The effect of training early childhood development practitioners on the principles of UDL to adapt lesson plans for children with communication impairments in the communication ELDA of the National Curriculum Framework

Abstract

Background: The understanding that the early years in a child’s life are crucial for laying a foundation for development and learning has led to a drive to ensure that all children need to access Early Childhood Development (ECD) services worldwide. In South Africa, the ECD sector is considered important and is responded to by the Department of Education (DoE), the Department of Health, and the Department of Social Development (DSD) through their various policies and services. Access to ECD services, however, remains a challenge for children with disabilities in this country and this can be attributed to the lack of interdepartmental collaborations and the lack of explicit guidelines in policies catering for children with disabilities. Access to Early Childhood Education (ECE) for children with disabilities, especially those with communication impairments, remains one of the biggest challenges within the ECD sector in South Africa. These challenges are in relation to the lack of explicit guidelines to guide ECE practitioners to accommodate children with disabilities within the Early Learning and Development Areas (ELDAs) of the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) policy and the lack of training for ECE practitioners. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a suggested framework to address the lack of flexibility in curricula in order to cater for learner diversity. This framework has also been proven to improve inclusivity when educators were trained on the implementation thereof. This study, therefore aims to evaluate the effectiveness of UDL training on ECE practitioners’ adapted lesson planning in the communication ELDA of the NCF policy for children with communication impairments. Methods: A single-case pretest-posttest study was conducted with a group of seven ECE practitioners. Participants were required to write a lesson plan to accommodate children with communication impairments before and after the UDL training. The two lesson plans were then scored and compared to measure the effectiveness of the UDL training. Results: The results of this study indicated that there was a statistical significance between the overall scores of the participants based on their pretest and posttest lesson plans. Conclusions: UDL training can make a substantial difference in enabling ECE practitioners to adapt lesson plans in the communication ELDA of the NCF policy to accommodate children with communication impairments. Keywords: children with communication impairments, children with disabilities, communication ELDA, diversity, Early Childhood Development (ECD), Early Childhood Education (ECE), inclusion, National Curriculum Framework (NCF), Universal Design for Learning (UDL)