Concurrent validity of the PPVT-R with the K-ABC for learning problem children

This study examined the concurrent validity of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R) and the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC) with 47 students referred for learning difficulties. A comparison of the correlations of each of the criterion measures from the K-ABC global scales showed a more substantial relationship between the PPVT-R standard score and the K-ABC Achievement scale than with other K-ABC scales. In an effort to further examine the relationship between the PPVT-R and the K-ABC, a stepwise multiple regression was calculated, with the standard scores of the K-ABC global scales serving as the predictor variables of the PPVT-R. This analysis indicated that the K-ABC Achievement global scale was the only significant predictor of the PPVT-R. Implications for practitioners were discussed.     

Comparison of the PPVT-R and WISC-R: A validation study with second-grade students

The present investigation compared the PPVT-R/WISC-R scores of a “normal” or “nonexceptional population,” as well as whether prior administration of either of these instruments affected scores on the other. Forty public school second-grade students served as subjects and were randomly assigned to one of four groups, with the order of test administrations determined by group assignment: WISC-R/PPVT-R (Form L): WISC-R/PPVT-R (Form M); PPVT-R (Form L)/WISC-R; PPVT-R (Form M)/WISC-R. The results indecate that, as with exceptional populations, normal school children tend to score lower on the PPVT-R than on the WISC-R. Scores from these two tests are moderately correlated, and prior adminstration of one of the instruments does not appear to alter scores on the other. Implications for practice are discussed.     

Comparison of the PPVT-R and WISC-R with urban educable mentally retarded students

Comparisons of the revised PPVT (PPVT-R) and the WISC-R were made with 67 EMR students. Significant differences were found between the PPVT-R mean standard scores and Verbal, Performance, and Full Scale IQs. The PPVT-R did not correlate significantly with the WISC-R scales or subtests, suggesting the tests are measuring different abilities.     

Are Head Start Effects Sustained? A Longitudinal Follow-up Comparison of Disadvantaged Children Attending Head Start, No Preschool, and Other Preschool Programs

This study investigates the sustained effects into kindergarten and grade 1 of Project Head Start for disadvantaged black children. Participation in generic Head Start programs was compared to both no preschool and other preschool experience for disadvantaged children in two American cities in 1969-1970. Incorporating both pretest/posttest and comparison group information, the study has advantages over other Head Start impact studies. Both preprogram background and cognitive differences were controlled in a covariance analysis design, using dependent measures in the cognitive, verbal, and social domains. Children who attended Head Start maintained educationally substantive gains in general cognitive/analytic ability, especially when compared to children without preschool experience. These effects were not as large as those found immediately following the Head Start intervention. Findings suggest an effect of preschool rather than of Head Start per se. Initial findings of greater effectiveness of Head Start for children of below average initial ability were reduced but not reversed. The diminution of effects over time, especially for low-ability children, may reflect differences in quality of subsequent schooling or home environment.     

Picture Book Reading at Home: A Comparison of Head Start and Middle-class Preschoolers

This study was designed to assess the impact of taking a high quality picture book home from school daily on the at-home reading behaviors of young children and/or family members from middle and low SES backgrounds. Eighty children representing two study groups (treatment & no-treatment comparison) and two socioeconomic groups (Head Start & middle-class) composed the study sample. Treatment children selected picture books at school daily to take home over a 12-week period. Child and family picture book reading behaviors were assessed by weekly random telephone surveys. Findings indicate that taking a picture book home daily more than doubled the number of books read at home for both middle-class and Head Start treatment children over their no-treatment comparison counterparts and significantly increased the amount of time Head Start treatment children were involved in reading each day. The practicality of making high quality picture books available for preschool children to take home and the implications of increased at-home reading behaviors are discussed.     

Picture Book Reading at Home: A Comparison of Head Start and Middle-class Preschoolers

This study was designed to assess the impact of taking a high quality picture book home from school daily on the at-home reading behaviors of young children and/or family members from middle and low SES backgrounds. Eighty children representing two study groups (treatment & no-treatment comparison) and two socioeconomic groups (Head Start & middle-class) composed the study sample. Treatment children selected picture books at school daily to take home over a 12-week period. Child and family picture book reading behaviors were assessed by weekly random telephone surveys. Findings indicate that taking a picture book home daily more than doubled the number of books read at home for both middle-class and Head Start treatment children over their no-treatment comparison counterparts and significantly increased the amount of time Head Start treatment children were involved in reading each day. The practicality of making high quality picture books available for preschool children to take home and the implications of increased at-home reading behaviors are discussed.     

