Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of West Florida, 2009. / Submitted to the School of Education. Title from title page of source document. Document formatted into pages; contains 121 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

<p>The current study sought to examine certified child life specialists&rsquo; perspectives on supporting siblings of infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The intent of the study was to identify the types of support available, barriers to offering support, the individuals who offers support and the effectiveness of interventions by certified child life specialists with siblings of infants in the NICU. Sixty-eight certified child life specialists were surveyed regarding their work supporting siblings of infants in the neonatal intensive care unit. Results support previous literature suggesting that there are many barriers to offering support to siblings in the hospital, including: staff availability, space constraints, funding, and visitation policies. In addition, results demonstrated that provided supports still vary widely from hospital to hospital and certified child life specialists are the individuals who are most likely to offer support when it is available. Furthermore, the certified child life specialists surveyed view their interventions with siblings of infants in the NICU as effective or very effective. In conclusion, these findings support the need to increase the presence of certified child life specialists in the NICU in order to adequately meet the psychosocial needs of siblings. </p><p> <i>Keywords</i>: certified child life specialists, child life interventions, siblings, neonatal intensive care unit, NICU </p>

<p> Infancy and toddlerhood is an important time for the development of emotion regulation, with interactions between parents and children critical to these processes. Negative parenting behaviors can have a deleterious impact on this development; however, for infants and toddlers in child care, the classroom environment, including teacher-child interactions, provides an important setting for emotional development and may serve as a protective factor when parenting risk at home is high. The aim of the three papers presented in this dissertation was to explore the potential for child care to act as a protective factor for infants and toddlers experiencing different dimensions of parenting risk that threaten emotion regulation development: minimal sensitivity and support, harsh and intrusive behaviors, and physical abuse and neglect. Results confirmed the negative impact of unsupportive, harsh, and intrusive parenting behaviors on emotion regulation, but child care was either insignificant in mitigating these effects or operated as a buffer for certain children only. Additionally, a review of the extant literature suggested that understanding the optimal caregiving experiences in child care that meet the unique regulatory needs of maltreated infants and toddlers is limited. Collectively, implications of these findings include the need to ensure measurement validity when assessing children&rsquo;s experiences within child care, the importance of considering the interactive nature of child, parent, and child care factors, and the pressing need for more research regarding child care teachers&rsquo; roles in facilitating emotional experiences in the classroom that meet the unique regulatory needs infants and toddlers facing risk at home.</p>

In recent years, a central focus of the field of early intervention/early childhood special education has been to investigate ways to effectively support young children with challenging behavior and their families (Center for Evidence-Based Practice: Young Children with Challenging Behavior, 2003; DEC, 1999). Positive behavior support (PBS) is one of the most promising evidence-based practices for young children with challenging behavior and their families. The central purposes of PBS are to both help people develop and engage in socially desirable behaviors and to help minimize patterns of socially stigmatizing responding (Koegel, Koegel, and Dunlap, 1996). Research documenting the utility and applicability of PBS with preschool-aged populations remain scarce, particularly within natural environments (e.g., Blair, Umbreit, and Eck, 2000; Duda, Dunlap, Fox, Clarke, and Lentini, 2004; Moes and Frea, 2000). Several gaps in the research remain, including studies incorporating natural intervention agents, natural settings, and studies measuring technical aspects of behavior change (e.g., maintenance). Though studies of maintenance may be difficult to execute, they may provide researchers with a greater understanding of which factors in the change process are most critical to successful implementation, as well as to enhance the goodness of fit between specific plan components and the ecology in which implementation occurs (Albin, Lucyshyn, Horner, and Flannery, 1996). The purpose of this research study was to first assess the relationship of support plan components to behavior change, and then systematically fade the functional components, reducing the plan to naturalistic strategies that may be easy for the family to use over time. Results indicated each of the three child participants consistently maintained low levels of challenging behavior and high levels of engagement within each routine, despite the fact that clear functional relationships among individual intervention components were not attained. Procedural fidelity data indicated that intervention components were both implemented by the mother on a consistent basis and were easily adapted into natural family routines over time.

For young children, a primary component of social competence is establishing effective interactions with peers during play. To inform the development of practices that promote this competency starting in early childhood, quality assessment measures are needed. These instruments must have the capacity to establish linkages between the home and school as well as utilizing multiple informants. A promising early childhood assessment measure is the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale (PIPPS), which is a rating scale created with parent and teacher versions. Previous research has established its validity for preschoolers from among various populations. The purpose of this study was to examine the validity of the PIPPS system in a population of preschool children, by investigating: (1) the concurrent validity of parent and teacher versions of the PIPPS and a standardized assessment measure of social competence (PKBS-2 Social Skills Scale); (2) the relationship between teacher/parent ratings and child gender; (3) the relationships between the teacher and parent versions of vi the PIPPS; and (4) the predictive validity of teacher and parent ratings on the PIPPS and PKBS-2 with level of communication between the two parties. To meet inclusion criteria, teachers and parents had to have contact with preschool students ages 3-5 years enrolled in a preschool classroom for at least 4 months, and who were proficient in either English and/or Spanish. In total, across the three participating preschool centers, 50 students were found eligible to participate in this study and 32 students returned with completed packets parent rating scales (64%). Results indicated some relationship between the parent and teacher versions of the PIPPS and PKBS-2 Social Skills rating systems as well as the influence of communication level. However, there were no statistically significant findings for the influence of gender on these ratings. There were several limitations to the external validity of the results of this study. Limitations included sample bias and the use of self-report questionnaires. Implications and future directions for research are discussed.

