Research into practice: interventions for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.

This issue highlights six distinct studies. The first study examines the inclusion of literacy props and teacher mediation on the literacy behaviors of young children. The second explores the relationship of amount of talk, diversity of talk, and complexity of talk on the language acquisition of young preschool children who are learning a second language. The third investigates the processes regarding the referral, evaluation, and placement of preschool second language learners into special education programs. The fourth describes a community-based intervention to facilitate the school readiness of Latino children. The fifth provides data on a common observation tool and its relationship to classroom quality for infants and toddlers in inclusive and noninclusive classrooms. The sixth investigates the role of teacher behavior in social skills training programs for preschool children with and without disabilities. This column briefly summarizes the content of the articles and suggests implications for the research as well as future research studies.

Increasing the Literacy Behaviors of Preschool Children Through Environmental Modification and Teacher Mediation--Wayne, DiCarlo, Burts, & Benedict

Young children who enter public schools in the United States have increasing pressures placed on them regarding the acquisition of early literacy skills. Trends include the introduction of emergent literacy activities in the nation's preschools, with young at-risk children receiving specific targeted intervention. Recent efforts to promote developmentally appropriate integration of such skills in preschool classrooms have included play-based activities, addition of literacy props to the early childhood classroom, and adult mediation of play-based activities. While the addition of these literacy elements and practices to early childhood environments has recently been a focus of research, there has been little empirical research conducted that has examined how such additions influence individual children's literacy behaviors. The current study is an examination of the addition of literacy props, coupled with teacher mediation on young children's literacy development.

The context for this study was three public school preschool classrooms in an urban community in the southern United States. Each classroom incorporated a 60-minute period for children to engage in free center activities. Nine children from predominantly low-income homes were randomly selected from the three classrooms to be observed for the study. The children ranged in age from 4 years, 7 months to 5 years, 5 months. All children were considered typically developing, as assessed by the Ages and Stages Questionnaire; the group of children was made up of four African American males and five African American females. Classroom literacy environments were assessed with the Early Language and Literacy Classroom Observation (ELLCO) to determine what literacy materials should be added to the classrooms. The ELLCO was also used to develop the operational definitions of children's literacy behaviors that the researchers would observe. The specific behaviors included looking at a book, listening to a book, looking at letters or words in the environment, writing (with or without a template), manipulating a puzzle or game that includes words or letters, looking at another person writing, or not engaged.

Each classroom was considered a cohort in the multiple-baseline, single-subject design. A momentary time sampling procedure was utilized to record the behaviors of the children at the end of a fixed interval. Observers recorded literacy behaviors at five-minute intervals during a 30-minute free choice period. A child had to be engaged in a behavior for a minimum of five seconds for it to be recorded as a specific literacy behavior. Inter-observer agreement was achieved 94 percent of the time for 23 percent of the observations. The teachers were instructed not to change their behaviors during the baseline period of the intervention. During that time, no children were recorded to be engaged in literacy behaviors. An environmental modification phase followed baseline, during which literacy props were added to the classrooms and teachers introduced and modeled the use of literacy props during whole-group instruction. The teachers specifically targeted two centers each day and were specifically asked to invite children into the center, model use of the literacy prop, encourage children to use the prop, and praise children. Fidelity to the intervention was observed and ranged from 90 to 95 percent across the three teachers.

The addition of literacy props and teacher-mediated intervention prompted an increase in children's literacy behaviors during their play, ranging from 52 to 64 percent of the children's behaviors. All children demonstrated an increase in literacy behaviors. Literacy behaviors that increased the most across the three classrooms included manipulating a puzzle or game with words or letters and looking at words or letters in the environment. The least-observed behavior was looking a person writing. Participants increased their overall frequency of literacy behaviors but did not, however, increase the frequency of engagement in each type of literacy behavior.

This study suggests that careful examination of the preschool literacy environment and inclusion of props and teacher intervention can increase the literacy behaviors of preschool children who are identified as being at risk. The authors suggest that further examination of specific teacher behaviors that encourage such literacy behaviors in young children is also needed. Future research that assesses the connection between preschool and home and how emergent literacy behaviors can be increased with specific props and parent behaviors would also add to our understanding of successful emergent literacy practices.

