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UNC Chapel Hill (National Center for Early Development and Learning)

 

National Center for Early Development & Learning
FPG Child Development Institute
CB 8185
Chapel Hill, NC 27599

 

Strengthening Minds: Education for Life

Much of the work focusing on people with developmental disabilities is aimed at societal change-removing barriers, promoting inclusion, and defining least restrictive environments. The Clinical Center for the Study of Development and Learning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill adds to this current model an innovative, research-based perspective: a focus on how people with developmental disabilities learn, and how they can learn better.

From that conceptual base, the CDL provides clinical services, training and technical assistance, research, and educational programs for professionals.

 

History

The Clinical Center for the Study of Development and Learning (CDL) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has provided 40 years of innovative, high-quality clinical, research, training, and technical assistance activities supporting children and adults with developmental disabilities in North Carolina. As the State's University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities, Education, Research, and Service (UCEDD), the CDL continues to push the scope of services currently offered in the field of developmental disabilities to include a unique focus on how people with developmental disabilities learn and how they can be helped to learn better.

The national network of UCEDDs, formerly called University Affiliated Programs (UAPs), was originally the brainchild of President John F. Kennedy, whose sister, Rosemary, was developmentally disabled. In 1962, President Kennedy appointed several prominent researchers and clinicians to the President's Panel on Mental Retardation. This committee was charged with developing a nationwide network of university-based facilities to train professionals in the field of developmental disabilities and to improve the quality of care provided to individuals with mental retardation.

That same year, the Panel reported the need for interdisciplinary training of professionals and paraprofessionals working with individuals with mental retardation, a set standard of care and establishment of best practice in providing services and supports for individuals with mental retardation and their families, advancement of the scientific understanding of this condition, and coordination of efforts between universities and state and local agencies to survey and respond to personnel needs in the field. This report spurred the 88th US Congress to pass Public Law 88-164 (a.k.a. the Mental Retardation Facilities and Construction Act), which initiated a series of Federal grants for construction of public or nonprofit clinical, University-Associated Facilities (UAFs) that would both provide services and aid in training established and future professionals to work with individuals with mental retardation.

In the early 1970s, 19 UAFs opened their doors nationally. North Carolina's UAF, a former Developmental Evaluation Clinic established in 1962, was renamed the Division of Disorders of Development and Learning (DDDL) in 1972 and placed under the leadership of Harrie Chamberlin, M.D., a pediatrician, member of the President's Panel on Mental Retardation, and signatory of the pivotal 1963 legislation that led to the creation of the UAF network.

The UCEDD network receives its core funding from the US Administration on Developmental Disabilities (ADD). Currently there are at least one UCEDD in every state and US territory for a total of 61 UCEDDs across the US.  In the past decade, the UCEDD has established policies that specifically emphasize the following:

  • Focus on excellence;
  • Stress on the importance of research in the UCEDD mission;
  • Emphasis on accountability, reflected in the UCEDDs mandate to measure efficacy of services, education, and research via the use of relevant outcome measures; and
  • Concentration on development of linkages between the UCEDDs and their consumers, families, and compatible agencies.

 

Useful Links:

Best Practices in Early Childhood Education

Kindergarten Transition National Study

Involving Famillies in Improving Early Childhood Practices

Multi-State Study of Pre-Kindergarten

Public Schools and Pre-K Services