Children with disabilities might experience multiple transitions during their early years. One important transition that occurs for many children with disabilities or developmental delays and their families is the transition from Early Intervention (EI) to Early Childhood Special Education (ECSE) services at three years of age. The stress of this transition may be exacerbated for families of young children with disabilities as the shifts between services involve many choices and decisions depending on the child’s level of need. Effective transition procedures for children with disabilities sets the stage for future positive or negative transition experiences and optimal learning experiences in the school setting. The study of transition is multifaceted and researchers, as well as professionals, attempt to understand the complexities of the transition experiences of young children with disabilities and their families. There is a common assertion in the literature that providers assist in the transition by providing environmental supports and involving families in transitions, yet provider perspectives and specifics of how they are involved in transition is mostly absent in studies about transition. Some researchers suggest that little is known about how relationships between families and service providers, which often begin during the transition between systems, are established. The purpose of this study is to investigate the common practices that EI professionals engage in during the EI-to-ECSE transition, and the perceptions of EI professionals during the EI-to-ECSE transition focusing on determining which actions, policies, and procedures contribute to make the experience a positive one for all of those involved. The research questions are answered through two focus groups and two interviews with Early Intervention providers in the Southern part of Illinois. The major themes that emerged are related to professionalism, working within the EI system, and supporting families. EI providers discussed their roles, staff shortages, schedules and funding, parent education, and collaboration. Implications and future research are discussed.

<p> This study investigates parental health literacy and parental health seeking behavior for pediatric primary care utilization as a response to childhood obesity among 220 parents from 12 Head Start and Non Head Start preschools in New Castle County, Delaware. Four paper surveys collected data with the Newest Vital Sign, STOFHL-A, a Parent Survey, and Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS). Green and Kreuter's 2005 Precede-Proceed model is applied to an original logical model for determining a need for a preschool health literacy intervention to inform better child health outcomes. Results indicate that low-income, minority families, have fewer health books at home, which is associated with lower parental health literacy, higher child BMI, and more health care referrals for managing childhood obesity. Nutritional health literacy scores are lower among Hispanic parents who are Head Start participants. Black parents who are Head Start participants had significantly lower parent functional health literacy. Head Start programs offer more parent health education and twice the rate of referrals for the same level of health seeking behavior as Non Head Start parents. Health seeking behavior was lower overall for Black parents from the Head Start program. Further study should explore cultural notions and family characteristics associated with lower pediatric health care utilization in relation to both health literacy scores and health care referrals. </p><p>

<p> The qualitative multiple case study adds to the previous research regarding the orientation thoughts, context, and understandings of teachers, parents, and prekindergarten administrators when investigating parental involvement in prekindergarten. Teachers in preschools are encouraged to find ways to involve parents for higher levels of student achievement. To address the needs of improving parent participation in prekindergarten, teachers and administrators need parent information on their willingness to participate or not. In order for a school to change strategies, staff members of the organization need to understand the problem which may motivate the need for change. In this study, teachers, parents, and administrators among three prekindergarten programs share their thoughts, beliefs, and views to define the problem of parental involvement in prekindergarten. The research questions asked: Why are some parents more involved than others with their children in prekindergarten? How do parents perceive influencers which invoke their involvement? How does prekindergarten curriculum drive parent engagement? The qualitative multiple case study will aid in understanding parent perceptions about effective actions taken by schools to improve the performance of prekindergarten children. The prekindergarten stage for children includes emotional and developmental challenges that can impose hardship during kindergarten entry and beyond. </p><p>

<p> There is a distinct need to understand subjective well-being for neurodivergent students in early childhood. Review of previous literature suggests the positive influence of subjective well-being in mitigating psychological distress; however, young children have been excluded from these investigations. Therefore, this study employed an advanced mixed methods research design, through which a convergent core was embedded within an overarching quasi-experimental framework to analyze three key outcomes in early childhood education: (a) self-identified conceptualizations of student covitality, (b) self-evaluated levels of student covitality, and (c) teacher-rated levels of executive dysfunction. </p><p> All students actively enrolled in a local partner school serving pre-Kindergarten to 2nd grade (<i>N</i> = 45) participated in qualitative and quantitative evaluations of covitality. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured focus groups, and quantitative data were collected through student ratings on the Social-Emotional Health Survey-Primary (Furlong, You, Renshaw, O&rsquo;Malley, &amp; Rebelez, 2013). Qualitative findings suggested students conceptualize covitality as positive school experiences along a developmental trajectory across five themes&mdash;play activities, classroom instruction, school environmental factors, interpersonal relationships, and special programs. Quantitative results determined excellent internal reliability of the covitality scale for early elementary 1st- and 2nd-grade students (Cronbach's &alpha; = .908). </p><p> Two classrooms were randomly assigned to the waitlist control (<i> n</i> = 14) or intervention (<i>n</i> = 10) condition&mdash;1st- and 2nd-grade, respectively. A novel positive psychology intervention was designed and tested to promote covitality. Implementation of strategically targeted practices supported the underlying factors of gratitude, zest, optimism, and persistence. </p><p> Additional quantitative data were collected through teacher ratings of cognition on the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function, Second Edition (Gioia, Isquith, Guy, &amp; Kenworthy, 2016). Intervention effects indicated a statistically significant interaction for improved executive functioning relative to the waitlist control group (<i>p</i> = .011). Integration of qualitative and quantitative results produced preliminary evidence of categorical advancement in a dual-factor clinical classification system and distinctions in varied and nuanced conceptualizations of well-being constructs over time. Synthesis of qualitative, quantitative, and integrated findings highlighted the value of design-based research generally, and the <i>Student Strengths Safari</i>^&copy; program, specifically, to establish a dual-factor model of educational well-being (EdWB) for optimal student development. </p><p>

