Little is known about how the expansion of state pre-kindergarten (pre-k) programs affects low-income children with disabilities in Head Start. Using almost 30 years of administrative data of all Head Start programs and a differences-in-differences design, this study tests the possibility that, as state pre-k differentially draws relatively more…

Drawing from a social network perspective, we examined the extent to which children with and without disabilities play with each other in preschool inclusive classrooms and identified malleable child characteristics that would support children forming these cross-status play interactions. A total of 200 children with disabilities and 301 children…

Project START (Students and Teachers Actively Reading Together) is an adaptive shared reading intervention designed to address the varied learning needs of preschool children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This report summarizes procedures and results of the developmental year of the project, which focused primarily on evaluating…

Data-driven decision making (DDDM) helps educators identify children not responding to intervention, individualize instruction, and monitor response to intervention in multitiered systems of support (MTSS). More prevalent in K-12 special education, MTSS practices are emerging in early childhood. In previous reports, we described the Making Online…

We conducted a randomized controlled potential efficacy trial to examine effects of two variants of the Tools for Teachers (TfT) professional development (PD) intervention on preschool teachers' implementation of embedded instruction practices and children's developmental and learning outcomes. Thirty-six preschool teachers recruited from three…

Combining data from a series of three planned consecutive randomized controlled trials, the present study investigates two literacy interventions for preschool children with autism spectrum disorder. For the first cohort, children were randomized to interactive book reading (IBR; treatment) or business as usual (BAU; control); in Cohort 2,…

Program administrators and policy makers have placed a priority on expanding access to inclusive, center-based early care and education (ECE) for low-income children with special needs, a "doubly vulnerable" population characterized by academic and social-emotional achievement gaps at kindergarten entry. Yet, no research has documented…

Many studies have shown that small-group direct instruction is effective and efficient for teaching students with and without disabilities, although relatively few studies have been conducted with heterogeneous groups of preschool participants. In addition, previous studies have primarily assessed whether observational learning occurred for…

The authors describe an intervention for 3 preschoolers with disabilities who had low peer-related social competence. The intervention taught academic skills tailored to the need of each target student in small groups (triads) with two typically developing peers, using a progressive time delay procedure. Prior to instruction and separate from the…

This review presents a novel framework for evaluating evidence based on a set of parallel criteria that can be applied to both group and single-subject experimental design (SSED) studies. The authors illustrate use of this evaluation system in a systematic review of 67 articles investigating social skills interventions for preschoolers with autism…

This article assesses the effects of Tulsa, Oklahoma's school-based prekindergarten program on the school readiness of children with special needs using a regression discontinuity design. Participation in the pre-K program was associated with significant gains for children with special needs in early literacy scores, but not in math scores. These…

Fifteen legally blind preschoolers and 15 sighted controls matched for age, sex, and socioeconomic status were observed with novel and non-novel toys. Analysis of the exploratory behavior revealed no significant differences between the interaction of each group with either toy except in patterns of sensory utilization. (CL)

To examine the effects of placing young nonhandicapped children in classes primarily containing handicapped children, 16 nonhandicapped children were assigned to integrated special education preschool classes. Placement of nonhandicapped children in integrated special education classes, where the majority of peers were handicapped, did not appear…

Meta-analysis techniques were employed to integrate statistically the findings from 74 studies on early intervention with handicapped preschoolers. Findings indicate that early intervention produces positive sizeable effect size; that longer, more intense programs are associated with efficacy; and that little support was found for commonly held…

Videotape analysis of the test performance of 15 speech and/or language handicapped preschoolers revealed that Ss' stronger performance with familiar examiners was associated with a greater duration and frequency of silence. The pattern suggested that familiar testers used silence to communicate expectation. (CL)