Westat Staff to Present on Equity Issues for Young Children with Disabilities at Upcoming Conference

Westat staff will be presenting at the DEC’s 37th Annual International Conference on Young Children with Disabilities and Their Families, a virtual conference, being held September 21-24, 2021. Division for Early Childhood (DEC), offers the latest research, evidence-based practices, and advice for working with young children with disabilities, their families, and the professionals who serve them. 

Westat staff (in bold) will present on the following topics.

Renee Ecckles-Hardy and Nancy O’Hara. (Presenters.) Exploring Early Childhood Equity: Digging into Root Cause(s) of Success Gaps

It is important to ensure that vulnerable student populations have equitable social and early educational access and opportunity to prevent or reduce gaps in preschool outcomes, often called success gaps.  In this session, participants will learn how to use the Success Gaps process and the Success Gaps Toolkit to identify root causes for equity gaps among children in preschool programs and develop plans to address them.

Vera Stroup-Rentier and Amy Bitterman. (Presenters.) Using Preschool Environments Data to Promote Inclusion in Kansas.

This session focuses on a process for examining preschool educational environments data to inform planning for more inclusive preschool programs. Through an intentional state-level approach focused on analyzing data with local programs, Kansas identified strategies that affected least restrictive environment data, child outcomes, and provision of more services in natural environments.