cooperatives

• private agencies

• Head Start

• hospitals

• County sponsored health and social service programs

The UWEC preservice training program, which leads to earning a Bachelor of Science in Education Degree and university teacher certification endorsement in Special Education: Early Childhood, is a competency ­based program which leads students from an "awareness" to "skill" level. The competency related knowledge and skills are distributed throughout the sequence of the program. The students are actively involved in lectures, simulation activities, observations, and fieldwork tthroughout the program. Early and continuous field experiences are required as a part of many required courses. In each aspect of the training sequence pre- and post-assessment techniques are implemented to determine the extent of students' development.

Early Childhood Special education courses

All of the courses in the BS, MS and MA degree programs leading to endorsement by the University for ECSE state certification are presented. Readers are encouraged to examine the relationship between the teacher education competencies, the Wisconsin State Teaching Standards, our focus on publicly stated training outcomes, developmentally distributed knowledge and skills, early and regular course related field experiences, and performance based evaluations. Readers are also reminded that curriculum development was always a work in progress. These practices were developed to prepare strong entry level teachers. Students enrolled in the ECSE program leading to teacher certification (birth-to-8 or grade 3) were able, with careful planning and advising, to complete all of these requirement in 8 semesters and a summer. The option to earn both special and general education certification for grades K-1 through 3 required an additional summer and two semesters of study.

The ECSE courses a listed below.

• Introduction to Early Childhood Special Education (SPED 220)

• Creative Activities (SPED 320)

• Parent Training and Family Involvement (SPED 402)

• Measurement in Early Childhood Special Education (SPED 403)

• Methods in Early Childhood Special Education (SPED 421)

• Intervention with Atypical Infants & Toddlers (SPED 426)

• Student Teaching Seminar (SPED 425)

• Student Teaching (SPED 470, CA's Birth to 3; SPED 470, CA's 3-5; and SPED 472, CA’s 6-8)

• Organization & Administration (SPED 729* Graduate study requirement) 

In addition to the ECSE courses, students were required to take the following General Education and Major background courses.

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