Early Head Start Relationships: Association with Program Outcomes

Research Findings: Interpersonal relationships among staff caregivers, parents, and children have been recommended as essential aspects of early childhood intervention. This study explored the associations of these relationships with program outcomes for children and parents in 3 Early Head Start programs. A total of 71 children (8–35 months, M = 20), their parents, and 33 program caregivers participated. The results showed that caregiver–child relationships were moderately positive, secure, and interactive and improved in quality over 6 months, whereas caregiver–parent relationships were generally positive and temporally stable. Caregiver–child relationships were more positive for girls, younger children, and those in home-visiting programs. Caregiver–parent relationships were more positive when parents had higher education levels and when staff had more years of experience, had more positive work environments, or had attained a Child Development Associate credential or associate's level of education rather than a 4-year academic degree. Hierarchical linear modeling analysis suggested that the quality of the caregiver–parent relationship was a stronger predictor of both child and parent outcomes than was the quality of the caregiver–child relationship. There were also moderation effects: Stronger associations of caregiver–parent relationships with observed positive parenting were seen in parents with lower education levels and when program caregivers had higher levels of education. Practice or Policy: The results support the importance of caregiver–family relationships in early intervention programs and suggest that staff need to be prepared to build relationships with children and families in individualized ways. Limitations of this study and implications for program improvements and future research are discussed.     

Comparison of the PPVT and PPVT-R for preschool children: Implications for the practitioner

The aim of this study was to compare the standard scores and age scores obtained from the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (1965) and the Revised Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (1981). The sample included 88 preschool children who ranged in age from 2–6 to 5–11. The mean PPVT IQ score was 98.9 (SD = 16.9) and Mental Age was 55.2 months (SD = 20.1 mo.); the mean PPVT-R Standard Score Equivalent was 95.4 (SD = 13.4) and Age Equivalent was 48.5 months (SD = 14.6 mo.). The mean PPVT IQ and Mental Age scores were significantly higher (p < .01) than the respective Standard Scores and Age Equivalents. Implications for the use of the Revised PPVT are discussed.     

Absenteeism in Head Start and Children's Academic Learning

Using nationally representative data from the Family and Child Experiences Survey 2009 cohort (n = 2,842), this study examined the implications of 3‐ and 4‐year‐old's absences from Head Start for their early academic learning. The findings from this study revealed that children who missed more days of school, and especially those who were chronically absent, demonstrated fewer gains in areas of math and literacy during the preschool year. Moreover, excessive absenteeism was found to detract from the potential benefits of quality preschool education and was especially problematic for the early learning of children who entered the Head Start program with a less developed skill set. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

美国"早期开端计划"简介及其启示

美国"早期开端计划"始于1995年,是"开端计划"延伸到3岁以下婴幼儿的早期教育项目.本文介绍该计划的产生、基本原则、组成部分、组织形式、参与标准、考核评估以及取得的成效,并在此基础上分析对我国早期教育的一些启示,即要重视0～3岁儿童的保育与教育,要与家庭建立良好关系,要关注和支持弱势群体的教育,要提高养护者和工作人员的专业素质.     

美国先行计划的现状与趋势

在美国人看来，美国早期儿童教育发展中“先行计划”（Project Head Start）是美国历史上“最富有雄心、最有影响和最有争议的社会划之一”。“先行计划”最初的对象是穷人家的孩子，而今，美国社会各阶层人士都希望他们的孩子从中受益。“先行计划”的本质在于它是一项综合性很强的社区服务方案。它试图通过给社区和家长参与教育儿童的新的,而改进整个社会，它致力于把社区内零散的社会服务活动整合起来，并导向公立学校教育质量的提高，本文介绍“先行计划”的历史，现状以及存在的问题和发展的趋势，供读者参考。     

Supporting optimal child development through Early Head Start and Head Start programs: Reflections on secondary data analyses of FACES and EHSREP

We are delighted to reflect on the 10 papers highlighted in this important special issue of Early Childhood Research Quarterly devoted to recent secondary data analyses of the FACES and EHSREP datasets. First, we provide some background on Head Start research and give an overview of the large-scale Head Start and Early Head Start datasets that are available for researchers to analyze. Then, we comment on the papers in this special issue from a methodological and statistical standpoint. Finally, we reflect on themes that stood out across the various papers. Throughout, we make recommendations for future large-scale data collection efforts and future research on Head Start and Early Head Start programs.     

Within-family differences in Head Start participation and parent investment

There is limited understanding of how parents’ allocation of investments across their children are affected by differences in their children's participation in programs that promote early development. I use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to examine whether parents reinforce or compensate for differences in their children's access to an early education program, Head Start. I use a family fixed effects approach to contrast measures of parental investment, when children were age 5 through 14, for children who attended Head Start relative to their siblings who did not attend preschool. I find that parents provided lower levels of cognitive stimulation and emotional support to children who attended Head Start relative to their siblings who did not attend preschool. Although impacts are relatively small in magnitude (0.05 SD), results suggest that parent compensate for differences in access to early childhood educational opportunities.     

