Early Education Environments Research Articles

The early educational environment at five years of age in a European cohort of children born very preterm: challenges and opportunities for research

BackgroundEarly childhood education offers opportunities for stimulation in multiple developmental domains and its positive impact on long-term outcomes and wellbeing for children is well documented. Few studies have explored early education in children born very preterm (VPT; <32 weeks of gestation) who are at higher risk of neurodevelopmental disorders and poor educational outcomes than their term-born peers. The purpose of the study is to describe and compare the educational environment of children born VPT in European countries at 5 years of age according to the degree of perinatal risk.MethodsData originated from the population-based Screening to Improve Health In very Preterm infants (SHIPS) cohort of children born VPT in 2011/2012 in 19 regions from 11 European countries. Perinatal data were collected from medical records and the 5-year follow-up was conducted using parental questionnaires. Outcomes at 5 years were participation in early education (any, type, intensity of participation) and receipt of special educational support, which were harmonized across countries.ResultsOut of 6,759 eligible children, 3,687 (54.6%) were followed up at 5 years (mean gestational age 29.3 weeks). At 5 years, almost all children (98.6%) were in an educational program, but type (preschool/primary), attendance (full-time/part-time) and use and type of school support/services differed by country. In some countries, children with high perinatal risk were more likely to be in full-time education than those with low risk (e.g. Estonia: 97.9% vs. 87.1%), while the inverse pattern was observed elsewhere (e.g. Poland: 78.5% vs. 92.8%). Overall, 22.8% of children received special educational support (country range: 12.4–34.4%) with more support received by children with higher perinatal risk. Large variations between countries remained after adjustment for socio-demographic characteristics.ConclusionsThere are marked variations in approaches to early education for children born VPT in Europe, raising opportunities to explore its impact on their neurodevelopment and well-being.

What Kind of Information Is Provided to Families of Children with Hearing Loss in Early Education Practices?

It is known that children with hearing loss may experience delays in language development and other developmental areas compared to their peers, depending on their disabilities. Early diagnosis, benefiting from hearing technologies, and participation in early education environments with their families are very important in minimizing these delays that children with hearing loss may experience. The purpose of this research is, therefore, to examine the information presented to families in early education practices with children with hearing loss and their families. The data of this case study, one of the qualitative research methods, was collected through observations, semi-structured interviews, documents, and products. The data was analyzed inductively. The findings showed that the information presented to the families is transmitted in a way that is based on continuous interaction, includes open and responsive interactions, encourages the family, and that feeds and expands cyclically from the previous information. It was also found that the educator received information about the history of the child and family, device use, daily routines, and that the families needed information about their children's development, coping with behavioral problems and future expectations. Additionally, that the educators ensured that the families received information on the use of hearing aids, language support and communication skills, enrichment of daily routines, and additional deficiencies were revealed. In early education implementations, materials such as toys, picture cards, story books, song texts were used and forms for informing families were used for registration as a product of the information presented.

The Effect of Token Economies on Student Behavior in the Preschool Classroom: A Meta-Analysis

There has been a recent push in the literature to identify and use more evidence-based practices for positive behavioral supports for challenging student behaviors in the classroom environment. Further, interest in targeting early education environments such as preschool has been growing given the persistence of behavioral difficulties in the absence of early and effective intervention (Campbell & Ewing, 1990; Kazdin, 1987; Powell et al., 2006; Stormont, 2002). Two previous meta-analyses (Maggin et al., 2011; Soares et al., 2016) provided some initial support for effectiveness of token economies with challenging student behavior; however, the inclusion of the preschool setting was limited and both studies used older versions of design standards to evaluate the quality of studies in the literature. The present study served to extend those meta-analyses by targeting preschool classrooms. Further, the current study included the most recent What Works Clearinghouse Design Standards to evaluate whether token economies meet criteria as an evidence-based practice. Ten studies were included in the final analyses. Two sets of effect sizes were calculated: Baseline-Corrected Tau and Hedge’s g. An omnibus effect size showed an overall large effect; however, similar to previous meta-analyses, several methodological concerns were identified. Moderator analyses for several variables were conducted; however, no moderator analyses were significant. Limitations and future directions were discussed.

Young children contribute to nature stewardship.

