ABSTRACT

This chapter explores the Collaborative for Understanding the Pedagogy of Infant/toddler Development (CUPID) competency Diversity and Inclusion with an Emphasis on Supporting Families of Infants/Toddlers with Special Needs. According to CUPID’s home visitor competencies, expanded knowledge home visitors should possess related to diversity and inclusion includes: Expanded knowledge of how culture and prior family experiences affect home life in family interactions, routines, and other activities; Expanded knowledge. A culturally sensitive parent educator recognizes the importance of the family’s native home language environment in promoting healthy parenting practices and infant/toddler development. Infants/toddlers learning more than one language have their own developmental timeline for language acquisition. Parents of infants/toddlers with delays and disabilities may have many doctor, specialist, and therapy appointments to manage, while trying to maintain “normal” life tasks. A once individualist family may become more collectivist to support one another in the task of raising an infant or toddler with a delay or disability.