EXPLORING THE RELATION BETWEEN POSITIVE BEHAVIOR SUPPORT AND LANGUAGE LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES IN PRESCHOOL CLASSROOMS.

Vanderbilt University, Nashville TN

Investigators

Abstract

Children from low-income backgrounds are likely to begin formal schooling with lower language skills as compared to their peers from higher SES homes (Hart & Risely, 1995; Hoff, 2003). This deficit can play a critical role in student's future academic success, as oral language skills are a key component in literacy development (see Dickinson, Golinkoff, & Hirsch-Pasek, 2010). Finding ways to foster and promote language development early in these at-risk children is essential, especially considering the evidence that this achievement gap persists and widens into young adulthood (Hoff, 2003; Reardon, 2011). High quality childcare and preschool programs can help mediate these differences among children from varying SES backgrounds (Vernon-Feagans & Hines, 2013). However, recent meta-analyses have indicated that professional development efforts to enhance the quality of teacher-child language interactions in classrooms result in inconsistent and relatively small effects on child language outcomes (Cunningham & Kaiser, in preparation; Markussen-Brown et al., 2017). Exploring what classroom and teacher level factors may influence teacher-child language interactions may be key in understanding how to better support teachers in their use of language support strategies. The goal of the proposed study is to extend what is known about factors that contribute to the language learning environment in classrooms for young children at-risk. Two primary research questions will be addressed: (1) are scores on measures of classroom behavior management and social-emotional support associated with the quantity and quality of teacher-child language interactions during center time in preschool classrooms? (2) do teachers who receive training in behavior management and social emotional support engage in higher quality language interactions with children as compared to teachers who do not receive training? The participants in this study will be approximately 40 teachers in childcare and Head Start classrooms serving children ages three to five. The study will explore the relationship between positive behavior support and teacher language support strategies in two ways: an initial correlational design study and an experimental research design study in which a subset of teachers who have been randomized to receive Pyramid Model training or ?business as usual? will be assessed pre- and post-training. Results from these studies will provide a foundation for understanding the relationship between overall positive interactions in the classroom designed to promote positive behavior and teacher use of language development support strategies. Potentially these findings will suggest ways in which the benefits of training in positive behavior support can be leveraged to also improve teacher-child language related interactions. Because both positive behavior and language outcomes are of concern in children at-risk, increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of professional development in targeting both developmental areas is important to the field.