Barbara D. DeBaryshe

A developmental perspective on antisocial behavior.

A developmental model of antisocial behavior is outlined. Recent findings are reviewed that concern the etiology and course of antisocial behavior from early childhood through adolescence. Evidence is presented in support of the hypothesis that the route to chronic delinquency is marked by a reliable developmental sequence of experiences. As a first step, ineffective parenting practices are viewed as determinants for childhood conduct disorders. The general model also takes into account the contextual variables that influence the family interaction process. As a second step, the conduct-disordered behaviors lead to academic failure and peer rejection. These dual failures lead, in turn, to increased risk for depressed mood and involvement in a deviant peer group. This third step usually occurs during later childhood and early adolescence. It is assumed that children following this developmental sequence are at high risk for engaging in chronic delinquent behavior. Finally, implications for prevention and intervention are discussed.

Joint picture-book reading correlates of early oral language skill *

The purpose of this study was to explore the relation between joint picture-book-reading experiences provided in the home and childrens early oral language skills. Subjects were 41 two-year-old children and their mothers. Measures included maternal report of the age at which she began to read to the child, the frequency of home reading sessions, the number of stories read per week, and the frequency of visits by the child to the local library. Measures of language skill used were the childs receptive and expressive scores on the revised Reynell Developmental Language Scales. Multiple regression analyses indicated that picture-book reading exposure was more strongly related to receptive than to expressive language. Age of onset of home reading routines was the most important predictor of oral language skills. Directions of effect, the importance of parental beliefs as determinants of home reading practices, and the possible existence of a threshold level for reading frequency are discussed.

Behavioral correlates of developmental expressive language disorder.

The association of behavior problems with preschool language disorders has been documented extensively. However, researchers have typically failed to differentiate subgroups of language-impaired children, to use observational data in documenting the behavior disorders, or to study children at the youngest ages. Using a multimodal assessment, this study examined parent-child interaction and behavior problems in a clearly defined subgroup of language-impaired children, those with developmental expressive language disorder (ELD). These children exhibit a delay in expressive language compared with receptive language and nonverbal cognitive skills. Subjects were identified and studied at the youngest age at which the disorder can be assessed. A group of ELD children, averaging 27 months of age, was contrasted with a group of normally developing children, matched for age, sex, and receptive language ability. Groups were compared on observed parent-child interactions as well as maternal responses on the Parenting Stress Index, the Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory, and a behavior-related structured interview. ELD children, when compared with normally developing children, exhibited higher levels of negative behavior and were perceived as different by their parents.

An Experimental Validation of a Preschool Emergent Literacy Curriculum

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a preschool emergent literacy enrichment curriculum. Participants were 126 Head Start children, their teachers, and their parents. Matched centers were assigned to 1 of 3 conditions: experimental literacy, experimental math, or control. Teachers in both experimental groups implemented either literacy or math instruction in small groups on a daily basis, and parents and children completed supplementary learning activities at home. The control classroom implemented the ongoing Head Start curriculum. Children in the literacy condition showed the largest gains in phonemic awareness and emergent writing skills; they also made greater gains on emergent reading than did children in the math condition. There were no group differences on expressive vocabulary. Results are discussed in terms of curriculum design and practical issues involved in supporting preschools in the implementation of research-based instructional programs.

A Developmental Perspective on Anger: Family and Peer Contexts.

A model of the development of anger in family and peer contexts is presented. Emotional socialization begins in early infancy, in the context of parent–infant caretaking. Childrens awareness and understanding of their own and other peoples anger depends on exposure to models of anger expression and conflict resolution, parental emotional coaching strategies such as discussing feelings and problem solving about emotion-based actions, coercive versus authoritative parenting practices, and opportunities to engage in constructive conflict resolution with family members. Emotional socialization in the home affects childrens physiological reactivity and physiological self-regulation, social information processing, and behavioral strategies for anger-provoking situations. When the child brings these characteristics to the peer arena, anger and emotion management skills affect peer social status, aggressive versus prosocial peer interactions and the ability to form and profit from close peer relationships. Implications for school psychologists and other school personnel are discussed.