Young Children Acquiring Second Language Vocabulary in Preschool Group-Time: Does Amount, Diversity, and Discourse Complexity of Teacher Talk Matter?--Aukrust

The rate at which young children gain vocabulary is highly variable. While a body of research has examined such variables as socioeconomic status and parental education and its relationship to children's language acquisition, much less is known about second language acquisition. The role of exposure to spontaneous teacher talk for young second language learners is relatively unexplored. Children learn language through their observations of interactions of others and by listening to talk. Recent research has suggested that children are equally good at learning vocabulary that they overhear as they are with vocabulary that is directed toward them. Children's vocabulary is influenced by the number of words that they hear, exposure to low-frequency words, and the context in which those words are introduced. A growing body of research suggests that teacher discourse in preschool is a predictor of children's later receptive vocabulary. The current study explores the relationships between lexical input in teacher talk in preschool and 1st-grade circle-time among Turkish-speaking second language learners in Norway.

The participants for this investigation were children whose first language was Turkish and who attended Norwegian public preschools. Twenty-seven children (15 boys and 12 girls) were recruited at ages 4 and 5. Children were assessed both in preschool and during their 1st-grade year. Norwegian was the primary language spoken in the classrooms. With the exception of two children, all children lived with two parents and with mothers and fathers with varying degrees of formal education. Interviews indicated that all children spoke Turkish in their homes and some Norwegian in school and with their siblings. Videotape data was collected on each child in the study, one time per year during circle time. Because formal teaching of reading skills occurs during the 2nd-grade year in Norwegian schools, only preliteracy games and tasks were included during the observed circle times. Tapes were transcribed and included only utterances in Norwegian. Children were administered the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-III, Form B (PPVT raw scores) and the Word Definition subtask of the Reynell Developmental Language Scale in both Turkish and Norwegian.

Results indicated that children had greater vocabulary skills in their home language of Turkish than in their school language of Norwegian, although vocabulary increased across time in both languages. PPVT scores were correlated with word definition scores. Maternal education was correlated with the second language measures: PPVT at ages 4 and 6 and word definition skills in Norwegian at ages 4, 5, and 6. This association was not found between maternal education and the children's vocabulary scores in their first language, Turkish. Duration of preschool attendance was not correlated with outcome measures. No significant differences were found in preschool or in 1st grade in the amount of teacher talk (density of word tokens), vocabulary diversity (density of word types), or discourse complexity (density of word types within explanatory talk).

Teachers were the primary talkers during circle time (making 60 percent of all utterances). Correlations between teacher talk and vocabulary were nonsignificant at ages 4 and 5, but significant at age 6. Specifically, teacher talk discourse complexity correlated with the PPVT in Norwegian. Regression analyses indicated that teacher talk at age 4 predicted word definition skills at age 6 (15-18 percent of the variance). Maternal education predicted 37 percent of the variance in word definition skills at age 6. PPVT scores in Norwegian at age 6 were predicted by maternal education level and PPVT scores at age 4. Teacher talk at age 6 was influenced by maternal education and PPVT scores at age 5. The results indicated that children who attended preschools in which teachers exposed them to a variety of different words, and did so often and within context, had better developed vocabularies in 1st grade.

This study suggests that there is an additive influence on children's vocabulary for children who are learning a second language. Teacher talk during the preschool years demonstrated predictive influence on children's vocabulary in 1st grade. This research suggests promising results for children who are learning a second language in an immersion setting. Research with larger samples of children across a variety of languages is needed to confirm the generalizability of these results.

Special Education Referral, Evaluation, and Placement Practices for Preschool English Language Learners--Hardin, Roach-Scott, & Peisner-Feinberg

The changing demographics in the United States necessitate a review of the processes used to assist young children whose first language is not English. Given the increasing numbers of children and families who speak such languages as Spanish, Vietnamese, Hmong, Korean, and Arabic, a review of the mechanisms utilized to identify, assess, and provide services for these children is needed. Specifically, the current tools that early childhood providers have to assess young children whose first language is not English have not kept up with the changing linguistic population. Certain trends, such as the overrepresentation of English language learners in special education programs, also suggest that the procedures that are used to identify children may not be as selective as necessary. The involvement of parents in early identification of special needs concerns for this group of children is also constrained by the profession's ability to fully include parents in evaluation and decision-making roles.

