Cal State Los Angeles announced Friday that it received three federal grants totaling $3.7 million to help prepare graduate students to pursue innovative approaches to working with children with disabilities.
The grants from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs were awarded to three faculty teams in the Division of Special Education and Counseling within the Charter College of Education at CSULA, which will use the grants to provide scholarships for graduate students.
“In such a time of critical teacher shortages of qualified special educators, the federal funding of these three grants provides important resources to support graduate students in interdisciplinary preparation to pursue careers in various special education fields,” said Cheryl Ney, dean of the Charter College of Education.
Through support from the federal Personnel Preparation in Special Education, Early Intervention and Related Services program, the grants will address the state’s need to prepare more specialists to work with children with disabilities, CSULA officials said.
“There is a critical need for early childhood special education teachers and behaviorists to collaborate to improve outcomes for young children with high intensity needs,” said Jilly Ya-Chih Ching, principal investigator on the grant. “Children’s progress in their social communication can be enhanced by incorporating knowledge from multiple disciplines.”