This study explores the ways that acts of writing occur and become recognized as “writing” in a kindergarten classroom. Symbolic representations often aligning with the dominance of conventions come to be seen and named as writing as soon as children enter school, therefore influencing how one is seen and named in the classroom space as a “writer.” This often-narrow focus on what it means to be a writer leaves little room for teachers to acknowledge the various acts of writing that occur or might occur across space and time in a given classroom or in out of school contexts. With this naming of particular acts of writing, comes the exclusion of other acts. Drawing on a sociocultural framework with tenets of post structuralism, this case study uses a Foucauldian approach to shed light on the multiple powers/knowledges that are deployed in a classroom. Using ethnographic methods this work highlights the ways that children engage in acts of mark making both within and beyond the designated pedagogical space dedicated to writing. Data were gathered through participant observations, interviews, and the collection of artifacts across the first 4 months of school in a kindergarten classroom situated in a suburban district in the Midwest. The ongoing analysis of data across the study surfaced several discursive patterns suggesting that both the teacher and children were influenced by the larger discourse of accountability and compliance circulating in schools today. With an increased emphasis on early literacy standards and the ensuing accountability attached to such, this analysis has the potential to open up possibilities that may extend how writing might come to be seen and taught in classrooms, therefore influencing the kinds of writing and acts that might be seen as permissible.

Thesis advisor: Eric Dearing / Increasing evidence indicates that exposure to poverty in early childhood may undermine neural growth that is critical to developing executive functions (EF) and, in turn, emotional and behavioral regulation (Blair et al. 2011; Kim et al., 2013; Raver et al., 2013). There is, however, also increasing evidence indicating that high-quality Early Childhood Education (ECE) (a) buffers children from risks associated with early exposure to poverty and (b) supports healthy socio-emotional development (Bierman et al., 2008; Raver, 2002; Yoshikawa et al., 2013). One line of this intervention work has focused on two-generation programs that pair high-quality ECE with supports for parents that are designed to improve parenting and the home environment. Although evidence on two-generation programs is mixed (Grindal et al., 2016; Neville et al., 2013), it is clear that much of the risk of poverty is relayed to children through their homes, and parenting is among the most critical influences on child emotional and behavioral self-regulation in infancy and early childhood (Bradley & Corwyn, 2004; Calkins & Johnson, 1998; Calkins et al., 1998). The present study builds on existing theoretical and empirical prior work indicating that children’s EF skills are important precursors to emotional and behavioral regulation that may be best promoted when addressed in both classroom and home contexts. Specifically, the present study uses a randomized design to evaluate the effects of classroom-based activities that target children’s executive functioning and the value added by training parents to better support their children’s EFs. Children were evaluated pre- and post-intervention on EF skills and prosocial and adaptive problem-solving behavior. In general, few significant effects of either the child training or the added parent component were evident. These findings are discussed with special attention to the fact that fidelity of implementation of the classroom and parent trainings was low, with less than half of teachers incorporating games at least once a week and only 13 percent of parents attending the trainings. In addition, implications for future empirical work as well as policy and practice are discussed with special attention given to further inquiry into the malleability of EF. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology.

In an attempt to explore how children relate to and explain the concept of suicide, three non-clinical male children, ranging in age from 3 to 5 years, were presented with children's stories adapted to include suicidal content. Following each storyreading session, children were asked to respond to questions designed to assess their understanding of five suicide components: evitability, motive, volition, nonfunctionality, and realization. / The results revealed that these children's understanding of suicide components, when compared to a mature definition of suicide, varied across age and fluctuated across stories. A major finding was that the use of suicide-related theme stories appeared to be a viable technique for assessing suicide concept in children. Children's responses to questions about suicide suggested that other variables may influence children's suicide concept understanding, including verbal ability, nonverbal expressiveness, emotional development, death-related experiences, and religious background. None of the children who participated in the study appeared to experience any severe anxiety in response to suicide story subject matter. The conclusion is that the use of stories as a technique for exploring suicide concept development in young children is warranted. Implications of the findings are discussed, and suggestions are offered for future research. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-05, Section: A, page: 1389. / Major Professor: Gary W. Peterson. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.