The current study is a statewide survey of administrators and teachers from a southeastern state in the United States, designed to gather information on how cultural and language differences are addressed for those referred for special education testing and for young children whose first language is not English. The study also examines accommodations for parental participation and training for early childhood and special education professionals on culturally and linguistically sensitive practices.

Participants in the study were recruited from 31 child care centers, public schools, and Head Start programs. From the programs, 109 teachers and 31 administrators completed surveys. All respondents but one were female and were primarily white (62.4 percent) and African American (32.1 percent). Over two-thirds of the administrators had master's or doctoral degrees and had been in their positions for more than a decade. More than half of the teachers in the sample had college degrees and had experience working in early childhood education settings.

Data were collected through two specifically designed surveys that contained items that were based on an extensive review of the literature as well as demographic and context questions. Specific questions centered on referral, evaluation, and placement processes. Questions also were posed about the role of parents and the training that staff received on meeting the needs of children whose first language is not English. Data were open-coded, and codes were examined for themes and patterns across participants.

Information on language proficiency indicated that the strategies that teachers and administrators employed for determining home language and proficiency included meetings with parents at school, written forms, and home visits. Proficiency also was measured by observations, language proficiency tests, and home observations. Respondents indicated that proficiency information was used for individualized planning, determining communication strengths and challenges, and deciding whether a referral was recommended. Teachers and administrators provided information about the screening tools that were used and the number of times that children were screened (2-3 times per year); results showed that the majority of screens were administered in English. In addition, respondents reported that more definitive screening was accomplished by administering the screening tool in the child's first language, using interpreters to assist with screening, and administering missed items in the child's first language. Sixty percent of administrators and 49 percent of teachers reported that interpreters were trained in the screening process.

Diagnostic information was reported to be collected primarily in English and some other languages. Classroom observation was the main tool to collect information for diagnostic purposes. Additional information was collected by or through screening tools, parent reports, work samples, and home visits. Regarding children's individualized education plans (IEP), only 60 percent of the administrators and teachers reported that cultural and language differences were taken into account on such plans. Almost one quarter of administrators and 18 percent of teachers reported that no effort was made to reflect cultural and linguistic differences in children's individualized education plans. Two-thirds of administrators and half of the teachers reported that a bilingual assessor assisted with the individualized education plan or that the home language was included in IEP goals. Parental participation, as indicated by respondents, suggested that little information was gathered during the screening process; such participation increased, however, during referral, diagnostic evaluation, and IEP construction. Information gathered from parents typically included demographic information, medical information, parent concerns, and other background information. Information solicited from parents included children's experience with English, language preferences in the home and goals for children, and children's interaction with their home language and country of origin.

On items focused on staff training, more than half of the respondents indicated that they had staff in their programs who spoke a language other than English. The respondents also indicated that those staff members supported children during classroom interactions; supported parents during meetings, conferences, and home visits; provided one-on-one tutoring; translated documents; and provided professional development to other staff. Training for staff was most likely to be provided through professional development workshops and local conferences. Additional training also was provided through college course work.

This study indicated that while there are a variety of efforts in place to assist children and families with their English as a second language needs, much room for improvement still remains. Consistency of approaches to determine language proficiency is clearly needed, both in terms of the tools needed to gauge proficiency and the correct use of early childhood assessment tools for such purposes. Additional needs for early childhood education professionals that can be gleaned from this study include the need for professional development to meet the cultural and linguistic needs of children and families. While this study examined language issues in early childhood education programs in one state, additional research that more globally assesses the needs of children whose first language is not English and who are enrolled in preschool programs from across the United States would help shape the strategies used in early childhood programs to meet the needs of these young learners and their families.

The Early ON School Readiness Project: A Preliminary Report--Winter, Zurcher, Hernandez, & Yin

The bounty of research on the effectiveness of early childhood preschool programs for young children placed at risk suggests that such programs increase the school readiness of children as they enter public school. Recent efforts to associate cost-benefit information with such programs indicate that such preschool programs are well worth their early cost to communities. While a wealth of research has been conducted on children from low-income environments, there is a lack of information on quality programs for Latino children specifically. In addition, while most of the research on the effectiveness of early preschool programs has focused on federal initiatives or small-scale projects (e.g., Abecedarian, Perry Preschool Project), current needs across the United States suggest that for such efforts to take more of a universal hold, communities and early childhood professionals need to work together to develop innovative local programs. Such programs would likely more adeptly facilitate the school readiness of children, as the local community would have insight into the specific needs of the children in their respective communities* The current study adds to our knowledge base by focusing both on Latino preschool children and on a local intervention program.

