This article describes primary outcomes of the development and field-testing of a curriculum Promoting learning through active interaction with 27 infants and their caregivers and early interventionists in 2 different states. The curriculum was designed to provide a systematic approach to supporting interactions with infants who have sensory impairments and complex multiple disabilities and who are at the preintentional level of communication. Participating infants had both a visual impairment and hearing loss and additional disabilities. Their families represented diverse socioeconomic, educational, and cultural backgrounds, and participating early interventionists varied widely in their qualifications. Results indicate that a diverse group of families used the strategies successfully and found them to be helpful in supporting their children's interactions and communication development. The article outlines key components of the curriculum and discusses evaluation data on the basis of caregiver feedback on use of strategies and analysis of videotaped observations on the caregivers' use of sensory cues with their infants.
Generally, the self-perceptive and self-reflective dimension of creative production have received less attention than the cognitive factors that contribute to the development of an individual's creative process and production. A growing evidence base suggests that creative self-beliefs play a pivotal role in different aspects of the creative process. Moreover, metacognition about the creative process may bridge the self-perceptive to the cognitive through aspects of selfawareness, strategy selection, self-evaluation, and contextual knowledge. In the two studies reported here, we aimed to describe the nature of creative self-beliefs and metacognition in early adolescence and test their relationships in the model of creative behavior as agentic action. Results indicated strong evidence of reliability and validity of students' scores to investigate these different dimensions of adolescents' creative self. Different factors of creative potential predicted creative self-beliefs, metacognition, and production; however, all effects on creative production were mediated by creative metacognition and self-beliefs. Results provide new support for the model of creative behavior as agentic action, underscoring the important role of metacognition and both personal and socially mediated modes of agency. Arts integration experience contributed to the cultivation of creative production, metacognition, and self-beliefs. Middle school students' creative strategy selection and self-regulation were the most salient of creative metacognitive components.
In this study we explored students’ perspectives and experiences engaging in an arts integration learning model during middle school through a pluralistic lens of creative engagement in learning. The sample included N = 86 students in Grades 6–7 attending schools in fringe rural and urban locales from small and mid‐sized cities in the Pacific Northwest. We used a grounded theory approach to explore how creative engagement takes shape for the early adolescent learner. Our conceptual framework integrated intrapsychological (inward) processes with interpsychological (outward) exchange in the social environment of an arts integrated classroom. Schools involved in the study were part of a larger mixed‐methods research investigation and received intensive support for school‐wide arts integration development. We found that students valued opportunities in arts integration for (a) choice, (b) the expression of their unique interpretations, (c) taking risks and making mistakes, (d) recognizing and applying their Studio Habits of Mind, and (e) enhancement of motivation and engagement in learning. The need for competency, belonging, and autonomy were important conditions of the learning environment and the need for meaning‐making was paramount in the process of creative engagement.
This article presents an early intervention model for infants who are deaf-blind that focuses on the significance of infant-caregiver interaction. It proposes intervention strategies to develop contingent responsiveness in caregivers, to promote active learning in infants, to support mutually satisfying exchanges, and to address the exceptional learning needs of these infants.
A practical model for systematic ecological assessment for daily planning purposes is described. The results of initial testing of this model are presented in a supported training and work experience program for special education inclusion assistants placed in inclusive preschools. In conjunction with traditional child-focused assessment results, the model provides a means for identifying and developing opportunities for facilitating child-to-child social interactions and the attainment of individualized goals and objectives in the routines and typical activities of inclusive preschool settings. Preliminary evaluation data suggest that, overall, the model produces more integrated developmental activities, more use of peer mediation, and a more play-based approach to discrete skill development. These results are compatible with the philosophy and methodology of developmentally appropriate early childhood education.Inclusion is more than the physical placement of a young child with disabilities into a mainstream preschool setting; inclusion means assisting that child to participate as fully as possible in that setting (Cavallaro, Haney, & Cabello, 1993; Demchak &c Drinkwater, 1992). Most normally developing children enter preschool able to explore and learn from the developmentally appropriate activities provided in a high-quality preschool setting, but a child with disabilities may lack some of the skills needed to partici-
Integrating young children with disabilities into mainstream preschools with nondisabled children presents numerous challenges. One major stumbling block to integration is the seeming incompatibility of traditional didactic early intervention techniques with the developmentally appropriate practices common to quality mainstream preschool settings. We present strategies for intervention that are in harmony with developmentally appropriate practice and incorporate special educational principles that have enabled children with disabilities to participate more fully in integrated settings while achieving individualized goals and objectives. The strategies are grouped into four categories: attention and responsiveness to the child, environmental structuring, adult mediation, and peer mediation. The strategies are presented with examples to illustrate their use.As young children with disabilities have been integrated into regular preschool programs with their nondisabled peers, numerous challenges have emerged. Extensive research on integrated placement has demonstrated that true social integration occurs only through the use of strategies that enable the child to not only be physically present in the preschool classroom but to participate as fully as possible in that setting (Demchak & Drinkwater, 1992). In this article, we present an overview of educational strategies that we have found to be in harmony with the guidelines for developmentally appropriate practices (DAP) (Bredekamp, 1987) commonly followed in quality preschool TECSE 13(3), 293-307 (1993)
This article presents follow-up results of the Mother-Infant Communication Project (MICP), a program designed to facilitate caregivers' uses of communicative interaction strategies with their infants labeled high-risk. Three groups of mother-infant dyads were included in the study: a group receiving home visits only, a group receiving home visits plus a group experience, and a comparison group. Results showed MICP mothers overall were significantly better than comparison group mothers on the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) Scale. In addition, children of MICP mothers who received a group experience in addition to home visits performed significantly better on the Receptive-Expressive Emergent Language (REEL) Scale at 18 months than both the home visits only group and the comparison group. Implications of the findings for intervention efforts are discussed.
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