The passage of P.L. 99-457 catapults the issue of parent involvement to the forefront of early childhood special education. Because Part H mandates the establishment of comprehensive services for infants and toddlers with special needs and their families, including the development of an Individual Family Service Plan for each family, but does not specify how family strengths and needs should be addressed, there is a critical need for research exploring the process of parent and professional collaboration at mandated meetings for preschool age children. / Because the study of collaboration is the study of a social process, research methods capable of embracing the phenomenological complexity of the issues must be considered. Information gained through qualitative techniques should assist practitioners in fulfilling the spirit, as well as the letter of the law. / A qualitative study of parent and professional collaboration at mandated meetings for preschool children with special needs was conducted. Twelve initial placement staffings and two special reviews were observed, and indepth, open-ended interviews with sixteen parents and eighteen professionals were conducted. A metaphor of a theatrical play is used to analyze and present the findings. Costumes, set designs, training, characters, interpersonal dynamics, and communication patterns evidenced in the performances are explored. Reviews by participants and a thorough critique by the ethnographer are also presented. A model of the interactive process operating at meetings and the impact of external and internal forces is provided. Results reveal issues not addressed in previous literature. / Special attention is given to presenting those practices found to facilitate and those impeding the collaboration process. Suggestions for improving the collaboration process and implications for practitioners are addressed. Service providers and parents will gain new insights into the process involved at meetings as well as the roles and functions of individual team members. By receiving information gathered through qualitative research methods, practitioners will be better equipped to function in their respective roles at IFSP and IEP meetings. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-10, Section: A, page: 3493. / Major Professor: Pearl E. Tait. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

The purpose of this research was to examine whether certain caregiver personality characteristics, as measured by the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator (1989), were related to caregiver beliefs about teaching practices in early childhood education settings, as measured by the Teacher Beliefs Inventory (Peters, Neisworth and Yawkey, 1985). Once the beliefs about teaching practices and the personality characteristics were identified, it was expected that there would be patterns of personality dimensions that would be more compatible with each of the beliefs about teaching practices. The study also explored whether a caregiver's beliefs about teaching practices were related to the amount of education as well as their satisfaction with working conditions. Job satisfaction with working conditions included caregiver satisfaction ratings of staffing, space and materials, activity organization, and schedule. / Participants were 167 child caregivers from early childhood programs in Orange and Seminole counties in Florida. Caregivers were attending paraprofessional training classes. In summary, the present study suggests that for the caregivers involved in this study: (1) There were no significant relationships between personality characteristics and beliefs about teaching practices. A personality characteristics profile emerged of caregivers as being extroverted, preferring to learn from concrete information, basing decisions on affect rather than logic, and preferring a high degree of structure. (2) There were significant differences between caregivers' levels of education and their beliefs about teaching practices. When caregivers had more education than a high school diploma/GED, they had stronger beliefs about cognitive/developmental and maturationist/socialization teaching practices. This did not hold true for the cultural training/behaviorist beliefs about teaching practices. / Another result worth noting is that caregivers of children under three had the least amount of education and years of employment. (3) There were no significant relationships between beliefs about teaching practices and levels of job satisfaction. As a group, the caregivers were moderately satisfied. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-03, Section: A, page: 0465. / Major Professor: Belen C. Mills. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.

In 1986, Congress passed Public Law 99-457, part H, providing for a statewide, comprehensive, multidisciplinary program of early intervention for handicapped, developmentally delayed, and at-risk infants, toddlers, and their families. The professions of special education, audiology, medicine, nursing, nutrition, occupational therapy, physical therapy, psychology, social work, and speech-language pathology are required to participate and be trained in interdisciplinary programs to the extent feasible. / A four round, fifteen month, Policy Delphi study was conducted to develop consensus on discipline specific competencies for early childhood/special educators and interdisciplinary competencies for all early interventionists. A Design Monitor team representing each profession and parents provided an ongoing reliability and validity check and helped with cultural/linguistic issues between disciplines. Delphi panelists included national and Florida University and direct caregiver infant experts from the ten professions, parents, anthropologists, and policy makers. Nine hundred and fifty six individuals were invited to participate; 613 met the criteria and elected to participate in one or more Delphi rounds. Participation by round ranged from 576 in round 1 to 284 in round 4. / The knowledge base was found to be interdisciplinary with discipline specific competencies representing a few areas of increased specialization. Other major findings included: (1) a list of 21 discipline specific competencies for early childhood/special educators; (2) a list of 149 interdisciplinary competencies; (3) a list of service delivery settings and technical competencies for them; (4) a new measure to differentiate between professions, "level of knowledge or skill"; and (5) cultural and linguistic issues between professions. Greatest consensus was found in the competency areas of typical and atypical development, people/communication skills, confidentiality, and working with families from varied cultures and economic conditions. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-12, Section: A, page: 4017. / Major Professor: Charles H. Wolfgang. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1990.

The purpose of this study was to test the effects of a one-to-one interactive read-aloud intervention on the emergent storybook reading and verbal abilities of low socioeconomic status kindergarten children. Twenty-two reader-facilitators were trained in interactive read-aloud. Four children were randomly selected from the lowest third of the SES groups in each of twenty-two kindergarten classes. The children were pretested and posttested using the Verbal Scale of the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities and the Sulzby Observation of Emergent Storybook Reading. The children in the intervention group were read to on an individual basis over a period of ten weeks. All read-aloud sessions were audiotaped for further analysis. A 2 x 2 x 2 design using ANCOVA analysis was conducted using the appropriate pretests as covariates. A significant effect was found for both emergent storybook readings and verbal abilities (p $<$.01) Analysis of the audiotapes showed no significant increase in either the number of questions answered or asked by the children during the read-aloud sessions over the period of intervention although the number of words spoken by the children increased significantly. This was attributed to their active involvement with the stories being read; reading along, repeating familiar refrains and lines. An affective rating scale completed by the reader-facilitators after each read-aloud session also showed an increase in the children's enjoyment of the read-aloud sessions and the stories over the period of intervention. Based on these findings, it was concluded that one-to-one interactive read-aloud has a positive causal relationship on a kindergarten child's improved emergent storybook reading and increased verbal abilities / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-10, Section: A, page: 3196. / Major Professor: Charles Hall Wolfgang. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1989.