Research on young children in environmental education (EE) has focused on unstructured play in, or experiencing, nature. Little attention has been paid to young children’s stewardship efforts, or to the relation of such efforts to young children’s learning and capacity to contribute to their communities and local nature. This perspectives paper draws on the first author’s experience guiding pre-k and kindergarten children (4–6 years old) in outdoor educational projects in Santo Domingo (SD), Dominican Republic, in which the children produced a park guide and a short film. In addition to becoming resources for the local community, these products are an example of children’s civic contributions. In “return on investment” language, guiding young children in outdoor experiences and reflecting on the experience represent the investment and the park guide and other products, and importantly, children’s recognition of their ability to make contributions to their community, represent the return on investment. Based on our observations that young children can make significant contributions to their communities when given the opportunity, this perspectives paper argues for a research agenda and investment in opportunities for young children to contribute to their socio-ecological communities. To support our perspective, we first review and critique the prevailing and emerging paradigms of early childhood EE, following which we briefly describe the Santo Domingo (SD) project, and close by integrating past work with the first author’s experience to argue for the importance of including young children in stewardship efforts.

Importance of inclusive learning and teaching enviroment and teacher reflection

The research aims to identify the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of the preschool teachers of the target group regarding the implementation/development of inclusive education. Structure/methodology /approach-10 teachers participated in this study, who were also involved in the research carried out within the framework of the project "teacher reflection for quality early inclusive education". An early inclusive education environment self-reflection method was used, developed within the framework of the early childhood inclusive education (I) project implemented by the European agency for special needs and inclusive education from 2015 to 2017 (www.european-agency.org/agency-projects/inclusive-early childhood-education), our adapted version. Research is qualitative. The reflection method included four open questions: This article reflects educators on the "inclusive environment of teaching and learning". Conclusion: the survey participants ' responses prove that educators and educators are aware of the desire and need to increase their knowledge about the inclusive environment of learning and teaching, but they find it difficult to reflect on these issues and analyze them based on their practice, which can again be considered as their low competence in this regards. Novelty/value: the study of teacher-educator reflection is not conducted on the example of our practice.

Observation Worksheet for the Development of Self-Regulation of 2- To 3-Year-Old Children (AOS)

This article presents the results of verifying the psychometric validity of a tool developed to investigate the developmental changes taking place in children attending nurseries, aged 2 to 3 years. The tool was used in research on the conditions created in nurseries for children of toddler age. It discusses the theoretical underpinnings of the concept of diagnosing early education environments and the assumptions designating the structure of the questionnaire measuring the effects of development of young children in the scope of self-regulation. The studies served to empirically validate the concept of the diagnosis of early care and education milieus and verify the validity of the psychometric tools to diagnose the effects of development of children aged 2 to 3 years. The study made use of the pedagogical monograph method and the observation technique. In order to carry out a longitudinal study with two measurements in the period from December 2017 to July 2018, 5 tools were developed, including the scale described in this article. A total of 131 children of toddler age attending 10 groups in 4 institutions and 20 caregivers working with them on a regular basis were included in the study. Subsequently, the results of the verification of the psychometric validity of the tool were presented: Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient, average correlations between items in both measures, and Pearson’s correlation coefficient (r) indicating the agreement between two judges. The psychometric validity of a scale is confirmed by data concerning high reliability and accuracy. Factor analysis was used to modify the sub-scale measuring the self-regulation capacity developed on the stage of tool development. The psychometric values obtained for the tool suggest that it can be aptly applied to forecast and monitor the development of the self-regulation of young children and, consequently, that it may contribute to creating more conducive conditions for them and assist the development of this ability.

Sustainability via Active Garden Education: The Sustainability Action Plan Model and Process.

Sustainability of intervention programming is challenging to achieve under real world conditions, since few models exist and many studies do not plan far beyond the funding period. Programming content in early care and education centers (ECECs) is often driven by guidelines. However, implementation is very sensitive to contextual factors, such as the setting and implementer (teacher) characteristics. This paper presents the model, definitions, and methodology used for the sustainability action plan capitalizing on a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach, developed for a multi-site, multi-level garden-based childhood obesity prevention study, Sustainability via Active Garden Education (SAGE). The Ecologic Model of Obesity is applied to develop a sustainability action plan (SAP) and accompanying measures to link early care and education (ECE) environment, the community, policies, and classroom practices to an early childhood obesity prevention program. The SAGE SAP provides an example of how to iteratively evaluate and refine sustainability processes for an obesity prevention intervention utilizing CBPR approaches and will be applied to assess the sustainability of SAGE in a cluster randomized controlled trial. This SAP model can also help inform intervention delivery and scalability within ECECs.

