BACKGROUND: Little is known about preschool parents' cognitions, barriers, supports and modeling of key obesogenic behaviors, including breakfast, fruit and vegetable consumption, sugary beverage intake, feeding practices, portion sizes, active playtime, reduced screen-time, sleep and selection of child-care centers with characteristics that promote healthy behaviors. METHODS: Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine these factors via survey and focus groups among 139 parents of 2- to 5-year-old children. Standard content analysis procedures were used to identify trends and themes in the focus group data, and Analysis of Variance was used to test for differences between groups in the survey data. RESULTS: Results showed 80% of parents ate breakfast daily, consumed sugary beverages 2.7 ± 2.5SD days per week, and had at least two different vegetables and fruits an average of 5.2 ± 1.8SD and 4.6 ± 2.0SD days per week. Older parents and those with greater education drank significantly fewer sugary drinks. Parents played actively a mean 4.2 ± 2.2 hours/week with their preschoolers, who watched television a mean 2.4 ± 1.7 hours/day. Many parents reported having a bedtime routine for their preschooler and choosing childcare centers that replaced screen-time with active play and nutrition education. Common barriers to choosing healthful behaviors included lack of time; neighborhood safety; limited knowledge of portion size, cooking methods, and ways to prepare healthy foods or play active indoor games; the perceived cost of healthy options, and family members who were picky eaters. Supports for performing healthful behaviors included planning ahead, introducing new foods and behaviors often and in tandem with existing preferred foods and behaviors, and learning strategies from other parents. CONCLUSIONS: Future education programs with preschool parents should emphasize supports and encourage parents to share helpful strategies with each other.

The present study explored the relationship between indirect and direct assessment of preschoolers' emergent literacy skills. Subjects were 207 preschool-aged children, ranging in age from three to five years old who attended either the Mailman Segal Institute (MSI) Family Center, a private preschool comprised of children from primarily upper middle-class homes, or Jack and Jill Children's Center, a publicly subsidized preschool. Indirect assessment of the children's emergent literacy skills was gathered through the completion of the Teacher Rating of Oral Language and Literacy (TROLL) and a modified version of the Pupil Rating Scale (PRS). Direct measurement of the children's emergent literacy skills was obtained through multiple assessments including the Get Ready to Read! (GRTR!),the standardization version of the Preschool Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (Pre-CTOPP), and the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Abilities (WJ IIII COG) and Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement (WJ III ACH). Overall, results revealed a moderate positive correlation between indirect assessments and direct assessment of emergent literacy with higher teacher ratings on the TROLL and modified PRS correlated with higher scores on the direct assessment measures. When comparing the two preschools, results revealed inconsistent relationships between direct and indirect assessment of emergent literacy skills depending on which assessment measure was utilized.

There are many difficulties associated with problematic social-emotional skills in childhood. These range from poor academic performance (Brinbaum, et al., 2003; Delany-Black et al., 2002; Wallach, 1994), school suspension (Lippincott-Williams & Wilkins, 2004), school drop-out (Farmer & Farmer 1999; Gagnon, Craig, Trombley, Zhou, & Vitaro, 1995), aggression (Cicchetti & Toth, 1995), and poor peer relations (Izard et al., 2001; Schultz, Izard, & Ackerman, 2000; Schultz, Izard, Ackerman, & Youngstrom, 2001). Preschool programming provides an early opportunity to build social-emotional skills and avoid some of these adverse outcomes. The question for many school districts is how to design a preschool program format that is both consistent with best practice and fits within a feasibility framework. The goal of this research study was to provide information that could be used by school districts to guide preschool program development. The study looked at the differential outcomes on dependent measures of social-emotional functioning for children aged 3 to 5-years who participated in an 8-month preschool program (n=74). The children were in 2 treatment groups (i.e., those receiving a classroom-based social skills intervention and those receiving the classroom intervention plus a home-based intervention) and a non-treatment control group. The groups also differed in group membership. The treatment group children met a criterion such as having a diagnosis or low socio-economic status. The control group consisted of children who met these same criteria, but also had members who were invited by teachers or attended based on parent request. Therefore, the control group was more heterogeneous than either treatment group. The implications of this study for school districts developing a model for preschool programming are discussed. In addition, the limitations of this study as well as potential directions for future research are reviewed.

Thesis (B.Sc)--University of Hong Kong, 1993. / "A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Science (Speech and Hearing Sciences), The University of Hong Kong, April 30, 1993." Also available in print.

Embedded teaching procedures have become a recommended practice and a commonly implemented teaching strategy in early childhood classrooms. Embedded teaching is characterized by instructions and feedback regarding target skills being delivered within child-initiated activities during varied and typical routines. Although embedded teaching strategies have been widely adopted, little research has been conducted on the critical elements of embedded teaching. The purpose of this project is to determine the relative efficacy of and child preference for different embedded teaching conditions that vary in the rate of embedded teacher prompts. Three preschool aged children experienced three teaching conditions 1) Dense Condition (four embedded prompts per min were programmed), 2) Lean Condition (one embedded prompt per min was programmed) and 3) Control Condition (no embedded prompts). The relative efficacy of the teaching conditions were evaluated within a multielement design while a concurrent chains procedure was implemented to directly assess each child's preference for the teaching conditions. The dense and lean embedded teaching strategies were equally efficacious for teaching preschool children food name relations and the participant's preference assessment results were variable across the three participants. One participant showed a preference for the control condition, and the other two participant's preference was variable between the three conditions. The importance of choice making and using evidence based teaching strategies in preschool environments is discussed.

No description available.