Community nonprofit agencies and the school district from the San Antonio, Texas, community partnered with the local university in the development of the Early ON School Readiness Project* The project was developed from an ecological perspective and included specific interventions, including community awareness, parent education, teacher professional development, increased child care quality, and transition to school activities. The child care sites that participated in the project were nonprofit programs, Head Start programs, and faith-based centers. These centers enrolled children who were 3 to 5 years of age and from predominantly Mexican American families. The parents of the children ranged in age from 20 to 29, with the majority reporting that English was the language that was spoken in their homes.

Child care classrooms were assessed multiple times using the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised Edition (ECERS) during the fall and spring of the data collection cycle. Children were assessed with the Developmental Indicators for the Assessment of Learning-Third Edition (DIAL-3) during the fall and spring of each year. Each child received a motor, concepts, language, and overall composite score. One-quarter of the children across the implementation sites also were assessed with a developmental assessment each year. A comparison sample was recruited, with the same data being collected at those sites.

Results indicated that the quality of the centers was rated on the ECERS as good and remained relatively consistent across the data collection period. Child outcome data indicated that during the baseline year, scores on the DIAL-3 were not statistically significantly different from fall to spring. Concept, language, and overall composite scores increased during the second year of the program. Between intervention and comparison sites, children's language scores at the intervention sites were statistically higher than those at the comparison sites. However, these results did not hold during the second year of the intervention.

While the data from this study do not indicate significant changes in the quality of child care over time, the data do hold some promising results for the school readiness of Latino preschool children. Specifically, the language scores increased over time. These data support the success of early intervention for Latino children placed at economic risk, which counters general findings of the research on school readiness of children from minority and economically disadvantaged backgrounds. In addition, research on the specific components of the community partnerships that facilitated this work is needed to directly understand the contributions of the community in meeting the school readiness needs of its youngest citizens.

Quality in Inclusive and Noninclusive Infant and Toddler Classrooms --Hestenes, Cassidy, Hegde, & Lower

The changing demographics of the workforce of the United States necessitate the increased enrollment of infants and toddlers into child care settings. Decades of research have highlighted some concerns associated with the quality of such environments on the development of young children and have related the process, structural, and global quality to a number of other factors, such as caregiver educational level and the inclusion of children with disabilities. While relatively little information exists on the quality of environments and even less information on the tools used to assess such environments, the current study adds great depth to the psychometric properties of the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale-Revised (ITERS-R), as well as on how this tool predicts differences among classrooms with and without infants and toddlers with disabilities.

The data for the current study were collected as part of a larger project, the North Carolina Rated License Assessment Project, which included data for the regulatory agency in that state. The authors of the current study employed the ITERS-R and gathered data that represented 466 classrooms in which children from 1 to 42 months were enrolled and that also represented for-profit, nonprofit, community, and federal programs. Further, the data were collected from centers that represented higher quality programs. Of these classrooms, 64 were inclusive classrooms, two contained only children with disabilities, and 400 were classrooms serving children who were typically developing. Across the classrooms, 125 children were identified with disabilities, with two children with disabilities, on average, enrolled in inclusive classrooms. The ITERS-R is a 39-item observational instrument with seven subscales: Space and Furnishings, Personal Care Routines, Listening and Talking, Activities, Interaction, Program Structure, and Parents and Staff. Additional data on teacher education level and teacher/child ratio information also were gathered.

The data file was split in two in order to run an exploratory and a confirmatory factor analysis. Preliminary analyses were conducted to examine missing data and distributions of the item data. A 4-factor solution was generated from the data, which explained 43 percent of the variance. The four factors were Materials/Activities, Safety/Organization, Language/Interactions, and Parents/Staff. Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the 4-factor solution best represented the data. Based on this factor analysis, separate analyses were conducted to examine how quality was related to classrooms that served typically developing infants and toddlers and those diagnosed with disabilities. Results suggested that inclusive classrooms were rated higher in overall quality than those classrooms that served only typically developing children. On three of the four scales, inclusive classrooms were rated higher; the exception was on the factor of Materials/Activities, where no differences were found between the two groups.

