Young children are being exposed to violence at an alarming rate. Many societal issues have changed over the last three decades since Head Start began, including an increase in violence. According to Beyond the Blueprint: Directions for Research on Head Start's Families (Phillips & Cabera, 1996), violence is a major issue which should be studied to determine Head Start's role. Head Start parents were surveyed in 1996 to determine (a) how they teach their children non-violence, and (b) how they would like Head Start to support them. Surveys were analyzed and served as the basis for developing interview questions for a separate group of parents in 1997. Interviews were conducted with Head Start parents to determine (a) how their child is exposed to violence, (b) coping methods parents use when their child is exposed to violence, and (c) what parents think Head Start's role should be regarding violence. Interviews were analyzed and recommendations regarding Head Start's role are discussed.

<p> The affective domain of loneliness is an essential creative force in children's lives. Unwanted solitude, although disparaged in our culture, is a theme that takes center stage in stories. This study explores the ways in which Loneliness as an active archetypal presence operates in positive ways in children's imaginations as revealed by children's literature, folklore, film, and myth. The isolated orphan or banished outsider lost within the wilds of narrative <i>makes</i> and enriches her emergent world using the tools of the body, imagination, and voice. Utilizing the modalities of visual art, dramatic play, and lyrical storytelling, inventive companions and elaborate landscapes are constructed which succeed in soothing and expanding the child's psyche.</p><p> Employing the archetypal psychology approach, this study imagines (and personifies) Loneliness as the youngest of three sisters: Solitude, Aloneness, and Loneliness. Although these three siblings share similar genetic traits and are woven together in countless tales, Sister Loneliness stands apart as a unique archetypal actor. She is far more restless and angst-ridden than her sisters. Dissatisfied with her companionless state, she holds within her a yearning&mdash;the desire/<i>eros</i>&mdash;to construct a new cosmology filled with inventive possibilities. This dissertation qualitatively describes these vast and varied universes.</p><p> In conjunction with an analysis of well-known (and lesser-known) children's stories, the research examines Loneliness's real-world creations in the classroom and therapeutic settings, including children's drawings, sand play constructions, stories, and poetry. Further areas of focus are the role of the adult in solitary geographies, the gendered-base response to loneliness, and the transitional object as a vital compass on the path towards individuation.</p><p> Key Words: loneliness, creativity, children's literature, child development, folklore.</p>

<p> The purpose of the study is to evaluate if the effectiveness of a check-in, checkout (CICO) intervention varies based on the function maintaining students' target behaviors as determined by functional analyses prior to the implementation of the intervention. Participants in the study consisted of 6 children enrolled in general education Kindergarten classes across 6 teachers in the Southeastern United States. Upon completion of a functional analysis, participants were determined to fit into functional groups (i.e., combined attention and escape, attention, and escape), then a modified between groups design with a component of a multiple-baseline across participants design was completed. Overall, the current study found that the CICO intervention increased desired behavior as measured by points earned on the daily behavior report card ratings across baseline to intervention phases. All functional groups displayed an increase in average points earned from baseline phase across intervention phases. The results of the current study have implications within the educational systems for selecting interventions within the response to intervention framework, utilizing functional analysis for the CICO intervention, and acceptability of evidence based interventions. Limitations and recommendations for future research are presented.</p>

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.