The adaptation of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), an empirically-supported dyadic parent training intervention, to a preschool setting may provide an opportunity to enhance the well-being of both teachers and children by improving the teacher-child relationship and supplying teachers with effective tools for behavior management. The…

There is a great need to identify specific instructional methods that effectively promote positive skill development in young children with developmental disabilities. One method that has received strong empirical support with children with autism is Discrete Trial Teaching (DTT); however, the effectiveness of DTT has not been extensively…

Few mental health initiatives for young children have used classroom programs. Preschool-based efforts targeting externalizing behavior could help prevent conduct disorders. Additional benefits may include improved academic achievement and reduced risk for other mental health difficulties. Pro-grams that target multiple developmental domains are…

Compliance with adult instructions is crucial to children's academic and social success. One strategy that has proven particularly successful in increasing compliance is the use of a high probability command sequence (HPCS) prior to delivering a low probability request. However, most studies conducted in school settings have focused on the…

Six preschool children, mostly from poverty-level backgrounds, were taught to make descriptive statements about objects. The category-descriptor statements were organized and sequenced into four clusters. As sets of new statements were successively taught and evaluated, the number and diversity of probed category and descriptor terms steadily and…

A study examined the impact of a peer-mediated intervention consisting of songs and finger plays, attention to photographs of desired behavior, and peer verbal cues, on two preschoolers with developmental delays. The intervention resulted in increases in engaged and on-task behavior, interactive play, and appropriate participation in circle/story…

A study evaluated the effects of three active responding techniques (i.e., hand raising, choral responding, the response card) on students participation and on-task behavior in five preschoolers with attending problems. The response card technique was consistently more efficient for all five children across all dependent measures. (Contains…

A study involving 14 preschool children (7 with disabilities) found that the children with disabilities were provided with more choices than the children without disabilities. Children both with and without disabilities, however, initiated choice making opportunities at the same rate. Female children were provided with more opportunities to make…

Different measures of symptoms and functional impairments were obtained on 285 Head Start children to identify emotional/behavioral disorders. These included six instruments completed by teachers and two completed by parents. Identification of children considered at risk ranged from a low of 1% to a high of 34%. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

This case study evaluated an antecedent intervention for tantrums by a five year-old girl with cognitive, language, and motor problems. Functional assessment correlated tantrums with high-demand activities but not with novel staff. Intervention placed novel staff in charge of high-demand activities and successfully eliminated tantrums, which…

This article describes transdisciplinary consultation, a classroom-based team model in which team members focus on implementing a transdisciplinary model of service delivery. An evaluation of the model by nine preschool professionals indicated the teams perceived the model to have a positive impact on their personal and team development. (Contains…

Three preschool children with developmental disabilities participated in a social-skills intervention involving use of collage placemats with pictures to foster turn-taking verbal interactions with peers at the lunch table. The intervention resulted in doubling the rate of interactions with peers. Generalization to regular lunchtime occurred when…

Review of records of families with preschool children referred to an outpatient treatment center for emotionally and behaviorally troubled preschoolers found a greater degree of parenting stress was significantly associated with poorer attendance at group therapy for children, whereas greater socioeconomic disadvantage was significantly associated…

Describes the use of a self-determination curriculum for mental-health intervention and primary prevention for Head Start children. The curriculum addresses critical adaptive-skills domains, including social skills, self-evaluation, self-direction, networking or friendship, collaboration or support seeking, problem solving and decision making, and…

Four preschool children with disabilities and four peers and were taught to take turns tutoring each other on academic skills. All subjects' academic responses increased after peer tutoring. Four of the children increased their social interaction, while the remaining students increased social interaction after a supplemental intervention was…