Teachers in inclusive classrooms had achieved higher levels of education. No differences were found between inclusive and typically developing classrooms on years of teaching experience or teacher/ child ratios. The severity of disability in the classrooms was not related to quality. Regression analyses indicated that for noninclusive classrooms, teacher education and teacher-child ratio predicted quality. In inclusive classrooms, only teacher-child ratio predicted quality.

The results of this study are incredibly useful to the field. As many states move toward quality care rating systems, understanding the psychometric properties of the ITERS-R will enable such systems to more accurately make conclusions about quality in infant and toddler environments. In addition, this study adds to our limited knowledge concerning programs that serve children with and without disabilities. Future research in areas of the United States where quality systems are not part of the regulatory process would enhance our understanding of how this scale functions with more diverse populations.

A Comparison of the Effects of Two Social Skills Training Approaches on Teacher and Child Behavior--Hyatt & Filler 

Concerns about children's behavior in school continue to be cited in the professional literature. The development of appropriate social skills in organized settings has been studied well and suggests that positive social skills are associated with connection to school, school completion, positive peer relationships, and general academic success. The study of social skills curricula has enhanced our understanding of the efficacy of such programs in preschool environments, both for those children who are typically developing and those children who have diagnosed disabilities. What is missing from that literature is direct examination of teacher behavior in the implementation of the curricula on the social skills behavior of preschool children. The current study compares two different social skills curricula, Proactive and Reactive, and examines teacher implementation in classrooms that include children with diagnosed disabilities.

The context for this study was a university-sponsored preschool in the American Southwest. Three teachers from that preschool were randomly selected to participate and were randomly assigned to the treatment conditions. Fifty-six children had parents who consented for them to participate in the study and included children whose mean age was 4 years, 9 months. Children were assigned to one of four groups--boys without disabilities, girls without disabilities, boys with disabilities, and girls with disabilities--so that three groups of eight children were constructed. Each group consisted of three girls without a disability, one girl with a disability, three boys without a disability, and one boy with a disability. These three groups were then randomly assigned to one of three conditions: Proactive, Reactive, or Comparison group.

The intervention consisted of three phases that were conducted over 18 consecutive school days (five days of pre-intervention, eight days of intervention, and five-day follow-up). For each day of the intervention, the children participated in a 10-minute art activity whereby they were required to share materials as a means to encourage peer interaction. Phase I of the project required teachers to interact with their children in their usual manner. During Phase II, teachers discussed the importance of the social skill, identified steps necessary to complete the skill, modeled the skill, and provided feedback to children as they role-played the skill. For the Proactive condition, the teacher was praised when she taught the skill and provided input on missed opportunities. For the Reactive condition, the teacher was verbally rewarded when she provided contingent praise to the children and provided input on missed opportunities. The Comparison condition teacher was not provided with any feedback about her performance. The follow-up phase was a replication of Phase I.

Videotaped data was collected on each of the sessions, with data coded for teachers' discussions of the importance of the skill, identification of the steps necessary to complete the skill, modeling of the skill, provision of feedback to the children during role-play, and provision of verbal praise to children following positive initiation with a peer or following a positive response to a peer. Child behavior was coded principally on two child behaviors--positive initiations and positive responses. Negative behaviors were also coded.

No statistically significant results were found among teachers on their behaviors prior to the intervention. A statistically significant group by behavior interactions was found on three of the six targeted behaviors. Teachers from the Proactive group were the only teachers to use the "identify the steps necessary to complete the skill" behavior. Training provided by the researcher impacted teacher behavior in the form of increasing praise behaviors. No differences in child behavior were found during the preintervention phase of the study. Children in the Reactive group exhibited more positive initiations and responses, while children in the Comparison group exhibited more negative initiations. Significant differences also were found between the Comparison group and the Proactive group, favoring the intervention group. At the follow-up assessment point, the only behavior that was found to be different among the groups was the positive initiation behavior of the Reactive group.

The results from this study suggest that preschool students whose teachers engaged them more directly in social skills training have better outcomes than children who do not have that direct support. Studies that incorporate larger samples and more diverse samples of children and teachers are needed to assess the strength of the teacher's contributions to children's social skill development.

Stacey Neuharth-Pritchett

The University of Georgia