Bilingual children represent a large population of preschool and school-aged children in the United States. Challenges may arise when the verbal community in which a child spends most of his or her time does not reinforce his or her primary language. Previous research has shown that children adjust their language to match the language of their listener (Genesee, Boivin, & Nicoladis, 1996). It is possible that having a native-language communication partner at school would improve child engagement, as measured by child mean length of utterance and quantity of child initiations. The purpose of this study is to examine whether listener language has an effect on number of child initiations and mean length of utterance. A secondary purpose is to replicate and extend previous research on children matching their language to that of their listener in Spanish-speaking preschoolers. Four preschoolers who were exposed to Spanish at home and English in their instructional setting were recruited. Their language proficiency was assessed with the preLAS and they were exposed to Spanish-speaking communication partners and English-speaking communication partners in a multielement design. Results suggest that the language of the listener had implications for amount of child initiations and mean length of utterance. This was not always predicted by the language proficiency assessment. Also, children were more likely to use their dominant language in the non-dominant language context than use the non-dominant language in the dominant language context. These results may have implications for best practices in educational settings for Spanish-speaking preschoolers.

Before entering school, children begin their science learning with their parents at home. This study proposes that parents' beliefs and actions regarding science shape their children's knowledge and skills that they then bring to school. Studying parents' beliefs about and practices with their children within the topic area of science provided insight into their influence in helping their children make sense of the world. Therefore, the purpose of this study aimed to investigate parents' beliefs about children's science learning and their actions in facilitating their children's science learning when they visited a science museum from socio-cultural perspectives. To investigate this, a qualitative case study examining nine Taiwanese parents of kindergarteners was conducted. The study was conducted in two parts. Data sources included field notes, parent interviews, and documents such as pictures of the equipment these parents bought for their children. First, through interviews with parents, their beliefs about their children's science learning were identified and examined. Four parts including parents' gendered science beliefs, parents' perceived importance of science learning, parents' beliefs about how science learning should proceed, and parents' beliefs about their engagement in science learning were found. Part two of the study examined how these nine parents' beliefs guided them in making decisions when they interacted with their children in a science museum through observations and follow-up interviews. In most cases, parents' beliefs appeared to be important resources for helping them find a proper way to interact with their children. Three issues including the person who took the lead at the family visits, the quantity of parents' intervention, and the scaffolding strategies these parents employed were found in their interactions with their children. Parents were aware of why they behaved in particular ways: because of their beliefs. Based on the findings, the researcher suggested that parents' beliefs were an important mechanism for influencing children's science learning. A seemingly simple behavior, such as letting children explore one object longer than others, might reflect what was recognized as important in their beliefs. Lastly, the implications for early childhood educators, parents of young children, and future research were provided. / text

This study explores English education in two local private kindergarten classes in Korea. The purpose of this study is to understand English education in private kindergartens in Korea by closely looking at pedagogical practices in two kindergarten classes and the insiders' perceptions of the pedagogical practices. The research questions guiding this study are as follows: (a) What are the pedagogical practices relative to English education in two private kindergarten classes in Korea?; and (b) How do the members of the two classes (i.e., the child participants, ECE teacher, and English instructors) perceive the language, language teaching and learning, and the pedagogical practices? The study was conducted as a qualitative study through the fieldwork using such methods as participant observations, interviews, questionnaires, and collection of documents and artifacts. The study took place in private kindergartens located in two separate communities in Korea. In each kindergarten, I focused on a particular class: The fieldwork in the two research sites spanned a two-and-a-half-month period, between May and July 2011. Regarding the first research question, I found that members of each class co-constructed the pedagogical practices relative to English education in a locally specific way. Within their particular context, the members of Red Class were involved in creating a caring classroom environment consisting of English lessons, learning, learners, and reciprocal relationships among them. The members of Green Class played their respective roles as leaners, ECE teacher, or English language instructors. However, many of the learners tended to care little about the English lessons or learning but all the same were sure to finish their English tasks. Regarding the second research question, the members of the two classes perceived English language, language teaching and/or learning, and the pedagogical practices based on their experiences in particular contexts. However, their perceptions, at the same time, reflected in various ways the larger culture. Red Class members tended to describe and interpret their pedagogical practices in positive ways and to consider English useful and important. Green Class members tended to talk more about their pedagogical practices with multiple voices. / text

National early childhood organizations have posited that technology tools might be used to expand young children's thinking and experiences if offered in playful ways, and organized with interactive activities that allow for individualization and social interaction (NAEYC & Fred Rogers Center, 2012). Furthermore, these organizations have argued for the need to study newer technologies such as touch-screen technologies (NAEYC & Fred Rogers Center, 2012). The purpose of this study is to examine young children's technology-related play choices and actions particularly as they occurred with touch-screen tablets in a classroom setting. The 10-week qualitative study, organized around a classic grounded theory methodology (Glaser, 1978, 1992, 1998) and conducted within a single classroom, reports the close observation and description of 14 public- school pre-kindergarten students' actions with open-ended, symbolic-play tablet apps and interactions with one another, toward building a grounded theory of children's socially situated, tablet-centered digital play. The findings of this study demonstrate how participants' play choices were situated within multiple nested social spheres, including layers of digital play, the iPad activity-center, and the classroom as organized by the teacher. Examination of children's changeable play actions and choices revealed students' use of reflexive tracking as they actively navigated between personal and social interests to engage in three types of play: sampling, experimenting, and engaging in pretense. The findings and theorized model of socially situated dual-tablet play inform the discourse on technology integration in early childhood classrooms as well as the discourse on play, particularly in regards to digital play. / text