The Illinois Early Learning Project produces and increases access to information and resources useful for increasing school readiness. Its resources are available to parents, the friend-and-neighbor and kith-and-kin child care communities, the regulated child care community, and to early childhood professionals in all settings. The project continues to be successful in reaching diverse audiences around the state with information developed for its Web site and distributed in print (English, Spanish and Polish) The IEL Project provides research-based information on early education and care that has been “repackaged” for easy reading.

This funding supports the technical and logistical development of the Early Childhood Information System (ECIS) for use in the State of Illinois, which is part of the larger Illinois Early Childhood Asset Map, funded in collaboration with the Illinois Department of Human Services. ECIS is intended as a comprehensive system that can bring together all available information on early childhood care and education in Illinois. It responds to the increasing priorities placed on early childhood education needs by reducing gaps among currently disparate systems.

This study is a collaboration project between the College of Education and the Center on Early Childhood Leadership at National Louis University. The project seeks to evaluate directors of early childhood centers, three lead teachers in each of these randomly selected centers and two pre-kindergarten teachers employed by public school programs. Findings aim to identify key issues for early childhood programs in the state and develop policy recommendations.

Early communicative exchanges between young children with substantial language delays and their social partners (primarily families and teachers), are the study target. This project consists of a three-year sequence of studies. Year One focuses on intensive descriptive study of eight children and their partners. An intervention in Year Two teaches multiple functionally equivalent and socially acceptable alternatives for requesting and protesting. Year Three assesses the maintenance and generalization of the intervention.

The goal of this subcontract to UIUC from Hope School provides funds from The Autism Program (TAP) to support a project to coordinate and enhance the services currently available in Champaign-Urbana for children with autism and their families. The university staff will function as facilitators and information sources to the community to support their grass-root efforts and to assess current services and identify high priority services that are needed in the community. Finally, Project staff will collaborate with the community stakeholders to develop priority services and ensure their sustainability within East Central Illinois.

This is a collaborative project between faculty from the Early Childhood and Parenting Collaborative at the University of Illinois and four early childhood centers in Danville, Illinois. Five faculty associated with ECAP serve as Component Facilitators, providing ongoing training and technical assistance to teachers, Literacy Coaches, Mentor Pals (tutors), and the Family Liaison, assisted by a Project Coordinator . Twelve classrooms have implemented the TROPHIES Pre-K Curriculum to develop skills in oral language, phonological awareness, concepts about print, alphabetic knowledge, and pre-writing skills, organized and sequenced within 5 units (25 themes) that teach important core content.

Project TIES is a personnel preparation grant focused on strengthening linkages between general and special education while preparing teachers to work more effectively with students with emotional behavior disorders and those with challenging behaviors. Approximately 150 special educators will be provided with either initial or advanced certification over a 4-year period, and over 800 elementary and secondary general education candidates will receive specialized instruction and activities focused on managing difficult behavior in their classroom and teaming with their special education colleagues to provide effective instructional and behavior interventions.

The University of Illinois collaborates in consortium with other institutions to operate the Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning. Illinois develops and producing synthesis papers, coordinates and produces outcome briefs, develops training modules and trainer web pages, coordinates teleconferences and presentation of findings, coordinates the in-state recruitment process and implements training and technical Assistance events.

This research project examines the efficacy of the Special Friends program as an effective class-wide kindergarten program that improves the social acceptance of children with disabilities. The project’s goals include the following: (a) establish program efficacy as a class-wide approach for promoting social acceptance and friendships among kindergarteners with and without disabilities in multiple sites across two states; (b) examine long-term intervention effects on the social acceptance of children with disabilities; (c) examine temporal effects on the intervention; and (d) examine moderating influences on the program, such as class, school, child, and teacher variables.

The University of Illinois and the collaborating organizations in the Great Expectations initiative, are evaluating the impact of training on teacher and administrator perceptions of the effectiveness of their teaching strategies, their ability to meet the Illinois Early Learning Standards, their ability to successfully include children with disabilities in preschool for all classrooms, and compatibility of the Project Approach with early childhood curricula that meet the ISBE Curriculum Criteria. The collaborating organizations will use the findings to plan future training and to work towards increasing early childhood teachers' skills in addressing the needs of all Illinois preschoolers.

The purpose of the Preparing Leaders in Access by Design (PLAD) is to prepare competent leaders in special education with the expertise to help students with disabilities access the general curriculum. Through collaboration among faculty in special education and faculty from other units across campus, doctoral students will receive instruction in five core areas: disability policy and law, cultural and linguistic diversity, collaborative practices in inclusive environments, universal design strategies to enhance student outcomes, and service learning. At the end of four years of the project, a minimum of 16 doctoral trainees are expected to have completed the program

This study examines similarities and differences in self-reported parental stress patterns of childhood challenging behavior and characteristics of autism across three distinct childhood diagnoses: Cornelia de Lang Syndrome (CdLS), Autism or Pervasive Developmental Disorder-NOS (ASD), or Down syndrome (DS). The results of this study set the occasion for future early intervention studies designed to provide syndrome-specific parent support at the time of diagnosis and across the lifespan.

The Early Childhood/Infancy program in the Department of Special Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been awarded federal funding to support students interested in attaining a master's degree in early childhood special education, with an emphasis on working with infants/toddlers with disabilities and their families. This is a two year program of study for full time students; some students also work toward this degree on a part time basis.

This project trains local teams of administrators, lead teachers, parents, and other decision-makers to systematically collect and use data (e.g., student assessments, programmatic characteristics, student needs/experiences, and demographics) that impact individualized education programs (IEPs) to make program and policy decisions. The intent of the project is to promote access to the general curriculum and increase the achievement of students with disabilities.

This project seeks to test a Web-based Individualized Education Program (IEP) Tutorial and decision making support system linked to the Illinois State Board of Education's archiving system. The intervention has four components: (1) Web-based Professional/Parent Resources, (2) Decision Supports, (3) Implementation Support, and (4) Case Consultation Summaries. Stage 1 develops and beta tests the Tutorial, and in Stage 2 the revised Tutorial is used in a randomized design experiment. The measures of key outcomes include process measures of quality, interview data, teacher self-reports, observation, and teacher and parent perception.

This project will continue a program that facilitates integrated employment outcomes for individuals with significant disabilities through (a) Continuing education and technical assistance; (b) Development of the regional infrastructure for promoting employment through training; (c) Externships focused on replication activities for the dissemination of promising programs and practices; and (d) Leadership development. All components of this project will include an ongoing evaluation component that will allow for identification of successful strategies and procedures, as well as lessons learned. Formative and summative evaluations will be widely disseminated to facilitate regional and national replication of activities during and after the project-funding period.