<p> The purpose of this study is to identify the complex features of writing intervention of Graduate Student Clinicians (GSCs) for children with Language and Learning Difficulties (LLD) upon the qualitative research paradigm. To do this, verbal and non-verbal interactions, a total of two hours 18 minutes and 44 four seconds and a total of 2,170 turns of the four writing sessions of the two dyads, were video-taped, transcribed, and encoded depending on the contexts, purposes, and strategies. </p><p> The complexity in the process of writing by the two dyads was revealed and compared in terms of the activities of turns exchanged and time allocated in the two GSCs&rsquo; strategies for writing intervention and the two children&rsquo;s responses throughout the writing sessions. The findings of this study indicate the two dyads demonstrated two distinct interactional features in verbal and non-verbal behaviors in terms of whether GSCs were concentrated on process or products, and they used different strategies for verbal and non-verbal intervention. The responses of children with LLD revealed in the overall dynamic features of writing sessions were greatly influenced by the GSCs&rsquo; verbal and non-verbal strategies. </p><p> The child in Dyad One in which GSC-One focused more on implicit and symmetric process-oriented mediations successfully engaged in various writing activities while the child in Dyad Two in which GSC-Two focused on explicit asymmetric product-oriented mediations tended to be confused while less effectively engaged in the verbal and non-verbal interactions. The conclusion was made to emphasize that the transferability of GSCs&rsquo; writing interventions strategies into the writing process of children with LLD, and the importance of training future Speech Language Pathologists by allowing them understand their roles in the process rather than the results of writing.</p><p>

<p> Early childhood education (ECE) teachers often lack the experience and skills to provide children with supports necessary to foster academic and social skill development. Professional development can improve ECE teachers&rsquo; skills, but ECE trainers often lack understanding of adult learning principles, known as andragogy. Knowles&rsquo; conceptual framework of andragogy was used to explore the knowledge and use of andragogical principles of 8 ECE trainers selected via criterion-based purposive sampling. The research questions focused on ECE trainers&rsquo; knowledge and use of andragogical principles. Three cases, each consisting of 2 or 3 live professional development trainings for early childhood educators, were used in this study. Data sources included (a) observations of ECE trainings, (b) semi-structured interviews with ECE trainers, and (c) content analysis of ECE training materials. Thematic analysis revealed that although participants were not formally trained in andragogy and were unfamiliar with the associated verbiage, most had a strong grasp of andragogy and used andragogical principles to drive the development and presentation of their training materials. The 3 main themes that emerged were (a) lack of training/background in andragogy, (b) training strategies employed, and (c) training design. Findings from this study provide an original contribution to the limited existing research on the professional development of early childhood educators and expand the existing body of research on andragogy. This study contributes to social change by revealing that trainers may benefit from formal andragogical training, which may then improve the education provided by ECE teachers to young children.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to investigate teacher&rsquo;s roles and children&rsquo;s responses during small group read aloud with fiction and nonfiction literature in one preschool classroom. This instrumental case study draws from three theoretical orientations: sociocultural theory, reader response theory, and the emergent literacy perspective. Two preschool teachers and 19 children were video and audio recorded as they participated in small group read aloud events that occurred during choice time in their classroom twice per day. Transcripts of interviews and small group read aloud sessions were analyzed. Analysis included open coding, axial coding, and constant-comparative techniques to reach data saturation.</p><p> Research findings suggest that teachers employed similar and different scaffolding and modeling strategies when reading fictional and nonfiction literature, differentiated instruction for younger and older children, as well as responded aesthetically to fictional stories and efferently to nonfiction texts. Children utilized a range of meaning making strategies and responded both aesthetically and efferently to both types of text. Older children served as peer models for their younger classmates.</p><p> This study has several implications. Future research should investigate read aloud with fiction and nonfiction literature with different populations of teachers and children, repeated readings of nonfiction literature, and large versus small group read aloud in preschool. Implications for preschool teachers include careful selection of fiction and nonfiction literature, employing additional reading strategies for nonfiction, differentiating instruction for younger and older preschoolers, and reading across the efferent-aesthetic continuum with both types of text. Preschool administrators should make reading instruction with fiction and nonfiction texts a priority. Early childhood teacher education faculty can support preservice teachers&rsquo; capacities to read fiction and nonfiction literature with children.</p><p>

