Teaching Play Skills to Children with Disabilities: Research-Based Interventions and Practices

Play is a critical milestone that contributes to the learning and development of young children in multiple ways and is essential to their well-being. Play is also considered as a central component to promote school readiness and incorporates pre-literacy, language and numeracy skills. However, play deficits seem to be acutely apparent in some children with disabilities. This highlights the need to come to terms with the best evidence and explore the promising practices related to improved play skills for young children with disabilities. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of play-based learning in early childhood and early childhood special education and provide research-based recommendations on teaching play skills to young children with disabilities.     

Family-School Communication in Preschool and Kindergarten in the Context of a Relationship-Enhancing Intervention

The present study is a longitudinal examination of family-school communication in preschool and kindergarten. Preschool and kindergarten teachers and family workers of 75 children from families with low SES logged the frequency and characteristics of family-school communication, resulting in over 22,000 contacts. Data were collected during a period of implementation of an intervention designed to enhance relationships upon the transition to school. Family demographic information and information about family support for academics at home were assessed through parent interviews and children's behavior problems were measured through teacher questionnaires in preschool and kindergarten. Familyteacher communication decreased between preschool and kindergarten and there was a shift from shorter to longer types of communication between the two years. Communication differed as a function of program. Counter to expectation, few family factors and experiences predicted frequency of family-school communication, and more frequent communication in preschool was unrelated to more frequent communication in kindergarten. Findings have several implications for practice. Families experience a great decrease in communication between preschool and kindergarten and interventions designed to ease the transition to kindergarten need to either ameliorate the decrease or acknowledge its existence to prepare families. Otherwise, this contrast may be interpreted negatively. Given that our findings show no relation between a family's communication in preschool and kindergarten, it appears that it is not enough to support communication in preschool to ensure frequent communication in kindergarten.     

Attracting Students to the Field of Measurement

To address the shortage of professionals in measurement, it is essential that we make young career‐seekers aware that measurement is an option as a profession. In this paper, we discuss how creating a strong pipeline of students into our field involves personal interactions between faculty representing the graduate programs in measurement and undergraduate students, in addition to the equally important task of educating instructors of undergraduates about our field. We describe advertising strategies that, in our experience, catch and hold the attention of undergraduates, resulting in many of them investigating graduate training in measurement. After attracting students to the field, we must engage them in practice, enabling them to build an identity as a measurement professional. In general, we believe that although it is possible to attract some students via non‐personal advertising strategies (e.g., articles, websites), measurement professionals must personally reach out to young people to connect them with the field.     

Effective schools,school segregation,and the link with school achievement

This study examines whether 3 teacher-rated aspects of school effectiveness differ across school segregation profiles in Stockholm, and to what extent these indicators are associated with the academic achievement of 9th-grade students. Analyses were based on 2 cross-sectional data collections performed in 2014 and 2016, respectively (147 school units), one among teachers (n = 2,024) and the other among 9th-grade students (n = 9,151). Multilevel analysis was applied, estimating 2-level random intercept linear regression models. Results show that teachers’ ratings of school leadership, teacher cooperation, and school ethos, as well as student-reported marks differ across school segregation profiles. Findings further reveal significant associations between these school effectiveness indicators and student performance, even when taking student family background and the school’s student body composition into consideration. In part, these associations are also identified within segregation profiles. Moreover, results show that school ethos acts as a mediator between school segregation profile and student achievement.     

Family and Sociodemographic Predictors of School Readiness Among African American Boys in Kindergarten

Research Findings: Data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–1999, were used to examine the relation between parenting, sociodemographic characteristics, and school readiness among (N = 1,136) African American boys in kindergarten. Parenting was defined as parenting style (i.e., warmth and control), home learning stimulation, and culturally relevant parenting. Two child outcomes previously linked to school readiness were examined: kindergarten reading and approaches to learning. Hierarchical regression analyses were performed to address 2 research questions. First, does parenting predict kindergarten reading above and beyond the contribution of sociodemographic characteristics? Second, does parenting predict kindergarten approaches to learning above and beyond the contribution of sociodemographic characteristics? Practice or Policy: Children with parents who set consistent bedtimes, provided more books in their homes, and read to them more frequently had better kindergarten reading scores after socioeconomic status, environmental safety, and maternal education were controlled. Similarly, children with parents who provided more books in their home and read to their children more frequently had more positive teacher-rated approaches to learning scores in kindergarten. Implications for future research are discussed.     

You've got mail: hospital postcards as a reflection of health care in the early twentieth century.

PURPOSE: The author shows that not only can the illustrations on the front of postcards reveal a considerable amount of information about hospitals in the early twentieth century, but that the messages, addresses, captions, postmarks, and stamps on the back of postcards also offer a valuable glimpse into the lives of ordinary citizens and their interactions with the health care system. METHOD: In addition to a literature review on postcards and their history and use, particularly in the depiction of health care, the author reviews the postcards in her own collection, which includes a variety of hospital postcards from this time period. CONCLUSIONS: Early hospital postcards provide a framework for examining individual elements of postcards and show how postcards can be used as key sources in historical research on health care in the early 1900s.     

Survey of Web Developers in Academic Libraries

A survey was sent to library Web designers from randomly selected institutions to determine the background, tools, and methods used by those designers. Results, grouped by Carnegie classification type, indicated that larger schools were not necessarily working with more resources or more advanced levels of technology than other institutions.     

A Review of Self-Report and Alternative Approaches in the Measurement of Student Motivation

Within psychological and educational research, self-report methodology dominates the study of student motivation. The present review argues that the scope of motivation research can be expanded by incorporating a wider range of methodologies and measurement tools. Several authors have suggested that current study of motivation is overly reliant on self-report measures, warranting a move toward alternative approaches. This review critiques self-report methodology as a basis for examining alternative conceptualizations of motivation (e.g., phenomenological, neuropsychological/physiological, and behavioral) and related measurement tools. Future directions in motivational methodology are addressed, including attempts at integration or combination of these approaches and a preliminary functional framework for the development of novel, multidimensional approaches to the study of motivation.     

Great Expectations: Museums and Regional Economic Development in England

This polemic addresses the political expectations of museums in England. Its starting point is the premise of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport that museums make a significant contribution to regional economies, if not to the national economy. Political expediency requires museums to provide evidence for their economic worth. But it could be argued that estimates of museums' economic impact are devalued by being blatantly constructed for the purposes of advocacy. This paper explores various issues that inform the practice of associating museums with economic development. It considers whether the government's cultural policies and aspirations have served to misrepresent (if not exaggerate) the economic impact that museums currently exert, or are deemed capable of exerting. It closes by suggesting that there are some ambiguities in the commitment of the DCMS to the premise that museums are economically important, and by examining implications for the future.