Partners in Improving Social Communication in Children With Disabilities in Urban Early Childhood Settings

Theoretical Differences

Training in early childhood emphasizes developmentally appropriate practices for education services for young children with and without disabilities. Assessments, goals, and interventions are determined based on children’s developmental levels, which requires knowledge and clear understanding of typical child development. In this sense one might imagine that professionals in ECSE may place emphasis on selecting developmentally appropriate goals, and in articulating their work in a developmental context. On the other hand, ABA professionals conduct their work from a behavior analytic theoretical foundation. Following from this, it would make sense that ABA professionals might place emphasis on measuring behavior in an objective manner, assuring there is careful progress monitoring including graphing and visual analysis, assessment of environmental factors related to behavioral targets, technical fading procedures, and more. Given this, it would also make sense that workers in the area of ECSE may often place relatively less emphasis on the strengths of ABA, and that ABA professionals may often place relatively less emphasis on the strengths of ECSE (see Greer & Ross, 2008 for examples of behavioral work integrating developmental context). These theoretical differences represent both a challenge and opportunity for the promotion of interdisciplinary collaboration.