Early Childhood Education Commons^™

Teachers Of General Education: Perceptions And Experiences Teaching Inclusion In U.S. Schools, Ann C. Sander

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

This phenomenological qualitative study explored the perceptions and experiences of a group of U.S. public schools, kindergarten through fifth grade teachers, certified in general education with experience teaching inclusion--a federally mandated practice requiring schools to educate students both with and without disabilities in the same classroom. Much of the literature surrounding inclusion focuses on the perceived benefits of the program and children with disabilities' legal rights. The literature has a limited number of references describing the perceptions and experiences of teachers who are required to provide the educational services necessary for inclusion in the classroom.

In this study, 35 participants …

How Hearing Parents With Deaf Or Hard Of Hearing Children Construct Deafness Through Their Early Intervention Experience, Bettie T. Petersen

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

This dissertation explores how hearing parents with deaf/hard of hearing children come to understand deafness. This mixed methods study used an online survey and multiple case studies (volunteers from survey). Participants were asked about early intervention experiences and beliefs about deafness. The survey had 74 respondents and five families participated in the interviews. Survey participants’ beliefs about deafness were primarily medical, focusing on the perceived barriers caused by deafness and the remediation of those barriers through spoken language options. A small number of respondents adopted a cultural perspective of deafness and focused on remediation of barriers through involvement in the …

Longitudinal Study Of The Relations Between Corporal Punishment And Children's Aggression: The Mediating Role Of Self-Regulation, Jeremy T. Armijo, Cara Streit, Ryan J. Kelly, Ashley Martin-Cuellar

Individual, Family, and Community Education ETDs

The current study looked to expand on established literature on the detrimental outcomes of corporal punishment by examining the long-term longitudinal associations between corporal punishment and children’s aggression in gender and racially diverse, low-income samples. Data were collected from 17 sites across the United States, with urban and rural locations included from an Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project (EHSREP). Lastly, the study aimed to look at self-regulation as a mediator to help explain the relationship between corporal punishment and aggression. The results show an overall positive association between corporal punishment and aggression. This means higher levels of harsh …

Examining Parental Perceptions And Experiences Regarding Social Skills Interventions For Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Mary Jimerson

Special Education ETDs

ABSTRACT

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their families often engage in various interventions to address social skills as this is a core area of development and often described as a challenge for individuals with ASD. Although interventions may vary in service delivery and the interventionists’ training and background, all encompass social skills interventions. The purpose of this study was to conduct a qualitative investigation to explore the experiences and perceptions family members had while their child participated in social skills interventions. Five family members participated in this study which included a questionnaire and an individual interview. Qualitative analyses …

Adults Perspectives Of Friendships And Social Interaction Between Students With And Without Complex Support Needs During A Pandemic, Jorden Morales

Special Education ETDs

Social interactions and friendships are important for all individuals including those with complex support needs (CSN). The voices of adults including parents/guardians, primary caregivers, teachers, and related service providers who responded to a survey provided insight into supporting social interactions and friendships for children with CSN during the Covid-19 pandemic This mixed methods study used thematic analysis to explore participants’ responses to open-ended questions while multiple choice questions were analyzed through descriptive statistics. Additionally, this study included a research narrative to speak to the various roles I hold related to this study (i.e., parent, educator, researcher). Three themes emerged from …

Effects Of Inclusive Social Skills Training On Preschoolers, Lauren E. Weiss

Special Education ETDs

Social interventions for children with disabilities are generally conducted in small groups and outside of the classroom; therefore, little is known about inclusive and classwide social interventions in early childhood educational settings. This study evaluated the effects of inclusive social skills training (ISST), a program delivered remotely to inclusive preschool classrooms via direct instruction, video modeling, rehearsal, and feedback, to teach social skills. Educators rated preschoolers' social skills in a nonequivalent pretest-posttest design and evaluated the social validity of ISST. I examined the differences in scores. A significant interaction effect was detected in the program group between abilities. Overall, educators …

Mothers’ Satisfaction With Childcare Choices And Its Links To Family Involvement And Community Support, Hadeel Shamlan Al-Essa

