Professional Credential Program: Impacting Early Childhood Inclusive Learning Environments

For more than three decades, the inclusion of children with disabilities in early childhood education settings has been developing worldwide in educational research, policy, and real-world practice. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of a Special Needs Inclusive Practices Credential Program with early educators working in the southeastern region of the United States. Researchers used the Inclusive Classroom Profile (ICP) with a pre-post research design to measure inclusive practice change. Initial results from this study revealed a statistically significant effect on all but two items for the initial cohorts (i.e. 1 and 2). After revising the PD for cohort 3 the analyses did not identify any items from the ICP that were not statistically significant. Importantly the overall analyses (including all 3 cohorts), revealed a statistically significant for within subjects on the total pre- and post-test score of the Inclusive Classroom Profile (ICPTM) (2016), Wilk’s Lambda = .49, F (1, 82) = 83.92, p = .000. The analysis did not identify any items that did not result in a statistically significant change between pre and post evaluations of all cohorts