Pre-kindergarten (Pre-K) improves the school readiness of all children, but less is known about whether associations between enrollment in Pre-K and different indicators of social-emotional and executive functioning (EF) skills are sustained as children move into and across elementary school. The current study examines associations between…

Self-regulation and academic skills in kindergarten are strong predictors of later achievement. However, many children enter kindergarten without adequate levels of these skills, often because of limited participation in early childhood education. The current study examined a kindergarten readiness summer program (Bridge to Kindergarten; B2K) that…

In research on language development by bilingual children, the early language environment is commonly characterized in terms of the relative amount of exposure a child gets to each language based on parent report. Little is known about how absolute measures of child-directed speech in two languages relate to language growth. In this study of…

This efficacy study investigated whether a class-wide disability awareness curriculum would result in increased close friendships for 26 kindergarteners with disabilities enrolled in six inclusive classrooms. Findings suggest that participation in a disability awareness curriculum alone does not lead to increased friendships. Evidence suggests…

We investigated whether specific input helps 3-1/2-year-olds discover that the last word in a count represents its cardinal value (i.e., the cardinal word principle). In Study 1, we contrasted four training approaches. The only approach to yield significant improvement was to label a set's cardinality and then immediately count it. This training…

LEAP and TEACCH represent two comprehensive treatment models (CTMs) that have been widely used across several decades to educate young children with autism spectrum disorders. The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to compare high fidelity LEAP (n = 22) and TEACCH (n = 25) classrooms to each other and a control condition (n = 28), in…

Child care is increasingly viewed as an opportunity to enhance children's development and school readiness, with prekindergarten programs and early intervention programs targeting children at different moments of development. Results of existing research are mixed, and although many children experience different child care arrangements at…

Social initiations make up a core deficit for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In particular, initiated questions during social interactions are often minimal or absent in this population. In the context of a multiple baseline design, the efficacy of using the motivational procedures of Pivotal Response Treatment to increase social…

The early twenty-first century has seen increased attention to developing young children's social-emotional skills and competencies in preschool programs, including Head Start--the largest federally funded early-childhood education program in the United States. At the same time, there has been greater recognition of the importance of adapting…

The purpose of this varied replication study was to evaluate the effects of a supplemental reading intervention on the beginning reading performance of kindergarten students in a different geographical location and in a different instructional context from the initial randomized trial. A second purpose was to investigate whether students who…

This article addresses the effects of 3-tiered comprehensive reading and behavior interventions on K-3 student outcomes in 7 urban elementary schools with a high prevalence of students considered difficult to teach. Specific features of each level of the implementation are described including screening and tier placement procedures, scheduling and…

Shared book reading, and the conversation that accompanies it, can facilitate young children's vocabulary growth. To identify the features of extratextual questions that help 3-year-olds learn unfamiliar words during shared book reading, two experiments explored the impact of cognitive demand level, placement, and an approximation to scaffolding.…

This article describes the implementation of small-group reading instruction as secondary- and tertiary-level components of a three-tier model of prevention and intervention. The study consisted of 83 students who were targeted in the winter of kindergarten as being at high risk for reading failure. Intervention consisted of evidence-based…

Four experiments examined children's understanding of the inverse relationship between the number of parts into which a quantity is divided and the size of each part. Found that children tended to judge that bigger shares resulted from sharing with more recipients. Seven-year olds performed correctly on a simplified equal-sharing task. Five-year…

Two three-year olds, one verbal and one nonverbal, with moderate to severe developmental delays were taught target communication objectives using milieu language teaching. The children generalized their target objectives spontaneously and in probe situations that also required them to display listener preparatory behaviors. (Author/DB)