Early Childhood Research Quarterly最新文献

In the United States, caregivers and educators who work with children under 5 face low wages and limited workplace supports, creating significant challenges to their emotional and financial wellbeing. These conditions are worse for teachers of the youngest children, ages birth to two. This study uses a large (N∼ 400) sample of early educators from Louisiana to explore the link between wellbeing, defined as depressive symptoms and food insecurity, and two key outcomes, the quality of teacher-child interactions and teacher turnover. We explore these relationships overall and separately by the age of child served. Findings suggest that depressive symptoms are linked to teacher turnover among teachers working with children of all ages, and negatively linked to teacher-child interactions for teachers of preschool-aged children only.

This qualitative study explored how kindergarten teachers talked about their experiences implementing tablets in their classrooms as part of a district-wide one-to-one device initiative. Fourteen kindergarten teachers from six schools within a large urban school district shared their personal reflections and contributed to rich focus group conversations about the varied opportunities and challenges they had experienced. Data analyses highlighted two overarching themes illustrating teachers’ conversations around tablets: structural formats and perceived barriers and challenges they encountered. Within these two broad categories, we identify five major themes and provide a rich description of the teachers’ storied accounts. Results from our study provide evidence that large-scale device implementation in early childhood classrooms requires training and support that goes beyond how to use the devices themselves and develops teachers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK). Findings also suggest that developing a clear technology plan as well as identifying classroom resource needs are important steps in planning a large-scale one-to-one device initiative in early childhood classrooms.

Infants and toddlers frequently participate in either center- or family-based childcare programs. However, little is known about the efficacy of early learning interventions introduced in these two types of programs, in particular family-based programs. The present work builds upon findings of a recent experimental trial demonstrating that a 20-week infant-toddler intervention supporting center- and family-based teachers to be more explicit and intentional in their interactions had a significantly positive effect on targeted child outcomes. In this follow-up paper, we conducted secondary analyses exploring effects of the intervention across the two contexts, center- and family-based programs. Analyses showed that the social validity of the intervention was generally high in both settings, but even higher in family-based than center-based programs. Findings also showed that teachers in both types of programs implemented the intervention at a satisfactory level, but family-based teachers tended to implement more small-group activities and had more conversations with individual children. There were no differential impacts on child outcomes across the two contexts, except for an overall significant spill-over effect on the outcome of empathy within center-based care. Finally, we found that the intervention had positive effects on teachers’ use of counting and math activities in both types of programs.

Internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems place children at an increased risk for low academic achievement and socioemotional maladjustment. Children's language skills and level of emotional reactivity have been shown to predict behavioral problems later in development. Yet, there is an absence of research investigating vocabulary by negative emotionality interactions with respect to the development of behavioral problems during early childhood. Our study sought to fill this gap by examining whether the relation between preschool (age 3) vocabulary size and internalizing/externalizing problems during the early school years (age 6) is moderated by preschool negative emotional reactivity, even after controlling for preschool behavioral problems as well as children's socioeconomic background. Longitudinal data was collected from 256 typically developing children (129 girls, 75% White) and their mothers (64% held a college degree). Linear regression analyses revealed moderate rank-order stability in children's internalizing and externalizing problems across this period of development. Evidence of an interaction effect emerged in both the internalizing and externalizing problems regression models. That is, age 3 vocabulary was negatively related to age 6 behavioral problems, but only among children exhibiting higher levels of negative emotional reactivity. Our results indicate that early vocabulary acquisition may serve as a buffer against adverse behavioral outcomes in children with a natural propensity toward expressing negative emotions. These findings point to a more nuanced picture of the relations between language, emotional reactivity, and behavioral problems in childhood, which are discussed in greater detail to inform future intervention and educational research.

Fathers and family-level characteristics are understudied but potentially impactful contributors to at-risk outcomes for deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children who use spoken language. We investigated associations between paternal parenting stress, paternal self-efficacy for supporting language, and executive function (EF) development in DHH children and children with typical hearing (TH). Main and moderating effects of the coparenting relationship were also investigated. TH fathers of DHH children (n = 44) and TH children (n = 46) completed the Parenting Stress Index-4-Short Form, the Scale of Parental Involvement and Self-Efficacy, and the Coparenting Relationship Scale. Child EF was assessed via the Behavior Rating Index of Executive Function. Regression analyses revealed that paternal parenting stress was significantly associated with child EF difficulties regardless of child hearing status. Coparenting undermining moderated relations between paternal parenting stress and child difficulties with inhibition in the full sample. Coparenting undermining was associated with greater child difficulties with set-shifting for DHH children only. Paternal parenting stress represents a possible risk factor for child EF development, particularly in families with higher levels of coparenting undermining. DHH children might also be susceptible to adverse coparenting relations. Fathers of DHH children have previously been shown to be less involved and integrated during intervention, and a better understanding of the important contributions fathers have to child development could lead to novel, father-embedded intervention models.