The goal of this thesis was to determine the influence of genetic and environmental effects on the development of internalizing problems. Internalizing problems affect millions of children and include problems such as depression, anxiety, and somatization. Temperament is a genetically-based factor that has been shown to influence the development of internalizing problems; specifically reactive temperaments. 5-HTTLPR is a serotonin transcription gene that has also been shown to affect internalizing problems. Parenting is an environmental factor that may influence many factors in children’s lives, including internalizing problems. This thesis examined the effects of parenting, reactivity, and 5-HTTLPR, alone and in interactions with one another, on internalizing problems in preschool-aged children. Further, this thesis proposed that the differential susceptibility model might fit the data, in that children with reactive temperaments or the 5-HTTLPR risk allele might show a differential response to parenting. This study was conducted using a sample of 220 twins and triplets who had previously participated in the Southern Illinois Twins/Triplets and Siblings Study (SITSS). The children’s parents completed the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) to determine internalizing symptoms at age 5. Buccal cells were collected at two ages, and a parent-child interaction was conducted at age 5 to assess parenting behaviors. Temperament was also examined via parent-completed questionnaire at age 4, using the Child Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ). One important finding of this study was the significant effect of reactivity on internalizing problems. Further, non-positivity in parenting interacted significantly with 5-HTTLPR risk sum. There was a trend toward significance for the interaction between ineffective parenting and 5-HTTLPR risk allele presence or absence. These interactions indicated that the children without the risk allele actually showed the most differential response to parenting, with fewer internalizing problems when parenting was more positive and more internalizing problems when parenting was less positive. Children with the risk allele had a minimal response to parenting in terms of internalizing behaviors. Overall, the results of this study indicate that reactivity is a significant predictor of internalizing problems, and that the 5-HTTLPR gene may moderate this effect. Further studies should be conducted on this subject to further examine the effects parenting and genes have on the development of internalizing problems.

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka hur lycka upplevs av förskolebarn.  Individuella intervjuer gjordes med 26 förskolebarn (73% pojkar) mellan 4 och 5 år, med hjälp av en semistrukturerad intervjuguide. Tidigare forskning har visat på att lycka har många delar så som kärlek, välbefinnande, tillfredställelse, god hälsa och att lycka skulle kunna vara något större så som meningen med livet. Materialet analyserades med stöd av ICF-CY och resultatet visade att barn upplevde lycka när de kände sig delaktiga i ett sammanhang. Omgivningsfaktorer, så som att barnen fick något av materiell karaktär samt familjekontexten har också betydelse om barn känner sig lyckliga. Barn ville känna sig delaktiga, ha en stabil omgivning och kärleksfulla nära relationer. Denna studie bidrar till att belysa barns egen uppfattning av just begreppet lycka samt ger kunskap som bidrar till att kunna upprätthålla barns chans att få känna lycka. Vidare forskning skulle vara att undersöka om olika personlighets typer  har olika uppfattning om lycka.

Inquiry skills in young low-income children may be an important point of intervention for promoting school readiness and later academic achievement. The current study aimed to investigate and measure the inquiry skills of low-income preschoolers. In a newly-designed, game-based assessment (the Inquiry Game), children were instructed to ask questions to determine a target picture among an array of pictures varying by color and object type. Asking constraint-seeking questions that use color and object type to eliminate multiple pictures is a more efficient strategy (and thus evidence of greater inquiry skills), in comparison to asking about a specific picture. One hundred and sixty Head Start preschoolers’ inquiry skills were assessed using the Inquiry Game at three time points. Data on children’s problem solving, math, language, and literacy skills were also collected to examine concurrent and predictive validity of the measure. Results revealed that asking about one picture at a time was the most popular strategy at all time points; however, children asked more efficient questions in the winter and spring when compared to performance in the fall. Analyses revealed a relationship between inquiry skills and vocabulary, verbal reasoning, and matrix reasoning ability. Results, as well as future directions, are presented and discussed.

Marginal zinc deficiency (MZD) exists in children of industrialized societies and can impair growth and development. Presently there are no data available on its global prevalence. It is believed that MZD is one of the most common hidden deficiencies throughout the world. This is partly because of the lack of sensitivity and specificity of serum zinc, the most commonly used biomarker of zinc status, to detect MZD. This deficiency in children is always accompanied by a decrease in hair zinc. Although in research settings hair zinc is a recognized biomarker of MZD in children, health practitioners do not presently use it. These cross-sectional studies were designed to examine the hair zinc status of preschoolers in Vancouver. They also aimed at exploring some dietary and non-dietary factors associated with hair zinc status in an attempt to construct and validate a screening tool for detection of MZD. Our first study indicated a mean hair zinc of 75��30 ��g/g, with 46% below the cutoff (<70��g/g) for a group (n=87) of low-income preschoolers (Chapter II). Among these children we observed negative associations between the hair zinc and consumption of dairy (R�� =0.09, P=0 .01) and milk (R�� =0.08, P=0.01), being described as "often sick" (R�� =0.55, P=0 .00) and "eating unhealthy" (R�� =0.16 P=0.00), and prolonged breastfeeding (R�� =0.11, P=0.01). Our citywide survey (n=719) indicated a mean hair zinc of 116��43 ��g/g with 17% below the cutoff (Chapter III). Logistic regression analysis indicated sex, age, maternal education, the number of adults at home, consumption frequency of milk, "scores of activity level", "being described as frequently sick" and "taking supplements containing iron" as the significant predictors of hair zinc status. However, the final model had 16% sensitivity while having 98 .3% specificity, indicating its lack of usefulness as a screening tool. Our study provides important information on the hair zinc status of Vancouver preschoolers. Although we did not accomplish our primary goal of constructing and validating a screening tool, we did identify some factors in children and their environment associated with hair zinc, which may help in better understanding of hair zinc as a biomarker of MZD.