Current educational practices acknowledge student and staff social-emotional needs; however, there is also an emphasis placed on student compliance and achievement. Impersonal, test-driven approaches and the recent demands of a teaching career can cause teacher-student relationships to suffer. The emphasis on data, rigor, and accountability,…

Viewed through a social justice lens, preschool expulsion is an educational equity issue. This study focused on prior expulsion from preschool and child-care in a longitudinal study of 203 autistic children, ages 4 to 7. By parent report, 16%--one out of six autistic children--had been expelled from a preschool or child-care setting prior to…

This study compared the relative contribution of earliest assessment of preschool children's context-specific problem behaviors with subsequent observations of those behaviors for the prediction of later academic and sociobehavioral performance in first grade. Using a nationally representative sample of low-income children from the Head Start…

In the 1960s, educational psychologist Marjorie Boxall developed Nurture Groups (NGs) in response to the growing number of children who were deprived of healthy nurturance in early life and who, as a result, were failing to cope with the demands of school. To date, research on this intervention model has consistently shown that students who attend…

Disruptive behavior problems frequently emerge in the preschool years and are associated with numerous, long-term negative outcomes, including comorbid disorders. First Step is a psychosocial early intervention with substantial empirical evidence supporting its efficacy among young children (Walker et al., 2014). The present study reports on a…

The population of Canadian schools is becoming increasingly diverse in ethnic origins. Despite the challenges they face, paradox immigrant theory suggests that immigrant students have a more favorable profile than their non-immigrant peers in terms of academic success. The aim of this longitudinal study which was conducted with 66 elementary…

A large body of literature demonstrates that children who experience unstable housing and homelessness are at risk for developmental delays and social--emotional challenges. However, there is also evidence of variability in the functioning of these children. Our primary aims were to identify unique profiles among preschool-aged children who were…

Student characteristics, their attitude to school and classroom climate can influence teacher-student relationships and adjustment to school. Poor early school experiences are associated with school avoidance, disruptive behaviour, teacher conflict, and suspension and exclusion. The focus, however, remains on the behaviour of individual children,…

Student problem behaviors in early elementary school are associated with fewer learning opportunities, poor relationships with teachers, and academic and behavioral problems, including increased risk of emotional/behavioral disorders (EBDs). This study examined the effect of BEST in CLASS--Elementary (BEST in CLASS-E), a Tier 2 intervention…

Student problem behaviors in early elementary school are associated with fewer learning opportunities, poor relationships with teachers, and academic and behavioral problems, including increased risk of emotional/behavioral disorders (EBDs). This study examined the effect of BEST in CLASS--Elementary (BEST in CLASS-E), a Tier 2 intervention…

This study examined fidelity of implementation in a randomized trial of Banking Time, a classroom-based intervention intended to improve children's behavior, specifically for those at risk for developing externalizing behavior problems, through improving the quality of teacher-child interactions. The study sample comes from a randomized controlled…

Children's relationships with their teachers are critical for classroom-based learning, but children growing up in poverty may be at risk for lower-quality relationships with teachers. Little is known about how changing schools, one poverty-related risk, affects teacher-child relationships. Using growth curve models that control for a host of…

The current study examined the effects of parent-child and teacher-child relationships on behavior regulation of children at risk. In particular, the amplifying or attenuating effect of one context (i.e., teacher-child relationships) for another context (i.e., parent-child relationship) on children's behavior regulation was examined. Participants…

The associations between student-teacher relationship (STR) quality and externalizing behavior problems in school were examined among 166 children with ASD (82% boys, ages 4-7 years) across three assessments over a 1.5-year period; IQs in the sample range from 50 to 139 (M = 88.7). Unlike other non-ASD populations, the association between STR…

School-based mental health services are a promising context for evidence-based interventions to promote early socio-emotional development, yet implementation presents significant challenges. This paper describes the rationale, content and format of a school-based intervention, Starting Strong in Kindergarten (Starting Strong). Starting Strong is a…