This handbook defines children with special needs and develops guidelines for providing services to them. It answers questions commonly raised by staff and describes staff needs, training, and resources. It discusses problems related to communicating with parents, questions parents ask, parents of special children, and communication between parents. It provides guidelines for program development including basic needs for all children, orientation activities, promoting good feelings among children, designing behavior, daily activities, dealing with difficult times in the day care day, evaluation, and follow-through. It gives techniques for dealing with special needs for visually-impaired, hearing-impaired, other physically disabled, and mentally retarded children as well as children with learning disabilities and other emotional problems. Appendices list community resources available to help provide services for children with special needs and a description of what services each gives; a description of local, state and federal funding resources, and a bibliography sectioned according to special problems dealt with in the handbook. (DG)