The problem addressed in this study is that multicultural literature is not being used consistently to address the needs of the growing diverse population in the local middle school language arts classroom. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore middle school teachers' perceptions of using multicultural literature to teach…

Parental involvement in play has long been an essential piece of healthy child development and wellbeing, yet when it comes to digital play, parent-child relationships are often characterized by conflict and stress. This research explored the relationship between parental involvement with children's digital game play, digital game design, and…

Bullying is widely prevalent in the US. Although anti-bullying laws have been implemented across the country since 1999, bullying prevalence rates remain high. Research suggests that being a bully or a bully victim or both makes an individual more likely to experience worse physical, mental, and financial health. This dissertation comprises of…

Early childhood teachers (ECTs) play a critical role in shaping the literacy development of young children. The survey described herein broadly sampled ECTs across the United States (N= 612) to learn about their literacy instructional practices, which allows us to connect school context with student opportunities. Researchers have suggested that…

Children's exposure to technology primarily depends on parental decisions concerning when and how to introduce them to technology and some parents are not aware of the dangers on cognitive and social growth. However, there are significant research gaps on the factors that influence parental decisions on introducing preschool-aged children to…

Purpose: Developmental language disorder (DLD) is characterized by persistent and unexplained difficulties in language development. Accumulating evidence shows that children with DLD also present with deficits in other cognitive domains, such as executive functioning (EF). There is an ongoing debate on whether exclusively verbal EF abilities are…

Children with severe disabilities are often excluded from educational opportunities due to inter alia attitudinal barriers and a lack of teacher training. This scoping review paper assessed intervention studies focused on inclusive education for children with severe disabilities. It was found that a total of 13 studies met the review's inclusion…

This study examined whether particular practices in story retelling improve children's comprehension of story structure and enables them to further comment on the story content. Eighty-three (83) kindergarten children (M = 5.4) years old composed the experimental (N = 43) and the control (N = 40) groups. For 6 weeks, one time per week, six…

Many children bring rich multimodal literacy practices into their classrooms, with experience weaving between paper and digital texts. In order to support children's multimodal meaning making, teachers need first to understand the multimodal practices that children bring into the classroom in order to then develop instruction that builds on, and…

Background: Current literature mainly focuses on adaptive profiles from a categorical perspective but yields inconclusive results. The present study puts a transdiagnostic approach next to a "classical" categorical approach. Methods: In this study, 222 children (5-18 years old) with autism and/or intellectual disability participated.…

The positive impact of warm and supportive relationships between children and preschool teachers on children's development has been highlighted in many studies. However, research gaps exist regarding the prediction of teacher-child relationships in preschool. In particular, little is known about associations between child personality and…

Preschool children with cerebral palsy (CP) with no or unintelligible speech need augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), but not all children needing AAC have access to it. This study describes the use and perceived benefit of AAC and explores factors associated with receiving AAC interventions. Using a cross-sectional design, we…

Moral disengagement (MD) refers to social-cognitive distortions that allow individuals to sidestep the self-regulatory processes that normally prevent immoral conduct. MD has been linked to bullying in childhood and adolescence, but most studies have used a cross-sectional design. Less is known about the longitudinal link. Therefore, the aim of…

The literature defines curiosity and interest, but it is not clear how interest can be generated, where interest is positioned in the learning process, and what the impact of interest is on cognitive and emotional development. This paper reports on a three-year, iterative design-based research project involving three separate cohorts totalling 57…

In the United States, economic inequality in education is well-documented. However, less is known about the experiences of elementary school teachers who have broached issues of social class with their students. At the same time, the classed identity of teachers is still under-developed. This study takes a phenomenological approach to teacher…