The current emphasis on alignment of early learning guidelines, assessment, curricular practices, and accountability in early education and care systems has provided an opportunity to revisit and refine early childhood assessment practices. Practitioners, researchers, and policy makers are increasingly interested in developing instruction-focused…

Background: Increasing evidence suggests that childhood language problems persist into early adulthood. Nevertheless, little is known about how individual and environmental characteristics influence the language growth of individuals identified with speech/language problems. Method: Individual growth curve models were utilised to examine how…

In this article, the authors describe how they transformed their interdisciplinary personnel preparation program in early intervention from a traditional classroom format to a primarily Web-based format. The authors used force field analysis, informed by survey results of faculty and practitioners, to examine the external and internal factors that…

Across the country, states are reporting increases in the number of children with autism enrolled in the education system. Although a few specific treatment methods have been established as efficacious for some children with autism in controlled settings, research examining the translation of these treatments into early intervention programs has…

Reading disorders are a growing concern facing schools. Observational studies have shown that without intervention, the reading issues will be maintained over time. More specifically, phonological processing deficits, the most basic of reading skills, will remain without mediation. Early intervention in the form of individual and group tutoring…

Education and business leaders as well as the public at large have grown increasingly concerned about the achievement disparities that children from at-risk backgrounds manifest at a young age. Early childhood initiatives that take into account the entire preschool period of 0 to 5 years need a better understanding of the disparities which may be…

Just as mathematical ability begins to form in early childhood, so, too, does the knowledge gap separating low-income children from their more affluent peers, who generally enter school with much greater math knowledge. This gap is troubling given that early deficits in mathematical knowledge can have profound implications for future learning. One…

Comparisons were made of the class discussions from two graduate courses related to infants with disabilities and home visiting practice. Students were enrolled in either a traditional on-campus course that met weekly or an online course that engaged students asynchronously. Both groups of students also made weekly home visits to a family with an…

In Part II of this study, we examined the effect of two 9-week instructional climates (low-autonomy [LA] and mastery motivational climate [MMC]) on perceived physical competence (PPC) in preschoolers (N = 117). Participants were randomly assigned to an LA, MMC, or comparison group. PPC was assessed by a pretest, posttest, and retention test with…

Early learning guidelines (ELGs)--documents that describe the skills, characteristics, and dispositions adults seek to foster in young children--are increasingly common. Although less prevalent than ELGs for 3- and 4-year-old children, ELGs for infants and toddlers have been developed in more than half of the 50 states. Given this momentum, a…

The purposes of this study were to determine the state of current practice in early intervention in Finland and to compare them to American data. Professional women (N = 52), representing child care, elementary school, healthcare, and social work, completed the Families in Natural Environments Scale of Service Evaluation, a 34-item questionnaire…

Positive outcomes for children with developmental disabilities (DD) can be affected by children's behavior problems. This study examined the family environment of 125 children with DD at age 3, and the extent to which that environment, as well as children's cognitive and adaptive functioning, predicted the problematic behaviors that children with…

This article reports on a randomized controlled trial of the First Step to Success early intervention that was conducted over a 4-year period in Albuquerque Public Schools. First Step is a selected intervention for students in Grades 1 through 3 with externalizing behavior problems, and it addresses secondary prevention goals and objectives. It…

Researchers have found that there is an increase in mental heath problems as a result of military-related traumatic events, and such problems increase in the months following return from combat. Nevertheless, researchers have not assessed the impact of early intervention efforts with this at-risk population. In the present study, the authors…

A systematic literature search for studies reporting effects of Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention identified 34 studies, 9 of which were controlled designs having either a comparison or a control group. We completed a meta-analysis yielding a standardized mean difference effect size for two available outcome measures: change in full-scale…