Abstract
The first three articles in this issue of Topics in Early Childhood Special Education (TECSE 35:2) address aspects of the issue’s topic, “Inclusive Care and Education in Early Childhood Programs.” Space permitted us to include two additional articles, the last of which was invited to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the publication of the seminal article (Carr & Durand, 1985) describing functional communication training (FCT). FCT is a conceptually elegant but straightforward procedure for reducing challenging behavior and, just as important, increasing adaptive (and “functional”) communication. FCT is a powerful, evidence-based procedure that has been demonstrated repeatedly to be effective with a wide variety of individuals, including young children with challenging behavior. FCT is also a cornerstone strategy of positive behavior support, the most widely accepted approach for addressing behavioral challenges of all types. We are grateful to Mark Durand, a co-developer of FCT, and his co-author, Lauren Moskowitz, for accepting our invitation to describe FCT for our readership.