Imagine a day in the classroom where you can devote all your energy to student learning instead of battling challenging behavior. In "Motivated to Learn," you will gain evidence-based approaches for engaging students and equipping them to better focus in the classroom. With this book's straightforward strategies, you can learn to…

Background/Context: Childhood trauma can increase preschooler's risk for behavioral problems, poor student-teacher relationships, and expulsion (Loomis, 2020; Zeng et al., 2019). Efforts have been undertaken to address the gaps in knowledge and confidence of ECE teachers by integrating trauma-informed approaches into ECE settings, who by virtue of…

It is critical for young children to develop social-emotional competence, as delays in this area are associated with negative social and behavioral outcomes, and the preschool classroom is a natural setting for children to build these skills. However, for many children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), this can be a challenging task, as…

Addressing the needs of preschoolers with behavioral problems is important, as these issues often have long-term impacts on the outcomes of students (Fox et al., 2002). Self-monitoring strategies and techniques have the potential to improve the outcomes of this population of children. Self-monitoring requires students to pay attention to a…

Much has been written on challenging behavior in young children, and teachers know that that teaching new skills, particularly appropriate ways to communicate, is important when reducing challenging behavior. Strategies that focus on what occurs before the behavior happens are known as "antecedent strategies." Strategies that focus on…

Consistent with models of environmental sensitivity (Pluess, 2015), research suggests that the effects of parents' behaviors on child adjustment are stronger among children who struggle to regulate their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors compared with children with better self-regulation. This study extended prior research by assessing maternal…

The purpose of this demonstration was to evaluate a universal intervention during teacher-identified routines that were characterized by significant classwide problem behavior. Six Head Start classrooms (seven groups of children, with one classroom divided into two groups) received two workshops and two coaching sessions on universal Positive…

We evaluated the effects of the preschool life skills program (PLS; Hanley, Heal, Tiger, & Ingvarsson, 2007) on the acquisition and maintenance of functional communication and self-control skills, as well as its effect on problem behavior, of small groups of preschoolers at risk for school failure. Six children were taught to request teacher…

The experimental evaluation of the "Tools of the Mind Pre-K Curriculum" described in this report was designed to examine the effectiveness of the "Tools of the Mind" ("Tools") curriculum for enhancing children's self-regulation skills and their academic preparation for kindergarten when compared to the usual…

Variations in parents' emotion socialization have been linked to children's social competence (SC) and behavior problems, but parental influences do not act independently of children's characteristics. A biopsychosocial model was tested, in which children's parasympathetic regulation of cardiac function and paternal and maternal socialization of…

Background: School readiness, conceptualized as three components including emotional self-regulation, social competence, and family/school involvement, as well as absence of conduct problems play a key role in young children's future interpersonal adjustment and academic success. Unfortunately, exposure to multiple poverty-related risks increases…