The COVID-19 outbreak has ravaged all societal domains, including education. Home confinement, school closures, and distance learning impacted students, teachers, and parents’ lives worldwide. In this study, we aimed to examine the impact of COVID-19-related restrictions on Italian and Portuguese students’ academic motivation as well as investigate the possible buffering role of extracurricular activities. Following a retrospective pretest–posttest design, 567 parents (nItaly = 173, nPortugal = 394) reported on their children’s academic motivation and participation in extracurricular activities (grades 1 to 9). We used a multi-group latent change score model to compare Italian and Portuguese students’: (1) pre-COVID mean motivation scores; (2) rate of change in motivation; (3) individual variation in the rate of change in motivation; and (4) dependence of the rate of change on initial motivation scores. Estimates of latent change score models showed a decrease in students’ motivation both in Italy and in Portugal, although more pronounced in Italian students. Results also indicated that the decrease in students’ participation in extracurricular activities was associated with changes in academic motivation (i.e., students with a lower decrease in participation in extracurricular activities had also a lower decrease in motivation). Furthermore, students’ age was significantly associated with changes in motivation (i.e., older students had lower decrease). No significant associations were found for students’ gender nor for parents’ education. This study provides an important contribution to the study of students’ academic motivation during home confinement, school closures, and distance learning as restrictive measures adopted to contain a worldwide health emergency. We contend that teachers need to adopt motivation-enhancing practices as means to prevent the decline in academic motivation during exceptional situations.
Individualized education programs (IEPs) are a fundamental mechanism for making special education services unique for the child and for enhancing the developmental outcomes of children with disabilities. If written IEP goals diverge, however, from recommended practices, they might result in ineffective interventions. This study investigated the quality of Portuguese IEP goals written for 83 preschoolers with disabilities attending public preschool classrooms from 21 school groups from the District of Lisbon, Portugal. The quality of IEP goals was measured using the Goal Functionality Scale III (R. A. McWilliam, 2009) and the IEP/Individualized Family Service Plan Goals and Objectives Rating Instrument (A. R. Notari, 1988). Results showed that IEP goals were too broad, lacked functionality and measurability, and did not appropriately address skills within the context of natural routines and settings. Moreover, findings indicate that measurability was slightly higher the more severe the children's disabilities were and that autonomy (ie, self-help) goals were somewhat more functional and measurable than were social, language, cognitive, and motor goals. Findings raise concerns about the effectiveness of interventions based on such goals in enhancing children's developmental outcomes and suggest the need for clear guidelines on the development of effective IEPs and teacher training on developing high-quality goals.
We dedicate this paper to the memory of Professor Joaquim Bairrão (1935Bairrão ( -2007, outstanding scientist and mentor. Keywords:Quality Toddler child care ITERS-R Portugal a b s t r a c tThe purpose of this study was to describe the quality of toddler child care classrooms in the district of Porto, in the north of Portugal. One hundred and sixty classrooms for children between 1 and 3 years of age participated in this study. Results suggested the existence of poor average quality and absence of good-quality classrooms. Child-adult ratio was a statistically significant predictor of overall child care quality (with lower ratios associated with higher quality). The results of this study provide information on the applicability of ITERS-R to a new cultural and linguistic context, suggesting the need to enhance the quality of Portuguese programs serving toddlers.
The authors describe a training program designed to improve the knowledge and skills of early childhood interventionists. Within the context of using the Routines-Based Early Intervention approach, this training focused on improving the quality of goals and objectives on individualized plans, through the Routines-Based Interview. We structured the training around five face-to-face sessions and a follow up 3 months later. Here, we describe the development of the program, its content and methods, and the results on improvement of the goals and objectives with 80 professionals. These participants had completed the training, provided pre-training data, and provided post-training data. Results showed that the training described here had the desired very large effect: Quality ratings of goals and objectives increased by over three standard deviations. A Training Program on IEP/IFSP' Objectives Quality, 4A Training Program to Improve IFSP/IEP Goals and Objectives Through the Routines-Based InterviewPractices often do not match philosophies about family centeredness and functionality in early childhood intervention (ECI;Campbell & Halbert, 2002). Certain professional activities can, however, bring those philosophies to life. We propose a training program as a promising solution for bridging the gap between philosophy and practice.ECI has come to be defined as a family-centered endeavor, which means practitioners are expected to interact with families in a friendly and supportive manner, are expected to give families opportunities to make meaningful decisions about how ECI helps them, and are expected to address family-level needs (McWilliam, 2010a). Consistent with this approach has been an understanding that children learn in the contexts that their families and other caregivers, such as teachers, provide (Dunst, Bruder, Trivette, & Hamby, 2006). Along with this routines-based approach to conceptualizing ECI (McWilliam, 2010b), theorists have pointed out that functional child skills are those that help the child participate in everyday activities, those that promote a normalization of child and family life, and those that capitalize on the many learning opportunities afforded by home and group-care routines (Dunst, Hamby, Trivette, Raab, & Bruder, 2000). The training program described here was aimed at promoting these concepts of family centeredness and functionality among early childhood interventionists in the Lisbon area. The Portuguese context is briefly described below, but the utility of this training is probably universal. For example, even though much of the supporting research was conducted in the U.S., European notions and policies about the importance of function and participation are quite sophisticated. IEP and IFSP in PortugalIn Portugal, young children with disabilities may receive either early childhood special education (ECSE) or ECI services, depending on their age, type of child care Research on Actual Practices in ECIIn a literature meta-analysis on family-centered practices, Dunst, Trivett...
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