Promoting Children’s Social-Emotional Learning Through Early Education: Piloting the Pyramid Model in Victorian Preschools

The Pyramid Model (PM) is an evidence-based, early educational framework designed to promote all young children’s social-emotional-behavioural (SEB) learning. The tiered PM early education practice framework, developed in North America, embeds strategies for children with exceptional needs naturally and coherently integrates apparently divergent approaches to promoting young children’s SEB skills. Responsive teaching, which is fundamental to early education practice, is shown to link with positive behaviour support practices by means of incidental and planned intentional teaching. These early education PM practices are intended to promote children’s SEB skills when used together purposefully, consistently, and intensively. The PM’s potential application in Australia was investigated with 4–5-year-olds in 4 Victorian preschools. Quantitative data from the study suggested that after training and subsequent coaching in the PM, there was significant change in intervention educators’ behaviour, which was independently observed and rated using the Teaching Pyramid Observation Tool. Concurrently, the SEB skills of the children in the intervention groups were shown to have developed at a significantly greater rate than the children in the contrast groups as assessed using the Social Skills Improvement System Rating Scales.

Coaching Early Childhood Special Educators to Implement a Comprehensive Model for Promoting Young Children’s Social Competence

Growing evidence suggests the importance of practitioners implementing promotion, prevention, and intervention practices to foster children’s social-emotional competence and address challenging behavior within schools. Limited research exists, however, on how to support teachers of school-age children to implement with fidelity comprehensive frameworks that organize promotion, prevention, and intervention practices, and even fewer studies have examined implementation within early childhood classrooms. In this study, three teachers were trained and coached to implement promotion, prevention, and intervention practices related to the Teaching Pyramid Model. Findings from the present single-subject multiple probe across teachers’ experimental study offer evidence of a functional relationship between training and coaching and implementation of practices associated with the model. Results are discussed with respect to challenges related to supporting teachers to implement with fidelity a complex and comprehensive array of evidence-based practices and the critical importance of coaching.