Individual, Family, and Community Education ETDs

This study examined mothers ’reports on types of childcare arrangement for a preschool-age child, levels of mothers’, fathers’, and relatives’ involvement in childcare at home, maternal satisfaction with childcare arrangement, the influence of socioeconomic status and social support on mothers ’satisfaction with childcare arrangement, and the nature of mothers ’affection, responsiveness, encouragement, and teaching behaviors during mother-child play sessions. The sample consisted of 130 New Mexico mothers from two-parent families with a preschool child. A subsample of four mothers was selected for collecting data on mother-child play interactions through a 10-minute observation session. Analyses suggested that mothers were the primary …

Writing, Researching And Reading Bilingual, Regional Children's Literature, Anna M. Nogar Phd

LAII Events

Do you remember reading or being read children's books? Were they about leyendas y mitos, historias or places you had been near home? ¿Was there a vaivén between languages? In this talk, Dr. Anna M. Nogar will discuss the research involved in creating illustrated, bilingual books with a regional focus for children; how such books are written; and what is involved in their reading for young audiences. Teaching and working with current students in an online undergraduate class on "La vida juvenil bilingüe" in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Dr. Nogar shares that experience and helps us think about …

The Guardian Interviews Maryam Ahranjani: When Kids Are Threats: The Assessments Unfairly Targeting Students With Disabilities, Maryam Ahranjani, Ike Swetlitz

Faculty Scholarship

His story should motivate district officials to re-evaluate their use of threat assessments, said Maryam Ahranjani, a law professor at the University of New Mexico. As currently practiced, she said, the assessment process can unfairly ensnare many students. “It’s treating them as if they are criminals without them actually engaging in criminal activity.”

Learning Statistics Through Guided Block Play: A Pre-Curriculum In Statistical Literacy, Robert P. Giebitz

Organization, Information and Learning Sciences ETDs

Learning to use data to investigate the world and make decisions has become an essential skill for all citizens. Play and curiosity are powerful motivators for learning. Inquiry – the process of asking questions and seeking answers – can engage the natural curiosity of young learners and motivate early learning. Recent research in statistics education has shown that children as young as 4 and 5 years old can learn to collect, organize, and interpret data they acquire through observation, counting, and measuring in a process of guided inquiry. Guided block play has been used for over 100 years to enable …

Social Interventions For Young Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review Of Research, Lauren E. Weiss

Shared Knowledge Conference

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) face a variety of barriers in social, communicative, and behavioral functioning. In particular, children with ASD have deficits in social behavior that decrease opportunities to socialize and develop peer relationships (Kroeger, Schultz, & Newsom, 2006). A child’s early development of social skills has been linked to successful school adjustment and academic achievement while preschoolers with poor social behavior experience peer rejection, low academic achievement, and behavior problems (McClelland & Morrison, 2003). I conducted a systematic review of research on interventions that provided positive social outcomes for young children with ASD. Results from this study …

The Critical Need For Mental Health Education To Be Mandated In New Mexico's Public Schools, Bonnie L. Murphy

Shared Knowledge Conference

Based on a review of research and best practices in mental health awareness and skills, this inquiry project argues for state legislative policies that would require mental health awareness and skills in the K-12 curriculum. Mental health affects individual accomplishments in every stage of people’s lives beginning in early childhood and throughout the life cycle. Prevention and treatment of mental illness plays a key role in the ability of an individual to cope with loss and develop resiliency and perseverance in challenging times and to make better decisions that improve the individual’s life and the lives of those around them. …

The Heart Of K'E: Transforming Dine Special Education And Unsettling The Colonial Logics Of Disability, Sandra Yellowhorse

American Studies ETDs

This paper takes up the roles of ideology and spatiality as they impact Diné students and learners in understanding conceptions of normativity, neuro-diversity and bodily variance. I am concerned with how the movement and creation of Indigenous schools and their praxis still maintain and often times produce settler colonial ideologies of being, personhood, difference and ability. I illustrate the challenges that Diné planners and educators face in entrenching cultural knowledge and language into their educational initiatives, while some of the problematic manifestations and expressions of normativity present themselves through state polices, federal law and mainstream curriculum.

I focus on the …

Readiness Differences Of Urban And Rural Children, Robert Ray Stallings

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relation of certain pre-school environmental factors to the pupil's readiness for first grade instruction and to determine what relation obtains between urban and rural children when equated according to these factors. Data and conclusions bearing on the relationship between readiness and the following factors are presented: (1) Age of the child. (2) Parents education. (3) Parents occupation. (4) Parents economic condition. (5) Pre-school association with other children. (6) Literary influences in the home. (7) Travel.