In the present study we examined the contributions of transcription and foundational oral language skills to written composition outcomes in a sample of kindergartners. Two hundred and eighty-two kindergarten students from 49 classrooms participated in this study. Children's writing-related skills were examined using various tasks. Latent structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesis that transcription moderates the relation between foundational oral language and compositional productivity and quality for kindergarten writers. This hypothesis is one possible manifestation of the Developmental Constraints Hypothesis (DCH). In support of the DCH, transcription had a strong constraining effect on both composition quality and productivity. Additionally, transcription moderated the relation between foundational oral language skills and composition quality, although the moderation was negative. There was no signification moderation of transcription on the foundational oral language -composition productivity relation. Implications of the findings and future directions are discussed including challenges assessing composition in young, beginning writers.

The present study investigated the direct effect of pattern understanding on Chinese word reading, and the indirect effects via metalinguistic awareness. Participants were 138 children (73 boys, mean age = 59.60 months at the first wave of assessment) recruited from four kindergartens in Hong Kong. They were assessed twice with an interval of 14 months. In the first wave of assessment, which took place in the spring term in the second year of kindergarten, children were assessed regarding pattern understanding, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and orthographic awareness. Working memory, spatial visualization, and receptive vocabulary were also assessed as control variables. In the second wave, which took place at the end of the third kindergarten year, Chinese word reading was measured using two tasks, i.e. single-character word reading and double-character word reading. Results of a multivariate multiple regression showed that pattern understanding made a unique contribution to subsequent Chinese single- and double-character word reading independently of spatial visualization, working memory, vocabulary, and demographic variables. Results of the mediation model showed that the unique effects of pattern understanding were mediated by phonological awareness. The direct effect of pattern understanding remained significant on Chinese double-character reading. The findings highlight the importance of pattern understanding in Chinese word reading for Chinese kindergarten children.

Childhood trauma impacts most children in the United States, with exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) like abuse, neglect, or witnessing violence linked to negative outcomes across the lifespan. Early childhood education (ECE) programs, such as therapeutic preschools, that utilize two-generation approaches to services have demonstrated proven benefits for children with trauma exposure; however, less is known about the impact of ACEs on early childhood program engagement and retention. The current study, set in a two-generation therapeutic preschool program, examined 173 pairs of primarily Latinx parents and children to understand in what ways parent and child ACEs, coupled with family contextual risks like homelessness and child welfare involvement, impact program engagement for children with trauma histories. Results indicate that children whose parents had an elevated ACE score (four or more trauma experiences) were more likely to terminate ECE participation early compared to children whose parents had less cumulative trauma. Families with parents and children who both had high ACEs were over six times more likely to terminate program participation early. However, once accounting for early termination, ACEs had minimal impact on ECE engagement. These findings highlight the need for ECE programs to consider the whole family at entry and target early retention efforts towards families with greater cumulative trauma histories.

The past two decades of research have underscored the concerning use of exclusionary discipline in early childhood education settings and the need for professional development to support educators to use evidence-based practices. Existing professional development, such as coaching and infant/early childhood mental health consultation, are effective but pose implementation challenges due to time and resource demands. The need for scalable, cost-effective professional development that focuses on social and emotional development and challenging behavior is higher than ever. Short, online, self-paced courses (what we refer to as “micro-courses”) are one approach to addressing these challenges. In this paper, we examine initial evidence for how a micro-course can support in-service early childhood educators to learn and use evidence-based universal strategies to support positive behavior, which may indirectly reduce exclusionary discipline. We leverage quantitative and qualitative data from 25 educators who piloted the course in spring 2022 to report on early childhood educators’ engagement and satisfaction with the micro-course and whether educators report any changes in their knowledge or practices. We found that early childhood educators actively participated in the micro-course, found the experience useful and relevant, and reported changes in their knowledge of and comfort with positive behavior support practices as a result of participation. This study can inform future policy, practice, and research efforts to equitably support children's positive behavior, prevent challenging behavior, and eliminate exclusion in early childhood settings.

Exclusion from early care and education (ECE) programs creates employment challenges for families and disrupts learning for children, often differentially impacting children placed at-risk due to income, race, and disability. Federal policy guidance and changes in the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Block Grant requirements are meant to influence states to create policies that will both regulate and prevent disciplinary exclusions, especially suspension and expulsion. We present a national census of states’ CCDF plans, center-based child care licensing regulations, and state pre-K policies addressing suspension and expulsion. Using content analysis methodology, we evaluate the presence of key policy components of suspension and expulsion prevention including data collection, parent/family involvement in the process of exclusions, accessing community resources, and the use of developmental information to inform the use of exclusionary discipline. Our results indicate that expulsion and suspension policies vary widely both across states, and within the same state's subsystems. The component found most frequently across all subsystems is an expulsion policy, with noticeable variation in specifying and defining suspension. Our findings also point to a great deal of variance in policy alignment, with pre-K including the most information on expulsion and suspension policies and prevention. As state-level policymakers seek to adopt policies that reduce exclusion in ECE, our findings point to a need to consider the importance of creating policies that protect children, especially those over exposed to exclusionary discipline, and then aligning those components within and across ECE subsystems to promote equitable access to ECE. This is particularly important for low-income families, Black children, children with disabilities, and boys.