• Transdisciplinary Play-Based Assessment (TPBA): A Functional Approach to Working with Young Children, Revised Edition presents a process for assessing the functional level of children from birth to 6 years of age, across cognitive, social-emotional, communication and language, and sensorimotor development. The process enables people observing the child's play to also determine the child's learning style, interests, and most positive interactional patterns. The information gained from this assessment can then be translated into educational and/or therapeutic program plans.
  
  
• Transdisciplinary Play-Based Intervention (TPBI): Guidelines for Developing a Meaningful Curriculum for Young Children (Linder, 1993c) presents strategies, materials, and learning experiences appropriate for children at varying levels of development from birth to age 6 who demonstrate differing learning and interaction styles. The strategies provided are individualized for the children depending on their developmental level and personal characteristics.

Because most classrooms and child care settings today have children of varying ability levels, you will likely want to become familiar with the other transdisciplinary play-based products as well. These two volumes link assessment and intervention to provide a holistic approach to learning for each child.

All of the transdisciplinary play-based books, forms, and training DVDs are available from Brookes Publishing.

TPBA and TPBI in Group Settings

Read, Play, and Learn!® provides a means for bringing the individualized focus of TPBA and TPBI into use in group settings. The TPBI approach introduces the use of storybooks but does not highlight it as a key component; Read, Play, and Learn!® ties together cognitive, language, motor, and social aspects of development. In other words, Read, Play, and Learn!® lets you integrate developmental and cross-domain intervention and education into a classroom of children of varying ability levels.

Read, Play, and Learn!® can be used in conjunction with other assessment and intervention approaches, but the model is designed specifically to build on the same theoretical and philosophical foundations as TPBA and TPBI. The holistic appraisal of individual children's abilities and needs through observation of play is fundamental to all of the components of the play-based system. As with TPBA and TPBI, flexibility in order to better meet the needs of children is vital.

Professionals who want to use Read, Play, and Learn!® but are unfamiliar with the TPBA and TPBI can use the storybook curriculum as their starting point. The other volumes are not necessary but will help you when you need to write individualized family service plans (IFSPs) or individualized education programs (IEPs) for any of the children in your classroom. Observing children while engaged in various play activities within the classroom using the TPBA guidelines can help team members assess where and how children are functioning. The TPBI volume then actually gives you a "Planner" of play materials and suggested opportunities, intervention guidelines, and more to develop individualized programs for children who need extra assistance.