The First IEP: Parent Perspectives

Deborah Chen, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Special Education, California State University, Northridge (CSUN), teaches in the Early Childhood Special Education (ECSE) programs. She also supervises ECSE credential candidates in early intervention and early childhood special education programs located in highly diverse communities in Los Angeles and surrounding counties. As an immigrant to the United States from Jamaica (West Indies) with Chinese roots, Dr. Chen has a personal and professional interest in working with families of diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds.Dr. Chen has extensive experience serving with families and their children with sensory impairments and multiple disabilities as an early interventionist, teacher, program administrator, teacher trainer, and researcher. She has directed projects of significance, model demonstration, outreach, research-to-practice, and personnel development projects funded by the U.S. Department of Education. These projects have focused on working with families and children of diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, home-based early intervention, interdisciplinary training, caregiver-child interactions, and early communication and tactile communication strategies with children who are deaf-blind. Her publications reflect these professional efforts and interests.Dr. Chen has disseminated her work at local, state, national, and international conferences. In addition, she has been invited to conduct professional development courses and to present at international conferences in Australia, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Qatar, Taiwan, and Thailand. Ms. Cox is the Director of the CHIME Institute Early Education Programs; developmentally appropriate inclusive programs that serve a diverse population of young children and their families. She holds a bachelor's degree in psychology and Master's degree in Educational Psychology, Early Childhood Special Education. Her professional experience in the field of education extends for the past twenty-five years. In addition, Ms. Cox provided early intervention services for young children with disabilities and acted as an inclusion specialist for preschool children with disabilities in inclusive site. Ms. Cox has served as a part-time instructor, master teacher, and fieldwork supervisor for the Department of Special Education at California State University, Northridge. She currently trains and supports teachers in the field of Early Childhood Special Education and since 1989 has provided mentoring and supervision for university students at the CSUN. Ms. Cox was born and raised in Brazil and is bilingual in Portuguese and English.