Relationships between maternal body mass index and child cognitive outcomes at 3 years of age are buffered by specific early environments in a prospective Canadian birth cohort.

Fetal and child development are shaped by early life exposures, including maternal health states, nutrition and educational and home environments. We aimed to determine if suboptimal pre-pregnancy maternal body mass index (BMI; underweight, overweight, obese) would associate with poorer cognitive outcomes in children, and whether early life nutritional, educational and home environments modify these relationships. Self-reported data were obtained from mother-infant dyads from the pan-Canadian prospective Maternal-Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals cohort. Relationships between potential risk factors (pre-pregnancy maternal BMI, breastfeeding practices and Home Observation Measurement of the Environment [HOME] score) and child cognitive development at age three (Weschler's Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence, Third Edition scale and its subcategories) were each evaluated using analysis of variance, multivariable regression models and moderating analyses. Amongst the 528 mother-child dyads, increasing maternal pre-pregnancy BMI was negatively associated with scores for child full-scale IQ (β [95% CI]; -2.01 [-3.43, -0.59], p = 0.006), verbal composite (-1.93 [-3.33, -0.53], p = 0.007), and information scale (-0.41 [-0.70, -0.14], p = 0.003) scores. Higher maternal education level or HOME score attenuated the negative association between maternal pre-pregnancy BMI and child cognitive outcome by 30%-41% and 7%-22%, respectively, and accounted for approximately 5%-10% greater variation in male children's cognitive scores compared to females. Maternal education and higher quality home environment buffer the negative effect of elevated maternal pre-pregnancy BMI on child cognitive outcomes. Findings suggest that relationships between maternal, social and environmental factors must be considered to reveal pathways that shape risk for, and resiliency against, suboptimal cognitive outcomes in early life.

Arkusz do obserwacji rozwoju zdolności do samoregulacji u dzieci 2-3 letnich (AOS)

Introduction : This article presents the results of verifying the psychometric validity of a tool developed to investigate the developmental changes taking place in children aged 2 to 3 years attending nurseries. It discusses the theoretical underpinnings of the concept of diagnosing early education environments and the assumptions designating the structure of the questionnaire measuring the effects of development of young children in the scope of self-regulation. Research Aim: The studies served to empirically validate the concept of the diagnosis of early care and education milieus and verify the validity of the psychometric tools to diagnose the effects of development of children aged 2 to 3 years. Method : The pedagogical monograph method was used in the study. In order to carry out the longitudinal research with two measurements, 5 tools were developed. A total of 131 children of toddler age attending 10 groups in 4 institutions and 20 caregivers working with them on a regular basis were included in the study. Results : The results of the verification of the psychometric validity of the tool were presented: Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient, average correlations between items in both measures, and Pearson’s (r) correlation coefficient. The psychometric validity of a scale is confirmed by data concerning high reliability and accuracy. Conclusions: The psychometric values obtained for the tool suggest that it can be aptly applied to forecast and monitor the development of the self-regulation of young children and may contribute to creating more conducive conditions for the development of this ability.

Environmental Strategies to Promote Appropriate Behaviors and Social Interaction in Young Children

Research suggests an increase in challenging behaviors among young children in early care and education settings (Granja et al., 2018). Challenging behaviors in early years are among the strongest predictors of more serious problem behaviors later in life (Brennan et al., 2015). High-quality, safe, responsive, and nurturing early care and education environments are critical to support development, engagement, and learning of young children with and without disabilities. Well-organized and engaging classroom environments help to prevent or decrease rates of challenging behaviors of young children by promoting appropriate behaviors and social interactions (Powell et al., 2006). Unfortunately, many practitioners working in early care and education settings are unsure how to create environments that support children’s engagement and prevent challenging behaviors they exhibit (Steed and Roach, 2017). This practice brief offers recommendations and strategies for practitioner to design more engaging and developmentally appropriate classroom environments to support appropriate behaviors and prevent challenging behaviors of young children.

