Early Childhood Education Commons^™

Practice Elements Delivered By Teachers To Support Children Who Display Challenging Behaviors In Business-As-Usual Early Childhood Settings, Navneet Kaur

Theses and Dissertations

Approximately 15-25% of children ages 3 to 5 years in early childhood settings display chronic challenging behaviors that increase their risk for developing an emotional and behavioral disorder. The early onset of emotional and behavioral disorders has long-term negative implications for these children. Therefore, it is vital to address these problems early on. One approach is through teacher-delivered practices (i.e., specific strategies, such as praise) and programs (i.e., manualized interventions that contain a collection of practices) in the classroom. Some practices and programs have shown positive outcomes for children. However, when practices and programs do not outperform business-as-usual group (BAU), …

Discovery: A Visual Arts Elementary School, Cindy J. Perdomo

Theses and Dissertations

On average, school-age children spend more time in the classroom environment than they do at home. Why not provide environments that stimulate children’s curiosity to learn through visual arts? Including visual arts in educational programs can enhance students’ cognitive development, problem-solving abilities, cultural awareness, and critical thinking skills.

As someone who has attended various public schools in Florida, I’ve found that incorporating arts education into the curriculum can enhance students’ overall engagement with learning. Unfortunately, many students lack access to arts education due to a lack of funding and resources. Traditionally, the arts have been viewed as an opportunity for …

Arts Integration Experiences Of Elementary Educators, Amy E. Jefferson

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine how elementary teachers applied their professional learning to integrate arts in the classroom. The research questions guiding the study included: (1) What content, skills, and understandings do teachers transfer from professional learning to practice? and (2) How do teachers navigate the implementation of arts integration? Knowles' (1978) Adult Learning Theory was used to examine how meeting the needs of teachers as adult learners during professional learning influenced the implementation experience.

A case study design employing qualitative data collection methods such as focus groups, individual interviews, and the sharing of artifacts from practice …

Caregiver's Nicu Experiences And Its Impact On Services, Crystal L. Hence

Theses and Dissertations

Having a child spend time in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit is documented as a stressful experience for caregivers. Previous literature documents caregivers’ difficulties navigating the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, showing that this problem has persisted for close to 20 years. Early Intervention can provide benefits to infants born prematurely, who may be more at risk for developmental delays and since the goal of Early Intervention is to provide services that help families in their daily lives, it has benefits for caregivers as well. Yet, Early Intervention enrollment remains low across the state of Virginia. This study using a qualitative …

Effects Of A Parent-Implemented Intervention On Preschool Children’S Engagement In Constructive Play In Home Settings, Michelle Lynn Boulanger Thompson

Theses and Dissertations

Constructive play is a creative process-oriented activity that promotes engaged learning through building and designing with materials. This study explores a parent-implemented intervention to promote active engagement in constructive play for preschool-aged children who are at risk for developmental delay and answers the research question: Do parent-implemented environmental support strategies improve the child’s active engagement in constructive play in the home? The research methodology utilized is a single-subject multiple baseline across-participants design with four participants. Visual analysis of the data supports a functional relation between the temporal, physical, and social-emotional environmental supports provided by the parents and the children’s active …

A Psychometric Evaluation Of The Best In Class Adherence And Competence Scale, Katrina A. Markowicz

Theses and Dissertations

It is critical to utilize treatment integrity instruments to support the evaluation of evidence-based programs in early classroom contexts. However, in the early childhood field, guidelines for collecting treatment integrity data are underdeveloped. Consequently, most treatment integrity instruments employed in the field solely assess adherence, vary in design features and have little psychometric evidence supporting their use. As such, this represents a gap in the field that might slow efforts to implement evidence-based programs. The current study examines the score reliability and validity of an observational treatment integrity instrument (The BEST in CLASS Adherence and Competence Scale [BiCACS]; Sutherland et …

Language-Supportive Strategies And Their Associations With Child Language Outcomes During Instructional Time, Erin S. Wallace

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I conducted a correlational study that examined the frequency of educator-delivered language-supportive strategies during instructional time in public Kindergarten classrooms. Additionally, I explored the association between educators’ use of language-supportive strategies and child language outcomes. To index child language, I assessed a sample of 96 children from 10 different classrooms on standardized measures of expressive and receptive language. I recruited 10 educators to participate in the present study and assessed their use of language-supportive strategies during instructional time in the classroom through transcription and coding of audio recordings. The educators completed demographic forms for themselves as well …

Sensory Substitution, Key To Inclusive Learning, Fathima Z. Zahir

Theses and Dissertations

Visually impaired students, in primary education, encounter unique challenges while learning creative skills, exploring artistic expression and developing problem-solving skills, because so much instructional content is delivered visually. Sensory substitution—an approach that replaces visual information with feedback from other intact senses like touch, sound, taste or smell—provides an opportunity to address those challenges.

Through the use of sensory substitution, this thesis proposes concrete ways to capitalize on the enhanced abilities of visually impaired primary school students. The research outcome of this thesis is a system of templates that puts these enhanced abilities to work for visually impaired students, to support …

Effects Of Practice-Based Coaching Intervention On Preschool Teachers’ Responses To Black Boys’ Negative Emotion Expression, Evandra Catherine

Theses and Dissertations

Current research indicates that caregivers’ responses and behaviors to young children’s emotion expressions communicate messages that teach young children how to understand, label, recognize and modify emotions in socially desirable ways. This process is referred to as emotion socialization. This topic is timely and relevant due to the large numbers of preschoolers suspended and expelled each year. Several reports indicate that 50,000 preschoolers are suspended each year and that Black boys are the largest recipients of such actions. Black boys comprise just 19% of preschool enrollment, but 45% of male suspensions. In addition, data show that preschool teachers expect challenging …

Parent-Implemented Communication Intervention For Preschool-Aged Children With Autism, Heather M. Coleman

Theses and Dissertations

Exploring the interventions that promote expressive, verbal language for preschool-aged children with autism is essential. When a child is lacking the ability to communicate, parents express that they would like their child to speak. B.F. Skinner (1957) proposed that the mand repertoire (communicative requests) should be an initial focus of language training. Mand training has been shown to be effective for teaching children with autism to communicate. However, many studies exploring mand training utilize highly trained instructors for intervention implementation. Early childhood best practices recommend the use of family-centered interventions and teaching within the natural environment. This study followed these …

Understanding The Expressive Cartoon Drawings Of A Student With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Michael S. Collins

Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on the highly expressive comic drawings of Amy, a child with autism. This study connects larger fields of research: the study of how people with autism spectrum disorder [ASD] process faces and emotions; and, research about artists with ASD. Amy's understanding of emotion was analyzed by asking her to view and identify humans and cartoon characters expressing different emotions. Her ability to illustrate emotion is tested by asking her to respond to various drawing prompts. The study concluded that Amy has difficulty identifying the emotions of humans and cartoons, but she does have the ability to illustrate …

Read-In Arts, An Liu

Theses and Dissertations

As interior designers, we strive to design everything for our clients, from complex environments to the joinery of a chair. We rarely consider inviting our clients or the users to join us in finishing the space.

Read-In workshop is not a school, but a kind of home, a home belonging to children, which provides the possibilities for children to play, to learn, to occupy, to personalize, and to share. An emotional space that will not limit the user, but keep inspiring them. It helps children notice, think, and grow.

Half of the interior space will be a fixed design, designed …