The research-to-practice gap describes the well-documented phenomena of researchers and practitioners working in silos, embedded in vastly different contexts. This "cultural divide" has several causes, including ineffective collaboration, inadequate understanding of context, and insufficient dissemination and translation of research.…

Educating young people about sexual consent aims to help them develop healthy relationships and prevent sexual harm. Yet, there remains no consensus on how to define consent nor the connection between consent and sexual harm. This article discusses findings from qualitative research conducted with young people in England that has explored issues…

Increasing child engagement and improving social-communication (SC) and play skills for young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may provide a foundation for future academic and social development; yet preschool practitioners may not have the resources to successfully identify and target these skills for all children in their classrooms.…

The high prevalence of trauma world-wide is such that speech-language pathologists are likely to support clients across the lifespan with experiences of trauma, such as abuse, neglect, intergenerational and racial trauma, and exposure to structural and systemic violence. Trauma can affect peoples' neurobiology and can also impact cognitive,…

Since social and emotional development in early childhood is so significant for success later in life and the foundation of the capacity for learning, it is essential for caregivers to build these capacities in young children through everyday moments (Russell, Lee, Spieker, & Oxford, 2016; Turculet & Tulbure, 2014). Caregivers who provide…

Inclusive early childhood programs strive to provide the necessary support for all children with disabilities to be successful alongside their typically developing peers. Children with disabilities are at risk for not engaging and fully participating in social routines with peers and require modifications and adaptations to fully access…

People who receive supportive communication when they are distressed benefit from a series of advantageous outcomes. We designed the following activity based on the popular board game Apples to Apples to provide students with an experiential understanding of different types of social support--(1) emotional, (2) esteem, (3) network, (4)…

Advances in technology offer new frontiers in terms of conquering temporal dimensions, but with more significant advancements in technology, there is the possibility of having a diminished return in terms of interpersonal relationships. Without necessarily decrying technology as the culprit of a decrease in human social interaction, this…

Social and emotional learning (SEL) has become an avant-garde term in the last few years. It is how people acquire and apply knowledge, attitudes and skills to understand and control emotions. Incorporating the SEL perspective, teachers can not only help students set and achieve positive goals, but also help students understand how empathizing…

For families and educators, understanding and working with children who experience a combination of deafness and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can be challenging. Yet both understanding and work are crucial. For children with ASD to succeed, parents and educators need to understand them and to be able to work together to implement successful…

The preschool years are fundamental for children's social development as they navigate novel and complex social situations, which include interaction sequences and relationship features. As young children notice aspects of human difference, they develop schemas by classifying and situating attributes (e.g., skin color, hair type, communication…

Social competency is a set of skills that provide children with the tools and abilities to successfully navigate the world around them. "Developing Social Competency in Young Children" looks at each of the seven Cs of social competence--communication, community building, coping, confidence, conflict resolution, control, and curiosity.…

In the heart of every early childhood professional lies the deep desire to reach, touch and inspire all children in the classroom so that they may bloom and grow to their maximum heights. Children who feel shy, perhaps because of the quiet cocoon they may live in, often get overlooked and may thus not reach the promise of their potential.…

Teachers at all levels have reported a stark decline in students' ability to interact with others face-to-face in a technology-driven world. In the world of work, communicative soft skills have surfaced as both a concern and focal point for potential employers. Schools can teach these skills using an approach called S.P.E.C.I.A.L, which focuses on…

In order to further understand what educators can do - and are doing - to build strong relationships, Transforming Education (TransformEd) has produced a series of briefs or "stories from the field" that are intended to share student and educator perspectives about developing and sustaining strong relationships within the classroom and…