Hungry is not safe: A mixed methods study to explore food insecurity in early care and education

The early care and education (ECE) environment has the potential to affect both children and their families. Food insecurity in ECE and its management may be an important influence. Objectives of this mixed methods study were to (1) elicit prominent themes relating to teacher experiences with food insecurity (in the classroom) through qualitative interviews; (2) translate interview themes into survey items and analyze survey data to explore generalizability of the qualitative findings; and (3) provide preliminary data on properties of a new tool to study the influence of food insecurity in the ECE setting. An exploratory sequential mixed methods design (QUAL → quant) was used. Twenty-eight interviews about teacher experiences with food insecurity were followed by 781 surveys to assess generalizability of interview findings. Qualitative themes highlighted that ECE teachers are concerned about children's food insecurity in their classroom; ECE teachers have developed their own set of strategies to manage their concern; and teachers often struggle with what to do. Quantitative results demonstrated many teachers had the same concerns and used the strategies described in the interviews. Further, in exploratory analyses, ECE teachers with Food Insecurity scored significantly higher on all scales (e.g., Food Insecurity Concerns, Struggle with Addressing Food Security) in both adjusted and unadjusted analyses. ECE teachers with Food Acquisition Stress had higher scores on Strategies to Address Food Insecurity with Families in adjusted analyses.

Child Care Policy as an Anti-Poverty Strategy: The Need to Address Neurophysiological Self-Regulation

High-quality early care and education can mitigate the short- and long-term effects of poverty on young children’s development. Therefore, policies that expand access to high-quality early care and education can be an effective anti-poverty strategy. A number of programs demonstrably foster volitional processes of self-regulation—the capacity to control emotions, thoughts, and behaviors—among young children in poverty. However, relatively little is known about how the activity of the neurophysiological systems that form the interface between brain and body supports these processes of self-regulation in early care and education settings. Maximizing the efficacy of early care and education as an anti-poverty strategy requires adopting policies to advance three interrelated goals: understanding, accommodating, and reconfiguring young children’s neurophysiological function in the early care and education environment.

Implementation of Child-Friendly School Concept in Elementary School as Early Education Environment

Education is one of an important role in enhancing the quality of life thus shaping sustainable communities and cities. In Indonesia, one of the education problems are related to education infrastructure. In elementary school education, there are still many schools that are not in accordance with school policies to implement child-friendly school concept. The purpose of this study was to implement the aspects of child-friendly school and relating it to the problems identified in elementary school. Aspects that need to be considered in supporting the implementation of child-friendly school concept are safety, health, convenience, comfort and security, which will later affect the building design. The research method used is a qualitative method. The results of the study were implementations of each aspect in school building design as a solution to problems identified in elementary school. The implemented aspects can be a consideration for designing school environment in supporting teaching and learning activities.

Opportunities for Impact: Health Promotion in Rural Early Care and Education Environments

Early care and education settings are essential partners in the battle against childhood obesity. We describe an Extension-facilitated early childhood obesity prevention intervention conducted in 25 rural early care and education settings. A total of 148 policy, systems, or environmental changes were achieved, reaching approximately 450 young children. Systems changes were the most prevalent outcome achieved. The experiences of Extension professionals in promoting policy, systems, and environmental changes are highlighted as are implications for other Extension systems and professionals promoting policy, systems, or environmental changes in early care and education settings.

Outlining play and playful learning in Finland and Brazil: A content analysis of early childhood education policy documents

Early childhood education and care is a current interest in many countries. Many international studies have highlighted the importance of high-quality early education environments where learning and play are integrated. Studies show that these types of learning environments have a positive impact on children’s future prospects and overall development. Critical curriculum steering documents from Finland and Brazil form the basis of this study and can similarly be shown to define the quality of these environments, as well as providing definitions of playful learning in these differing cultural contexts. A content analysis explores patterns of the cultural and pedagogical difference of definition. This descriptive comparison permitted similarities and differences between the countries with regard to play to emerge. In this article, the authors explore what these different cultural and pedagogical definitions of play and playful learning are and what they might mean. The article thus makes a methodological contribution to a broader discussion of comparative studies of national curricula in early childhood education with specific regard to children’s engagement, learning and development in and through play. The theoretical conclusions are, however, more tentative, but the authors suggest some innovative ways to conceptualise cultural and pedagogical differences in play by making an analogy with Wittgenstein’s analysis of games in his Philosophical Investigations.

“Understanding Our Peers”: A Naturalistic Program to Facilitate Social Inclusion for Children with Autism in Mainstream Early Childhood Services

ABSTRACT This study evaluated the effects of an early education inclusion program for children with autism: ‘Understanding our Peers; the Early Years’. A series of children’s books were created outlining the core behavioural features of autism and how the characters in the books were able to understand these behaviours and accommodate the needs of the child with autism. The books were read to the entire preschool centre cohort across a 12-week period, supported by educator discussion and engagement with the children. Naturalistic behavioural observations were made of the social encounters of 24 preschool children with autism aged between 44 months and 67 months. The intervention was applied in nine mainstream centres with 523 typically developing children enrolled. Results indicated that the program resulted in an increase in positive interactions between the child with autism and their typically developing peers and concomitantly reduced the incidence of negative encounters for the child with autism. Overall, findings provide preliminary evidence supporting the efficacy of an anti-stigma program to support social inclusion of children with autism in mainstream early educational environments.

