Child's learnig opportunities in natural environments: Family and comunity

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present a revision of the recent theories and research efforts done by Dunst and his collaborators concerning children’s learning opportunities in their natural environments. These authors sustain that children’s full participation in community life should occur in ways that transmit ability rather than disability in order to make lives of children with special needs and their families more inclusive, and simultaneously helping them to learn and develop. In the first part of the article we briefly present an overview of the conceptual bases of Dunst’s model and then we present some strategies described by Dunst and his collaborators to help the identification of natural learning environments, and how these aspects can be used by early intervention professionals to improve child and family outcomes.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17575/rpsicol.v17i1.439