Leveraging Joint Planning in Early Intervention: Documenting with Intentionality and Specificity

A family-capacity building approach to coaching, where providers support caregivers to embed identified strategies into daily routines and activities, is commonly embraced in Part C Early Intervention (EI). EI providers use several coaching strategies within this approach, yet few studies have reported process features, and coaching strategies are not well defined in the literature. We partnered in this Participatory Action Research (PAR) with current EI providers engaged in a year-long self-study process to provide an empirical account of one coaching strategy, joint planning, and related documentation. Our results indicate both providers and caregivers view documentation of joint planning as beneficial, highlight supports and challenges, and suggest that joint planning documentation holds significant promise for improving practice, data-based decision making, and progress monitoring of child and family outcomes including changes in caregiver capacity.

Impact of Challenging Behavior on Marginalized and Minoritized Caregivers of Children With Disabilities

Challenging behavior (CB) is a common occurrence in early childhood and frequently occurs in young children with disabilities. CB is also culturally perceived and includes differences in how caregivers understand and define the topography of CB. Despite the cultural interpretation, CB is known to impact the child and their family but there has been little exploration of what marginalized caregivers perceive as the impact of the CB that their young children with disabilities exhibit. We used semi-structured interviews to explore the perceptions of 24 caregivers, who identified as Black, Mexican American, and White, about the impact of their child’s CB. Caregivers shared how the CB impacted themselves, their families, their child, and others. Although much of the impact was similar among caregivers, we discuss nuanced differences across ethnic groups.

Implementation of Developmental Screening in Early Childhood Education: An Investigation of Process Variables and Acceptability

Many children with developmental delays need early intervention services but do not receive them. Developmental screening provides the impetus for identification of delays and service referrals but is not used consistently across all early childhood education settings. We used an implementation science framework to examine attitudes and engagement in a developmental screening program across three early childcare centers. Teachers demonstrated adequate knowledge of screening following training in the screener and were highly engaged in the screening process. Teachers’ positive attitudes toward screening increased yet perceived barriers to regular use of screening in their practice remained unchanged. Family participation in the screening process varied across centers and suggested a trend between family income and participation. Future research is needed to target pervasive barriers to teachers’ use of screening, such as perceived difficulties in engaging parents in the screening process.

Understanding Families’ Experiences Raising Young Children With Challenging Behavior Through an Ecological Lens: A Qualitative Meta-Synthesis

Raising a young child with challenging behavior can have a significant impact on families’ well-being and family functioning. Despite advancements in the field, there is a paucity of research focused on effective ways to address their unique experiences. This qualitative meta-synthesis aims to identify the needs of families with young children who exhibit challenging behavior to inform more robust and responsive family-centered practices. Using a constant comparative approach, we used axial coding to examine six studies involving 49 families and a critical appraisal approach to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, based on recommendations articulated by the Cochrane Collaboration. We determined that six major themes were most salient: (a) the family system, (b) families’ self-concept, (c) families’ capacity, (d) families’ social and emotional needs, (e) families’ experiences with professionals, and (f) families’ initial concerns. Our findings indicate that studies were conducted with acceptable rigor and all studies established credibility and trustworthiness of their results. The importance of family-centered practices, parenting interventions, and addressing the mental health needs of families are discussed.

Iterative Design and Pilot Implementation of a Tiered Coaching Model to Support Socio-Emotional Teaching Practices

We used an iterative process to design the Tiered Coaching Model (TCM) to support preschool teachers’ implementation of the Pyramid Model. In the TCM, teachers are matched to one of three coaching tiers based on their observed classroom practices, individual characteristics, and preferences. Coaching tiers included self-guided coaching, small group coaching, and individual coaching. We describe TCM model development and two field tests exploring its potential usability and effectiveness. In Field Test 1, the model was tested with 16 lead preschool teachers. Focus groups and teacher feedback informed systematic model revisions. In Field Test 2, we gathered preliminary findings from an additional 24 teachers. All teachers across coaching tiers and field tests increased their use of Pyramid Model practices while engaging in the TCM, providing promising evidence for wider demonstrations and future rigorous evaluations of the model.

A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Relation Between Engagement and Achievement in Early Childhood Research

Engagement in early childhood has been linked with later achievement, but the relation between these variables and how they are measured in early childhood requires examination. We estimated the overall association between academic engagement and achievement in children prior to kindergarten entry. Our systematic literature search yielded 13,521 reports for structured eligibility screening; from this pool of studies, we identified 21 unique data sets, with 199 effect sizes for analysis. We coded eligible studies, extracted effect sizes, accounted for effect size dependency, and used random-effects models to synthesize findings. The overall correlation between academic engagement and achievement was r = .24 (range: −.08 to −.71), and moderator analyses did not significantly predict the relation between the two constructs. This study aligns with previous research on this topic and examines issues related to these measures, their constraints, and applications as they pertain to early childhood research.

Sampling Engagement in Shared Reading Activities With Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Generalizability Study

Researchers seeking to make valid conclusions about engagement for young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) must first determine the reliability of estimates obtained across the conditions sampled. Working from that premise, we conducted a secondary data analysis of shared book readings between caregivers and their children with ASD, examining the contribution of measurement error on estimates of four states of child engagement. Caregivers read two different book types, each three times, with their children. With book type and occasion as measurement facets, we conducted a generalizability study and a series of decision studies. With the interaction of Persons × Book Type × Occasion contributing most measurement error for four engagement variables, we only found stable estimates for unengaged behaviors. For the variables of active engagement, visual engagement, and disruptive, four, five, and more than 10 book types, respectively, were necessary to obtain stable estimates across two occasions.

Exploring Features Within Organizational and Cognitive Factors That Predict Variability in Estimates of Classwide Active Engagement

Adopting an “act-in-context” approach is helpful to researchers investigating situational variability in children’s active engagement in preschool classrooms. Aligned with this approach, we propose an empirical pathway and a conceptual model to support examinations of contextual factors hypothesized to impact active engagement as well as the means by which adults promote it. We defined two overarching factors—cognitive and organizational—and explored the predictive nature of seven features within them. With video recordings from 31 classrooms (inclusive and self-contained) of three instructional routines on three different occasions, we derived averages for classwide active engagement during each observation. A series of linear mixed effects models revealed that instructional routines significantly predicted variability in classwide active engagement as did interactions of other contextual features with instructional routines. These findings provide a foundation for continued, systematic examinations of situational factors and conceptualizations of engagement within carefully specified pathways for improving active engagement.