Self-efficacy of Kindergarten Teachers’ Mathematical Instruction

In 2015 an urban school district reported that 84.6% of third graders did not demonstrate proficiency on the Math Standardized Test, which challenges students to solve problems and justify solutions. Since 2006 there has been a negative trend of proficiency levels on the New York State (NYS) Math Exam in third grade. I propose that students may be more academically successful if these skills needed for the NYS math exam begin in kindergarten and the teachers had high self-efficacy when teaching lessons that focus on justifying solutions. The purpose of this study was to explore kindergarten teachers’ level of self-efficacy in their instruction in mathematics that challenges students to justify solutions. Further, kindergarten teachers’ instructional strategies related to problem solving and justifying solutions were explored. The analysis of the data revealed a connection between self-efficacy and instructional strategies. The results of this study may be valuable for scholars and practitioners with interests in the instruction of mathematical principles in the early childhood educational environment.

Early Childhood Obesity Prevention in Rural West Virginia Extension’s Role and Lessons Learned

The Cooperative Extension system is uniquely positioned to lead rural community efforts to prevent obesity in early childhood. This article explores best practices in promoting healthy weights among young children and shares examples and resources relevant to Extension programming. The West Virginia (WV) Healthy Children Project aims to improve community, home, and early care and education (ECE) environments by promoting healthy eating, physical activity, outdoor play, and reduced screen time. This project primarily focuses on interventions with ECE providers serving 2-5-year-old children in three rural counties. Comprehensive assessments informed the interventions and guided Community Advisory Committees. ECE providers were trained in “I Am Moving, I Am Learning” (IMIL) and “Nutrition and Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child Care” (Go NAP SACC) best practices and were supported with technical assistance and classroom resources. Garden-based learning, natural playscapes, painted playgrounds, and farm-to-ECE further enhanced the environments and experiences. Community leaders were engaged in advisory committees, transformative projects, and local family-focused activities. The efficacy of these practices was tracked using quantitative and qualitative evaluation strategies conducted throughout the project, including observations, ripple effects mapping, and questionnaires. This article describes the overall project strategies and reveals the lessons learned and the challenges encountered.

Parasympathetic Function: Relevance and Methodology for Early Education Research

Early childhood education programs, and particularly those designed to reduce gaps in school readiness between children in poverty and their more affluent peers, have increasingly addressed children’s self-regulatory abilities – their ability to manage behaviors, emotions, and cognitive processes. Although self-regulation is typically defined in volitional terms, the activity of multiple, involuntary, neurophysiological systems scaffolds the development of effortful self-regulation. In this article, we argue that the activity of one of these neurophysiological systems, the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), is directly relevant to the design and evaluation of early childhood education programs, given that the PNS makes moment-to-moment adjustments in children’s metabolic output to support their interaction with the classroom environment. We go on to explain how examining PNS activity while children are in the early education classroom may offer insight into how early education programs achieve their effects and for whom these effects are most-fully realized. We conclude by offering a summary of modern methods of parasympathetic data collection and cleaning drawn from a recent study of young children in an early education environment and discussing the implications of these methods for future research.

Rudeness is not only a kids’ problem: Incivility against preschool teachers and its impacts

Preschool teachers experience incivility, a mild form of violence, directed at them from different sources. These incivility experiences impact their work, and indirectly children in their care. In particular, incivility may trigger emotional, perceptual and behavioral responses, namely revenge, job insecurity, and reduced emotional resources. The impacts of perceived incivility were examined among 210 preschool teachers by means of an online questionnaire and through short interviews with teachers and family members. Incivility was noted to be positively correlated with revenge and with job insecurity, as well as with Self-Emotion Awareness and Use of Emotions, two of four Emotional intelligence (EI) sub-factors. Job insecurity was further positively correlated with Regulation of Emotions (an EI sub-factor) and with revenge. Additionally, revenge was negatively correlated with all four EI sub-factors. Interviews helped illuminate and enrich the quantitative findings. The findings bring to the foreground incivility phenomena and their impacts in early education environments, as well as the need to design processes to help preschool teachers cope with different forms and manifestations of incivility, thus allowing teachers to provide children with the best care possible.