This study explored the relationship between school quality and the degree of parent involvement. The measures of school quality consisted of 21 variables representing four categories--student achievement, learning environment, student characteristics, and school input. The measures of parent involvement consisted of five parent involvement categories--in-home parent-child interactions, parent-teacher interactions and communications, parent-school interactions and communications, and parent participation in school. / Data consisted of parent involvement data gathered through surveys of teachers and parents of children involved in a longitudinal study, school quality data, and focus group data. / Due to the exploratory nature of the study, the data was analyzed using canonical correlations analysis and multiple regression analysis. Eight school quality variables were selected (based on factor analysis) to represent the four categories--percentage of students above the median national percentile for reading scores on achievement tests, percentage of students who were expelled from the school, percentage of students who received out-of-school suspensions, percentage of students on free/reduced lunch status, percentage of teachers with 4-9 years of experience, percentage of teachers with 0-3 years of experience, expenditure per student, and percentage of teachers with advanced degrees. / Results indicated that school-level reading achievement scores, school-level poverty, school-level discipline problems (out-of-school suspensions), and teacher experience were related to the parents' ratings of parent involvement. These relationships were positive for school-level reading and school-level poverty and negative for school-level discipline problems and teacher experience. / Significant positive relationship between school-level reading achievement scores and teachers' ratings of parent involvement was also identified. In addition, teachers' education levels (advanced degrees) and school-level discipline problems (out-of-school suspensions) were positively associated with the teachers' ratings of parent involvement. / This study implies causal relationships among parent involvement and school-level reading achievement, school-level poverty, and school-level discipline problems (out-of-school suspensions), and expulsions. A direct positive relationship between the teachers' specific parent involvement training and parent involvement is also suggested. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-03, Section: A, page: 1008. / Major Professor: Virginia P. Green. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1996.

The Education for Handicapped Children's Act, re-authorized in 1986, mandates special education and related services for all children with handicaps, ages 3 to 21. Perhaps the most confusing aspect of the law involves the interpretation of providing health related services required by children with disabilities. The law has created, in theory, a partnership between parents and professionals in sharing their specialized knowledge and collaborating in implementing services. / The study, conducted in a preschool class for children who had a range of handicapping conditions, used a qualitative strategy. It began with an interest in (a) how school personnel use health and medical information in the performance of their specialized roles and (b) the processes staff use in developing a shared understanding of the information and a coordinated course of action for individual children. The inquiry, however, expanded to include the critical role parents play in brokering information between the medical system and the educational system. / Findings from this study indicate that the lives of children with handicaps are managed by three different social systems: family, medical, and education. Each of these social environments has its own purpose, structure, rules, and perceptions. Communication between the three systems frequently is very difficult because all three are simultaneously but independently involved in assessment, diagnoses, prognoses, developing plans, and establishing outcome measures. Three factors contribute to the ease of communication and coordination between the systems: (a) a definitive etiology of the child's handicap; (b) a definitive diagnostic label of the handicapping condition; and (c) the degree to which the handicap is visible. The study was conducted in a a preschool class for children who have a range of handicapping conditions. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-12, Section: A, page: 4087. / Major Professor: Pearl E. Tait. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1990.

The effects of visual and auditory stimuli on the movement behavior was explored with pre-school children. 52 children, age 3 to 5 years, were divided into four groups. Each group performed a dance activity, two subjects at a time, under the following conditions: group 1-music/mirror, group 2-no music/mirror, group 3-music/no mirror, and group 4-no music/no mirror. The activity involved a mimicked dance (there was an adult modelling the dance movements) and an independent dance (the subjects danced by themselves, making up their own dance). The music groups danced to Hap Palmer's "Let's Dance" and the "Jig" from The Little Mermaid Soundtrack. Results indicated significant differences in on-task behavior (highest for no music/mirror and music/no mirror), and in rhythmic movement (highest in music conditions). Statistical differences were not found for mimicked movement or for the movement behavior in the independent activity. The experimenter concluded that young children have difficulty processing more than one sensory stimuli, simultaneously, in a new movement activity. Further research involving practice, and other populations is discussed. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 31-01, page: 0023. / Director: Jayne M. Standley. / Thesis (M.M.)--The Florida State University, 1992.