Research has shown that at least half of children who display problem behaviour in preschool maintain these behaviour patterns when they reach school age. Without targeted intervention these behaviours may lead to an antisocial developmental pathway and problem behaviours which become increasingly entrenched and unlikely to respond to treatment. The present study had two aims, the first was to evaluate the use of differential attention as a behaviour management strategy in a preschool setting and to assess its effectiveness in encouraging prosocial behaviour in children who require extra assistance with their social development. The second was to assess the extent to which groups of Early Education teachers were able to implement differential attention during structured mat times and eating periods. This was achieved by observing both child appropriate and inappropriate behaviour and teacher attention to child appropriate and inappropriate behaviour. The study found that when teachers increased their rate of attention to appropriate behaviour to a level greater that their rate of attention to inappropriate behaviour, the child’s behaviour changed with appropriate behaviour increasing and inappropriate behaviour decreasing. Child behaviour only changed when teachers behaviour changed and was only maintained in the cases where teachers’ behaviour was maintained. One of the most significant observations in the study was the variability in implementation of the differential attention procedure across teachers and centres, leading to a number of recommendations for future research in preschool settings.

<p> Hispanic English Learners (ELs) in America are at risk of educational failure. Hispanics are the poorest, least-educated US ethnic group, making them subject to the widening educational achievement gap. When ELs are unsuccessful in school, both students and society suffer. As their population rises, many school districts, such as the Great Falls Public Schools (GFPS) (pseudonym), need strategies to improve EL education. High-quality early childhood education increases student achievement. The literature indicates that transformational leadership (TL) is vital for school success. However, TL has been explored neither for EL achievement nor in the preschool setting. This study was needed to address the problem of EL achievement and improve TL theory prediction. This study investigated whether TL practices by preschool directors, as perceived by instructional staff, predicted EL's preschool achievement. Instructional staff (<i>n</i>=146; 130 teachers and 16 master teachers) at Great Falls district's 30 preschool sites completed 194 surveys describing their site leader's TL practices. Both the leadership scores and the preschool ELs' (<i>n</i>=1,390) literacy and mathematics achievement scores were aggregated by preschool site. Regression analyses were performed using SPSS to explore the relationships between preschool directors' TL practices and EL achievement, controlling for prior achievement scores, average student age, and leader characteristics. The results indicated that Setting Directions (<i>R</i>² =.70, F (6, 22) = 8.53, p&lt;0.01), Developing People (<i>R</i>² =.70, F (6, 23), p&lt;0.01), and combined TL practices (<i>R</i>² =.69, F (6, 22) = 8.11, p&lt; .01) had a significant and positive relationship with student mathematics achievement. However, Redesigning the Organization had no significant relationship with student outcomes. In addition, no relationships between TL practices and student literacy outcomes were significant. Future studies should include both student mathematics and literacy outcomes to investigate whether transformational practices have greater impact on mathematics than literacy achievement.</p>

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Little research exists on early childhood development in Manitoba’s Francophone community. The objective was to investigate whether children in the Division scolaire franco-manitobaine (DSFM) were different from other children in Manitoba on Early Development Instrument (EDI) outcomes, when controlling for neighbourhood, family and individual factors. Using multilevel modelling, 944 DSFM children were compared to 25,950 children from other schools. DSFM children scored higher on physical health and well-being, and scored lower on language and cognitive development, and communication and general knowledge compared to other children. DSFM children living in communities with a high proportion of Francophones scored higher on four of the five EDI domains, compared to other DSFM children. DSFM children whose first language was not French had significantly lower scores on all domains. Results demonstrate the importance of developing the French language in the home and the need for the Francophone community to provide support for child development.

<p> The purpose of this study is to examine how educators are working to foster sustainability through cultivating nature awareness in young children. Data were collected in the form of qualitative semi-structured interviews, which were analyzed using descriptive and deductive coding methods. Findings were viewed through the lens of critical pedagogy and the methods and models of teaching for nature awareness, which included ecological literacy, place based education, and education for sustainable development. There were five major themes and findings that emerged from the interviews with the participants in this study: terms and definitions used, personal stories, strategies for teaching nature awareness and sustainability, barriers, and current issues. This study may benefit those wishing to begin or continue to foster sustainability through teaching nature awareness. The literature review presented in the study aims to address the gap between the practice and pedagogy in teaching for nature awareness and sustainability.</p><p> <i>Keywords:</i> teaching, nature awareness, sustainability, educators, young children, elementary, preschool, school, natural world, ecological literacy, place-based education, education for sustainable development, critical pedagogy</p>

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<p> The purpose of this comparative study was to examine the connection between the implementation of a quality early childhood program and the kindergarten readiness of prekindergarten students as measured by the Developmental Indicators for Assessment of Learning-DIAL-3. The researcher analyzed historical data obtained from approximately 40 students in the Study Site School District in the prekindergarten programs at Woodbridge Elementary School for the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 school years. </p><p> The researcher developed two research questions: a) What impact does a MODESE approved, research-based early childhood program have on the kindergarten readiness of prekindergarten students in the Study-Site School District as measured by the DIAL-3? and b) Will there be a difference in the average DIAL-3 scores of the students who did not participate in a DESE approved early childhood program and the average DIAL-3 scores for students who did? </p><p> The implementation of a high quality early childhood program, (the independent variable) was measured by the change in DIAL-3 scores on each subtest for each of the participants (dependent variable). The results were then compared to the scores of the control group, the students that did not participate in a high quality early childhood program. Using a two-tailed t-test to examine the difference between the mean scores of participating and non-participating students, the researcher found that overall there was no statistically significant difference in scores of students who participated and those who did not.</p>

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) have deficits in communication and delays in language development, but there have been few studies of their vocabulary. This study compared longitudinal parent report data from the MCDI collected for 49 children with ASD over three years with data from the MCDI norms. It focused on three aspects of lexical development: (1) change in lexical composition as evident in percentage of predicates/nominals; (2) order of emergence for predicate types and (3) predictive value of lexical variables for later grammatical development. ASD Groups were matched to typically developing group norms on total MCDI scores for each comparison. Subsequent analysis indicated: (1) no differences in the percentages of predicates/nominals for the two groups at 3 time points; and, (2) virtually identical orders of emergence for different predicate types with the exception of three meaning type categories—quantitative predicates, cognitive/affective predicates and predicates involving causal acts to change experiential states. Cognitive/affective predicates were found to come in somewhat later in ASD groups while quantitative predicates and predicates involving changes in experiential states came in earlier in ASD groups. This study also found (3) that lexical variables, especially number of predicates, strongly predicted grammatical complexity one year later, a process common in typical language development. The study concludes that lexical development in ASD follows the normal course, albeit later and more slowly. It also suggests that communication deficits in this population are rooted in challenges with social acts rather than from an inability to match meanings to words.