Mentoring and Professional Development in Rural Head Start Classrooms

The objective of this project was to develop and pilot a small-scale professional development program that incorporated substantial group and one-on-one mentoring aimed at preparing rurally based preschool teacher assistants to earn the Child Development Associate (CDA) credential. Using a framework that emphasized the relational, developmental, and contextual elements of mentoring, this qualitative case study examined both the participants’ and mentors’ perceptions of the program. Results of this study revealed overlapping themes across teacher assistants and their mentors, including readiness for the CDA credentialing process, mentoring support/relationship-building, and mutual respect.     

Models of Emotion Skills and Social Competence in the Head Start Classroom

Research Findings: Fostering the social competence of at-risk preschoolers would be facilitated by knowing which of children's emotion skills are most salient to social outcomes. We examined the emotion skills and social competence of 44 children enrolled in a Head Start program. Emotion skills were examined in terms of children's emotional lability and emotion regulation, whereas social competence was measured in terms of three aspects of preschoolers' social relationships: social skills, student–teacher relationships, and peer likeability. Although emotion regulation emerged as an important predictor for social skills and positive relationships with teachers, emotional lability was a significant predictor of student–teacher conflict and peer likeability. In fact, emotional lability mediated the relation between student–teacher conflict and peer likeability. Practice or Policy: The findings are discussed in terms of the complex associations between children's emotion skills and early social relationships.     

False Belief, Emotion Understanding, and Social Skills Among Head Start and Non-Head Start Children

The present study investigated relationships among false belief, emotion understanding, and social skills with 60 3- to 5-year-olds (29 boys, 31girls) from Head Start and two other preschools. Children completed language, false belief, and emotion understanding measures; parents and teachers evaluated children's social skills. Children's false belief performance related to their understanding of their friend's emotions and to teacher's ratings of social skills. Aspects of emotion understanding related to social skills. Head Start (n =30) and non-Head Start preschoolers (n = 30) performed similarly on social skills and emotion understanding measures, however, non-Head Start children performed significantly better on false belief tasks than Head Start children. Results demonstrate the importance of including diverse groups of children in studies of social cognition.     

False Belief,Emotion Understanding,and Social Skills Among Head Start and Non-Head Start Children

The present study investigated relationships among false belief, emotion understanding, and social skills with 60 3- to 5-year-olds (29 boys, 31girls) from Head Start and two other preschools. Children completed language, false belief, and emotion understanding measures; parents and teachers evaluated children's social skills. Children's false belief performance related to their understanding of their friend's emotions and to teacher's ratings of social skills. Aspects of emotion understanding related to social skills. Head Start (n =30) and non-Head Start preschoolers (n = 30) performed similarly on social skills and emotion understanding measures, however, non-Head Start children performed significantly better on false belief tasks than Head Start children. Results demonstrate the importance of including diverse groups of children in studies of social cognition.     

The Social Construction of Parent Involvement in Head Start

In the field of early childhood education, dominant discourse is premised on assumptions and values that privilege uniformity, generality, and even the “essential” nature of children and programs that should then be judged according to common criteria. In this article, we focus not on common factors that vary but on particular social practices that have very different meanings for people in two social settings (Taylor, 1979). Specifically, we describe how parent involvement- and parents themselves-were socially constructed within Head Start programs located in different communities, and we suggest how these social practices made particular forms of involvement possible and even necessary. We argue that discourses do not merely represent; they constitute, and different discourses construct both subjects and social relations in particular ways. Finally, we suggest how alternative ways of structuring knowledge and social practice in early childhood might become “communal tools” for exploring yet to be realized possibilities.     

Validation of the Early Childhood Teacher Experiences Scale in Head Start

To address gaps in the availability of validated measures that assess early childhood teachers' workplace experiences, the current study examined the validity of the Early Childhood Teacher Experiences Scale (ECTES) for use in a diverse Head Start program. Mean differences in the ECTES dimensions of self-efficacy, job stress, and school support were examined across teachers' demographic characteristics and observed teacher–child interaction quality. Multilevel models examined associations between ECTES dimension scores and children's social-emotional and academic skills (N = 161 preschool teachers and N = 3,152 children). Findings support the reliability and validity of the three-factor structure of the ECTES in the diverse Head Start teacher sample. Higher teacher-reported self-efficacy and school support were associated with higher observed classroom emotional support, instructional support, and classroom organization. Higher teacher-reported self-efficacy was associated with fewer years of teaching experience. With respect to child outcomes, higher teacher self-efficacy and school support were associated with lower behavior problems and higher social-emotional skills but were not associated with academic skills. Implications of the findings, limitations, and future directions are discussed.