Digital Module 31: Testing Accommodations for Students with Disabilities

Students with disabilities often take tests under different conditions than their peers do. Testing accommodations, which involve changes to test administration that maintain test content, include extending time limits, presenting written text through auditory means, and taking a test in a private room with fewer distractions. For some students with disabilities, accommodations such as these are necessary for fair assessment; without accommodations, invalid interpretations would be made on the basis of these students’ scores. However, when misapplied, accommodations can also diminish fairness, introduce new sources of construct-irrelevant variance, and also lead to invalid interpretation of test scores. This module provides a psychometric framework for thinking about accommodations, and then explicates an accommodations decision-making framework that includes a variety of considerations. Problems with current accommodations practices are discussed, along with potential solutions and future directions. The module is accompanied by exercises allowing participants to apply their understanding.     

Combating Gender Disparity in Education: Guidelines for Early Childhood Educators

Research has indicated a gender disparity in early education environments. This disparity has been recognized in terms of the student–teacher interaction, the differing types of play fostered, the varying use of praise and gender-specific messages, and the stereotypical messages evident in children's literature or play materials. The purpose of this article is to outline areas within a classroom that prospective teachers or childcare providers can update to reflect a more gender-fair environment. Suggestions for assessing classrooms for an antibiased environment are also offered.     

自闭症谱系阅读障碍研究综述

自闭症谱系障碍(ASD)学生的阅读研究在国外已经开展了二、三十年,但在国内还处于起步阶段。随着一批具有学业能力的ASD儿童进入小学,他们的学习能力和特点,尤其阅读的方法和如何提高他们阅读理解能力等问题,引起儿童家长和学校教师更多的关注。本文评介和分析了ASD学生阅读的特征、机制和干预原理,在总结国外相关研究成果的基础上,对如何结合我国语言文字的特点开展自闭症谱系障碍的阅读研究提出了几点建议。     

Walking the Roads as Immigrant Mothers and Teacher Educators: A Collaborative Self-Study of Three Korean Immigrant Early Childhood Educators

Offering an analysis of our multifaceted experiences as three Korean immigrant early childhood teacher educators in the United States, this critical collaborative self-study examines how positions as immigrant mothers and teacher educators interplay with each other. This study also explores ways in which the intersectional experiences influence our teaching pedagogy and practices. We found that we as immigrant mothers have challenges pertaining to parental involvement and maintaining our heritage language, meet tensions when advocating for diversity, and experience role-model pressure as teacher educators. Keeping these challenges in mind, the interactions between our two roles benefitted our students as our teaching became more critical and deeper. This collaborative self-study unpacks the intersecting positions of immigrant mother and teacher educator insightfully and reveals the development of pedagogical practices. It also suggests directions for classroom teachers and future researchers in relation to immigrant children and families.     

Asperger syndrome and the English curriculum: addressing the challenges

A major criterion for the diagnosis of Asperger syndrome is an impairment of the imagination. This article focuses on the specific difficulties that students with Asperger syndrome have with the imaginative content of the English curriculum. It examines the problems with reading and writing imaginatively of a group of students with AS in a secondary school mainstream setting. Various strategies and interventions are considered and discussed which could aid their understanding and learning in relation to the imaginative element of the English curriculum. While acknowledging that this is an area of real difficulty for these students, recommendations include: treating students with AS as individuals; using a small group setting; providing support through structured frameworks.     

Enhancing Alphabet Knowledge Instruction: Research Implications and Practical Strategies for Early Childhood Educators

Alphabet knowledge is consistently recognized as the strongest, most durable predictor of later literacy achievement. Recent research offers practical implications for increased effectiveness of teaching alphabet knowledge to young children. In this article, we outline Enhanced Alphabet Knowledge instruction (EAK), a method of practical instruction that early childhood teachers can use to organize, plan, and teach the essential skills of alphabet knowledge. EAK emphasizes identifying the letter name and sound, recognizing the letter in text, and producing the letter form, through flexible, distributed cycles of review based on factors that influence acquisition of alphabet knowledge.     

Preservice Teacher Learning within a Kindergarten Internship: Insights for Early Childhood Teacher Educators

This study is an examination of early childhood preservice teachers' kindergarten internship experiences to identify the supportive and challenging conditions for their learning and explore in what ways those conditions are productive or unproductive for them, based on ecological perspective as a theoretical framework. Qualitative data were collected from weekly seminar notes and field notes by the researchers, a focus group with the preservice teachers, and course evaluation feedback. Through a constant comparative analysis approach, the findings indicate that both supportive and challenging learning conditions were created by collaborating teachers, preservice teachers, and the university supervisors. The findings illuminate the complex responsibilities of early childhood teacher educators to develop horizontal expertise for both themselves and preservice teachers so they can negotiate the best practices from research and the reality of school contexts.     

