Event set 'for the kids'

IU is sponsoring an early childhood inclusion conference Nov. 13 and 14 in Carmel, Ind., a suburb of Indianapolis. \nAlice Cross, event coordinator and research associate of the Indiana Institute on Disability Communication, has been planning the event since January of this year.\n"(The primary focus is) for people to gain knowledge of strategies for young children with disabilities in including them in community settings and making them full participants in activities with other children," Cross said.\nShe emphasized the conference will be very beneficial for not only those teachers who attend, but also the children they teach.\n"It is so important that young children with disabilities have the opportunity to play, interact and learn with their peers," she said. \nA child can be considered disabled under a wide array of needs and disabilities including learning disabilities, speech and language.\nAccording to a report by the American Youth Policy Forum and Center on Education Policy, 11 percent of America's schoolchildren have disabilities, which is approximately 6.5 million. In 1970, only 20 percent of children with disabilities were educated in a regular school rather than state institutions or separate care facilities; today it is 96 percent.\nTwo people who have committed many years of service to these children are the keynote speakers for the conference -- Sue Swenson, the executive director of The Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation in Washington D.C. and Robin McWilliam, division chief of child development at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Both have been recognized nationally for their work as leaders in disability advocacy and research on early intervention and integrated therapy. \nMcWilliam will be speaking about methods for serving young children with disabilities and their families. He has created a model for intervention that is currently used in four states (Texas, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico) and growing rapidly in popularity -- he said he hopes this conference will be a step in that direction for Indiana. McWilliam has worked in this field for over 20 years starting at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. \nHe said when his daughter was young, she had several disabilities, which was a never ending process for McWilliam. His daughter is now 22-years-old and has been a beneficiary of his methods, and she still remains a motivation for him to improve things for young, disabled children. "(What motivates me is) first the fact that many ineffective things are being done in serving young children and improvement is needed and secondly, training and teaching young professionals new and effective ways," McWilliam said.\nStudents, administrators, parents, therapists and service providers will all be attending the conference, although it is primarily intended for teachers and those in the educational field. One such teacher is IU's Sam Odom. Odom is a professor of education at IU, and will make a presentation on the inclusion of young children in preschool programs. \n"My goal is to show ways children with disabilities can develop peers and achieve development goals," Odom said.\nOther topics to be explored at the conference are understanding autism spectrum disorders, sensory processing in the natural environment, and among other things, updates on research here at IU. While it is too late for anyone to attend who has not already registered, those that did, will surely be in for an experience they will remember. \n"This will really shake their cage and really make them think about what they're doing," McWilliam said. "It will challenge people's current assumptions and hopefully make them desire to seek more information"