Developmental Delay (DD) is an IDEA classification for young children who fail to meet developmental milestones at typical times. Young children with delays in social or emotional development may show deficits in social skills. Noting the importance of early intervention, identifying effective social skills interventions for children aged 3-5 is…

Background/Context: There has been a growing realization in American education that the traditional focus on academics, particularly mathematics and English language arts, is insufficient to guarantee success in the modern workforce and society (Griffin and Care, 2015). Educators, policymakers, and researchers have correspondingly broadened the…

Oklahoma's universal pre-K (UPK) program has long been a classic "man bites dog" story. In 1998, Oklahoma became the second state in the U.S. to offer free pre-K to all four-year-olds. Coupled with growing evidence of the critical importance of the early years in brain synapse formation, results like Tulsa's have encouraged state and…

The Parents Plus Early Years (PPEY) Programme was conceptualised as an early group intervention for parents of preschool children with behavioural, emotional and developmental difficulties. This systematic review sought to examine and critically evaluate the existing literature in which the PPEY Programme has been implemented. A number of…

Teaching children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) academic skills supports their future opportunities. For example, early number sense skills are predictive of future mathematical success for all children including children with ASD. Yet, research on foundational early childhood mathematics skills of children with ASD is limited. This study…

Developing adaptive skills poses a significant challenge for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Personal hygiene, including hand-washing, was particularly important during the COVID-19 pandemic. Video self-modeling (VSM) is an effective strategy for teaching adaptive skills due to its inherent individualization nature. However, the…

The experiences and learning opportunities children are exposed to in pre-K give them a boost as they enter school. However, the positive effects of pre-K attendance on children's academic and cognitive skills become smaller and sometimes disappear by third grade due to non-attenders "catching-up" to their peers. To make pre-K programs…

The Coping Power Program is an evidence-based intervention for children identified to be at risk for developing externalizing behavioral problems. The Coping Power Program has been adapted to universally prevent behavioral problems in school-aged children. This study sought to test the efficacy of this adaptation, the Coping Power Universal…

Engagement in strong play skills is important as an outcome by itself, but also as means to achieve other valued outcomes in early childhood development. Yet, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often demonstrate challenges in this area of development. To address these challenges, intervention is needed. This study evaluated the effects…

Intervention research in education investigates whether and how particular educational programs help students learn. Treatment effect heterogeneity, or variation in a program's impact, makes this effort more complicated, because it means more work must be done to understand what works, for whom, and in what contexts. This dissertation consists of…

The current study provides new evidence on the sustained benefits of preschool attendance on a broader range of skills--both academic and executive functioning (EF)--than many prior studies have examined. Using propensity score methods, we predicted children's (N = 920, M age at 1st = 6.5 years) literacy, language, math, and EF skills in…

The aim of this pre-experimental study is to evaluate the acquisition level of counting skills of a 3-year-old classroom made up of 14 children through a specific instructional design. To this end, an instructional proposal to improve these mathematical skills was designed. Before and after the intervention, we measured the students' level…

This study assessed the effects of portable video modeling on social interactions of four children with autism, three boys and one girl, 4- to 5-year-olds, in preschools in Iceland. Participants were shown 1-min videos on a small handheld device where a peer model initiated social interactions and played with two peers. A…

Acquiring observational competences is an important task in early science education. It helps children to make a transition from seeing to observing and developing scientific process skills and science concepts. Outdoor education is seen by many researchers as optimal way for learning about life sciences, therefore ongoing loss of human…

A lack of functional communication negatively impacts a student's academic and social-emotional success. Schools are in the position to create systems and protocols that would allow students to be taught a method to communicate functionally. This dissertation project sought to answer the question: How can early childhood students with no verbal…