Professional Development Opportunities for Early Childhood Educators in Community-Based Child Care Centers

In this study, the staff development opportunities among early childhood educators in community-based, nonprofit child care centers were investigated. The trends for professional development and implications for future staff development were determined from data gathered from surveys completed by 12 lead teachers, 5 paraprofessionals, and 5 administrators from 5 community-based child care centers in New Jersey. The results indicated that the teachers preferred enhanced or advanced professional development on subjects in which they already possessed an adequate level of knowledge and experience. In addition, teachers and administrators stated they preferred workshops as the professional development format. The findings were consistent with typical formal professional development, but contrary to the research that promotes effective learning and efficient staff professional development.     

幼儿教育音乐学科的再认识

文章在作者多年教学实践的基础上与新教育理念的影响下,特别是通过奥尔夫音乐教育的教学实践,就幼儿教育中音乐课的学科特点和幼儿音乐课的教学目的等问题,提出了一些看法。     

边缘型人格障碍的成因及早期预防

边缘型人格障碍是一种较严重的人格障碍,其症状轻则忧郁、焦虑,在易怒的状态中摇摆不定,重则自残自伤。其形成因素众多,与个体早期母亲、婴儿＂共生期＂和＂分离—个体化期＂互动不良、儿童时期内化的客体关系影响、家庭不良的环境因素影响等密不可分。文章通过临床心理个案分析,提出了对边缘型人格障碍早期预防的观念。     

What Early Childhood Educators Need to Know About Divorced Fathers

Early childhood professionals can play an important role in helping divorced fathers to be more involved in the lives of their children. They can include involving fathers in all school and classroom activities from parent conferences to class celebrations. Educators can also serve as child care consultants to help fathers become better caretakers. By taking these measures, teachers will not only improve the emotional health of children and their fathers, but will also improve the educational experiences of children     

Naturalistic intervention for Asperger syndrome – a case study

On the basis of their cognitive abilities, children with Asperger syndrome are attractive candidates for inclusive education and, in Australia, most are in integrated settings. However, social interaction between children with Asperger syndrome and their peers remains problematic, with the children with Asperger syndrome often being left alone despite being among or near classmates. For classroom teachers, effective interventions in terms of class management are critical to facilitate positive social interaction between these two groups of children, and case studies can tell us a great deal about what works. In practice, a combination of intervention techniques may be best, in case a single one is ineffective, and in order to take advantage of potential synergies. In this article, Serene Choi, of the School of Education at the University of Newcastle (Australia) and Timo Nieminen, of the Centre for Biophotonics and Laser Science in the Department of Physics at the University of Queensland, report a naturalistic multiple-component intervention used to develop the social skills of a boy with Asperger syndrome in a mainstream school in Australia. This combined intervention, making use of social stories, simple peer modelling and individual lessons, appears to be a practical teaching method for inclusive education.     

Children’s Memory: A Primer for Understanding Behavior

This paper provides the opportunity to understand children’s behavior from a memory viewpoint. For the last three decades, cognitive developmentalists have been asking the question, “what develops in children’s memory?” Four answers to this question are presented, complete with explanations, examples, and possible applications where appropriate. The purpose of the paper is to provide early childhood educators and other practitioners who work with children a different lens through which to view children’s behavior. The memory view is compatible with current best practices in early childhood education, and may provide practitioners an additional viewpoint from which to draw when implementing developmentally appropriate practice.     

En Confianza: Co-constructing Professional Strength and Voice With Latina Early Childhood Educators

It is well documented in the literature that early pre-K reading experiences prepare children for the benefits of formal literacy instruction in the later grades. This is particularly true for young children from nonmainstream backgrounds. The objective of this article is to share the findings of a 4-year qualitative study investigating the relationships forged and teaching ideologies constructed by Latino pre-K teachers via critical “storying” within a culturally responsive professional learning community. Findings suggest that as teachers learned to recognize, listen to, and learn from the personal/professional individual and collective life histories of each other, their teaching efficacy was enhanced increasing their ability to develop effective literacy instruction that was culturally and linguistically responsive to the needs of young children.