Gail E. Joseph

Comprehensive Evidence-Based Social-Emotional Curricula for Young Children: An Analysis of Efficacious Adoption Potential

This article reviews eight comprehensive social—emotional curricula for children under 6 years of age and describes two promising curricula currently under investigation. These programs have been successful in the promotion of interpersonal skills and the reduction or prevention of challenging behavior for a wide range of children. Particular attention is paid to the level of evidence or scientific believability associated with criteria that reflect efficacious adoption of curricula. Areas for future research are discussed.

Engaged Supervision to Support Recommended Practices for Young Children with Challenging Behavior

Although in the last 20 years much progress has been made on understanding the challenging behaviors of young children and providing effective prevention and intervention, it is not at all certain that recommended practices have been widely adopted across early care and education programs. In this article, the authors argue that a major impediment to widespread use of recommended practices is a variety of supervisory issues, including the fact that direct service staff members often feel overwhelmed, overworked, and disrespected. To address these issues, the authors offer a set of strategies leading to what they call engaged supervision.

A Not So Good Job with “Good Job” A Response to Kohn 2001

Volume 6, Number 1, Winter 2004, pages 55–59 55 EDITORS’ NOTE: The Forum section of the Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions provides for an exchange of opinions, perspectives, ideas, and informative personal accounts. We welcome brief articles from family members, professionals, friends, advocates, administrators, researchers, and other individuals who are concerned with behavioral support issues. The purpose of the Forum is to facilitate a constructive dialogue among our many stakeholders regarding important issues in practice, research, training, program development, and policy. In this issue, the Forum contribution by Phil Strain and Gail Joseph is a response to a controversial article from Young Children (2001), authored by Alfie Kohn, that criticized the use of praise wih young children. Strain and Joseph describe Kohn’s position and offer thoughful rebuttals to Kohn’s five reasons for eschewing the use of “Good job!” This discussion will be of great interest to individuals involved with positive behavior support for young children with behavioral challenges and to the broader readership concerned with the ongoing debate concerning behavioral practices. We hope this article stimulates further discussion of the topic, and we encourage readers with additional perspectives to join the exchange.

Enhancing Emotional Vocabulary in Young Children.

plete his masterpiece, he needs an elusive triangle piece. As he searches the room in vain for the last, crucial piece, his initial calm hunt becomes more hurried and disorganized. He begins to whimper and disrupt other children’s play. His teacher approaches and asks what is the matter. Shantay swiftly turns away to resume his now frantic search. This behavior persists for several minutes until the signal for clean-up is given, whereupon Shantay launches into a major, 15-minute tantrum.

A Building Blocks Model for Effective Instruction in Inclusive Early Childhood Settings.

.&dquo;. &dquo;&dquo; toward attempting to under~~~ stand the complex relation~~t ships between the classroom ~N ecology, adult behavior, and J~ child behavior. Sometimes, it ~3!~ seems, in the excitement over ~~~ inclusion, we have dropped ~~~ all discussion of instruction ~~~ from our vocabularies and ~~~ our interactions with fami~N~ lies, students, and profession~~. als from other disciplines jjj~~ (e.g., early childhood education). This trend is very troubling for a number of reasons. First and foremost, specialized instruction is the cornerstone of

Building Positive Relationship With Young Children

lows. Eric says to everyone, &dquo;Look at Bill, he is sitting so quietly in circle; too cool, Bill!&dquo; When Bill answers a question about the story, Eric says, &dquo;Bill that’s right, you are really concentrating today.&dquo; When transition is about to occur, Eric says, &dquo;Bill can you show everyone good walking feet to snack?&dquo; At snack, a peer asks Bill for juice and he passes the container. Eric, being vigilant, says, &dquo;Bill, thanks for sharing so nicely.&dquo;

Making Sense of Early Intervention in the Context of Welfare to Work

Children living in poverty are more likely to have disabilities than their peers who live in middleand upper-income families. Children with disabilities are more likely than their typically developing peers to be poor. This relationship between disability and poverty springs from neglected prenatal care, inadequate nutrition, lack of access to preventive health care, caregivers mental and physical health problems, and a host of other difficult life circumstances. Furthermore, because our nation lacks basic child support subsidies, the correlations between measures of income or socioeconomic status and basic child outcomes are often higher in the United States than in other modern societies (Bronfenbrenner, 1986). Thus, special educators need to be informed and interested in the Omnibus Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act (welfare to work or welfare reform), as well as the concurrent funding changes in food stamp allowances, Medicaid, cash assistance programs, and Supplemental Social Security Insurance (SSI). Cheryl Ohlson describes policy changes that are complex and comprehensive in scope. These policy changes may serve to further fractionate an already fragmented infrastructure of social programs meant to support children and families, and the combined effects of the devolution of funding and fractionation of services may further compromise the presence of risk conditions, prevalence of disabilities, and general well being of young children. Clearly, however, our interest must go beyond deciphering bureaucratic policy language, rules, regulations, and procedures, and it must go beyond orchestrating moment-tomoment responses to real and anticipated changes associated with the Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act. We must also focus on understanding and articulating what should occur for young children with disabilities and their families who are impoverished by life circumstances so that disabling conditions do not increase, worsen, or go unaddressed. We cannot miss seeing the developmental forest for the bureaucratic trees. The relationship among risk factors, including established disabling conditions, biological risk, and environmental risk associated with poverty, was identified and described more than two decades ago by Theodore Tjossem (1976) and subsequently was included in Part H of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. These risk categories and the interactions among them not only inform us about the probability of delayed or aberrant development in infants and young children, but also inform us about what to do as early

The relationship of gross motor and physical activity environments in child care settings with early learning outcomes

ABSTRACT Gross motor and physical activity opportunities in early childhood are important for promoting health and development. We conducted two studies with the following aims: (1) to describe the quality of gross motor/physical activity early learning environments in Washington (WA) state, USA and (2) to study the relationship between the quality of gross motor/physical activity environments and various early learning outcomes. We used state-wide classroom quality measures related to gross motor activities from the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale- Revised (N = 1335 centres). For Aim 2, individual early learning assessments were conducted on 495 children from 72 centres in the fall and spring. We found considerable room for improvement in the space, equipment, schedule and supervision related to gross motor activities in child care centres. The quality of the gross motor environments was found to be related to desirable early learning outcomes including preschoolers’ executive functions and behaviour. Abbreviations: ECERS-R: Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale- Revised; QRIS: Quality Rating and Improvement System; WA: Washington