<p> This qualitative study explored the lived experiences of elementary school teachers who were engaged in teacher-coach partnerships to discover the influence of instructional coaching on the teaching practices of elementary school teachers. Data were collected through interviews, classroom observations, and a compilation of documents and artifacts. The findings are discussed through the three main themes that emerged from the analysis of qualitative data and interpretation. The three main themes that described how instructional coaching influences the teaching practices of elementary school teachers were: (a) relationship building, (b) self-reflection and goal setting, and (c) coaching perceived as evaluative rather than individualized professional learning. </p><p> Overall, the factor acknowledged by all participants as being the most influential in making instructional changes to their teaching practices was the importance of building relationships with an instructional coach. This study adds to the body of literature regarding instructional coaching and the influence instructional coaching has on teaching practices.</p><p>

It has been well established in the literature that the acquisition of literacy presents a significant challenge for most students who are deaf or hard of hearing (Allen, 1986; Babbini &amp; Quigley, 1970; Holt, 1993; Lane & Baker, 1974; Marschark, Lang, & Albertini, 2002; Moog & Geers, 1985; Traxler, 2000; Trybus & Karchmer, 1977). Vocabulary, which has been identified as one of the critical skills necessary for reading (NRP, 2000), is an area of language acquisition in which students with hearing loss demonstrate particular weakness (Davey & King, 1990; Gilbertson & Kamhi, 1995; LaSasso & Davey, 1987; Paul & Gustafson, 1991; Paul & O'Rourke, 1988). The Montessori Method uses Seguin's three-period lesson as a way to introduce new words to students. The individualization provided by the three-period lesson, as well as the simplicity of language and lack of feedback involved all hold potential benefit for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. While little research has been conducted on the book choices of students, King and Quigley (1985) demonstrated that text difficulty is less important when students have a high level of interest in a book. In theory, increasing student interest in a book by using it in book share sessions and teaching some of the unknown words may make that book more accessible to students. The current study examined the impact of book share sessions, as well as two different types of vocabulary instruction on the book choices and word learning of students. Six students from a first-grade classroom in a school serving students who are deaf participated in this study. A mixed-model design with alternating treatments employing the framework of qualitative analyses and single-subject design was used. The dependent variables were book choice and long-term retention of vocabulary items. The independent variable was the type of vocabulary instruction. While the data showed no impact of any intervention on participants' book choices, five of six participants retained more words taught to them using the Montessori Method than those taught to them using traditional direct instruction. The study also demonstrated the efficiency of the Montessori Method in teaching vocabulary as compared with direct instruction that included verbal feedback and tangible reinforcement.

I conducted two experiments to test the effects of the acquisition of conditioned reinforcement for observing adult faces and conditioned reinforcement for listening to adult voices on rate of learning and attention to the presence of adults using a delayed multiple probe design across participants and behaviors. In Experiment 1, two participants with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) participated and the dependent variables were: (1) learn-units-to-criterion across speaker and listener programs based on 1000 learn units respectively (2) attention to the presence of adults prior to and following pre- and post-intervention probe sessions. The independent variable was the acquisition of conditioned reinforcement for observing the human face and the acquisition of conditioned reinforcement for listening to adult voices using the conjugate stimulus-stimulus pairing protocol. In Experiment 2, there were four participants in this study diagnosed with ASD. The dependent variables were learn units to criteria across speaker and listener programs, observing responses, and verbal operants emitted by the participants across three settings. In Experiment 1, the results showed Participant A's rate of learning accelerated after the first intervention and decreased after the second intervention. Participant A's attention to the presence of adults increased after the first intervention and slightly decreased after the second. For Participant B when the acquisition of conditioned reinforcement for faces and conditioned reinforcement for listening to voices were in repertoire rate of learning and attention to the presence of adults accelerated. In Experiment 2, the results indicated that the acquisition of conditioned reinforcement for observing adult faces and/or voices increased rate of learning, attending to adults present in the environment, and verbal operants for all four participants.