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Building on our Social and Emotional Competencies course, this course is aimed at experienced teachers looking to extend their skills in reflective and critical practice. Drawing deeply on real-life case studies, in which participants meet and learn how best to support children with a diverse range of neurodevelopmental differences, as well as plenty of practice-based scenarios in which participants can apply their emerging understandings, the focus is on a powerfully relational approach to teaching and learning in the early years.
This course strongly centres and celebrates neurodivergent learners and their families, and carefully unpacks and critiques conventional notions of inclusion, inviting teachers to weave their own neurodiversity-affirming and inclusive philosophies and practices.
On completing the course, participants will be able to:
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What you’ll learn
PART 1 Normativity in early childhood education
Examines the ways in which normative beliefs and assumptions about development, behaviour, and ways of interacting can particularly disadvantage neurodivergent children and their whānau, and uses critical theories to position normativity as a problematic discourse in early childhood education.
PART 2 The neurodiversity paradigm
Explores the concept of neurodiversity, drawing on the social model of disability to critically interrogate developmental discourses and the medical model of neurodiversity, and considering the implications of this for practice.
PART 3 Inclusive practice
Explores the concept of inclusion, and uses it as a framework for thinking about how each child can be valued equally, treated with respect, and provided with real opportunities for their learning in early childhood settings.
PART 4 Relational pedagogy
Focuses on how pedagogies for building relationships, such as the pedagogy of listening and the ethic of hospitality, can be used for learning to read and respond to children’s cues and communications, and for developing curricula and practice that enable each child to belong and fully participate in early childhood settings.
PART 5 Sensory processing
Looks at the way we receive, interpret, and respond to sensory information, considers the many differences related to sensory processing that children might experience, and explores the implications of this for early childhood practice.
PART 6 Executive function
Focuses on what executive function skills are and why they are important, considers how neurodivergent children’s executive function skills may differ, and explores how all children can benefit from support to develop and build their executive functioning.
PART 7 Thresholds and dysregulation
Builds on the learning about sensory processing and executive function from Parts 5 and 6 to explore the concept of thresholds. It describes how children may experience periods of distressing dysregulation when their thresholds are exceeded, and offers strategies that teachers can use to support regulation and respond to dysregulation. This part also explores differences in speech and language, and in motor planning and movement.
PART 8 Self-determination
Explores how early childhood teachers can honour children’s ways of being and doing, and align their supports and interventions to their needs and goals, as well as those of their family. It highlights the complex, ethical nature of choices that teachers must make when supporting children’s development that is non-typical, and explores this in the context of speech, language, and communication as well as social development.
PART 9 The parents: a team approach
Explores the ways in which teachers might work with other people in a team approach to care and education for each child. There are considerations here for teachers’ own wellbeing, as well as for the increased effectiveness and wraparound support that comes with a team approach
ENROL NOW & GET STARTED
Early Childhood Neurodiversity: Critical & Relational Pedagogies
Enrolment instructions
1. Select your enrolment requirements below carefully, especially if you are enrolling a group.
2. You can choose to pay via invoice or by credit card.
4. Once enrolled, you’ll find the course on your Account page. You will also receive an email welcoming you to the course.
Group enrolments
Enrolling as a group enables teachers to share their learning journeys and centres to collectively make changes in their practice based on their learning. Each teacher receives their own log in, linked to their email address, and can complete the course in their own time, on their own computer or tablet.
Who are you enrolling?
Enrol yourself
NZ $75 +GST
- Lifetime access*
- Online discussion boards
- Personalised certificate
Enrol others AND yourself
from NZ $75 +GST
- Lifetime access*
- Online discussion boards
- Personalised certificates
Enrol others NOT yourself
NZ $75 +GST
- Lifetime access*
- Online discussion boards
- Personalised certificates
Prices shown are per person, and are subject to GST (local sales tax) of 15%. * Lifetime access means for as long as the course is hosted on The Education Hub
Keeping our courses affordable
The Education Hub wants as many teachers as possible to be able to take our courses and benefit from the high quality professional learning they offer. Therefore, we are committed to keeping course fees as low as possible. It is through the support of our ever-generous supporters that we can produce such rich, multimodal learning opportunities while offering participants significant subsidies.
Please note, all our courses are best completed on a desktop/laptop computer or tablet. Because of the amount of content, we do not recommend using a phone.
* Group discounts apply to the full price, and can only be applied in one transaction, not retrospectively, or on the addition of more enrolments. ** Our standard terms and conditions are available here
Past participants recommend our courses
“I've just started and it's incredible! Best professional learning course I have participated in in a long time. I've just completed Part 2 – so inspiring!”
Course participant
Visual Arts in ECE"I loved how the course was laid out. It was easy to leave and pick up where I had left off. The site was easy to navigate and I liked the videos that backed up the reading." Course participant Assessment & Intentional Teaching
Course participant
Assessment & Intentional Teaching in ECE“Continue with your excellent work. I get feedback that student teachers love it too.”