Differentiated Instruction to Support High-Risk Preschool Learners

Differentiated instruction is a strategy for meeting the needs of diverse learners. In this article, we describe a differentiated instruction model and examine the effects on high-risk children. One hundred twenty-eight children and their teachers from 8 Head Start classrooms participated in the project. Teachers provided developmentally sequenced, tiered instruction primarily in small group formats. Children made gains on all areas assessed (vocabulary, emergent reading, alphabet knowledge, print concepts, phonological awareness, emergent math). A subgroup of higher risk children was defined as those who scored in the bottom 5th percentile on English vocabulary at the start of the school year. This higher risk group comprised 26% of the sample. Higher risk children made much larger gains on vocabulary over the course of the year than did their lower risk classmates and showed similar or slightly lower rates of change on other measures of early academic skills. Practical issues relating to the implementat...

Observational Learning and Language Acquisition: Principles of Learning, Systems, and Tasks

The thesis of this chapter is that language, like many other complex skills, is acquired in part through the process of observational learning. In observational learning, one person’s behavior (the model’s) is witnessed by a second person (the observer). Observational learning has occurred when some aspect of the model’s behavior comes to control a related aspect of the second person’s behavior. The observer’s behavior may match the model’s along the dimensions of topography, function, or discriminative context (Whitehurst, 1978). A topographical relation involves similarity of form. For example, a mother might say to her child, “You are incorrigible today;’ and the child replies, ”I’m’corrigbal.“ Matching along the functional dimension involves similarity between the outcome of the model’s and observer’s behavior. For example, a child might see people on a television commercial drinking bottles of soda; the child may then hurry into the kitchen to get a cup of juice. An example of observational learning of discriminative context (and topography) may be seen when a child is able to correctly name a real helicopter after having been exposed to pictures of helicopters and the wordhelicopterduring picture-book reading with parents.

Analyzing sequential relations in observational data: A practical guide

Many observational systems in basic and applied research produce a record of sequences of events over time. Within such observational systems, important information may be found in the frequency of the transitions between events that does not emerge in the typical researchers focus on absolute event frequency. Indeed, if many behaviors are controlled by closely adjacent preceding events, then substantial prediction and control can be obtained through knowledge and manipulation of causal event transitions. A method for analyzing and testing sequential dependencies between events is proposed as part of an integrated package of computer-based data entry, storage, and analysis procedures. The mathematical portion of these techniques is based on the statistic, kappa,which is applicable to determining whether particular transitions among events differ from chance and whether particular transitions differ significantly across groups of subjects. Low-cost hardware and software to implement the proposed procedures are described.

Intraverbal acquisition of semantic concepts by preschoolers.

Intraverbal learning is a process through which semantic knowledge is acquired from purely linguistic information. The concern of this study is to investigate the role of intraverbal learning in the preschool-aged childs acquisition of semantic concepts. Three- and 4-year-old children were either shown pictures illustrating novel concepts or they were told verbal definitions of novel concepts, the definitions containing information about key physical and functional properties. An additional manipulation consisted of including or omitting information about the superordinate category membership of the concept. Concept acquisition was assessed via a battery of comprehension tasks; these tasks assessed both referential and formal knowledge of the concepts. Results indicate a correspondence between the type of information received and the type of knowledge acquired, with intraverbal information resulting in broader knowledge than pictorial information. Purely pictorial information was associated with referential knowledge only, while intraverbal information enhanced both referential and formal knowledge.

Early Reading First as a Model for Improving Preschool Literacy Instruction and Outcomes

The Early Reading First program (ERF) was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education to develop model ‘preschool centers of excellence’ that enhance the early language and literacy skills of low-income preschool children. In this chapter we report on the outcomes of an ERF project conducted with Head Start classrooms in Hawaiʻi. The intervention included intensive professional development on research-based curriculum and instruction, teacher-child interaction, family engagement, and child progress monitoring. Outcomes included large gains on intentional literacy instruction, classroom quality, and family engagement, and moderate to large gains on child emergent literacy skills. The intervention had little effect on oral language outcomes. Despite the academic focus, most teachers were highly satisfied with the experience, reporting increased child motivation and considerable professional growth.