Susan M. Sheridan

1
Ecological Contexts and Continuities in Promoting
School Readiness

• Susan M. Sheridan
• University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• Conference on Human Development
• April 24, 2004

2
School Readiness

• a quality that renders the child able to
  participate successfully in a public school
  curriculum (Carlton Winsler, 1999, p. 338).

3
Ecological Theory

• Ecological theory acknowledges the importance of
  multiple systems, and their interrelationships,
  in childrens development.
• Ecological factors that maximize effectiveness of
  early intervention efforts include continuity
  among caregiving systems, positive relationships
  among caregivers, and a family-centered approach.

4
Ecological Theory

• From an ecological-developmental standpoint,
  school readiness is concerned not only with
  child readiness, but parent and child
  readiness, and readiness of the home-school
  mesosystem.
• Given this perspective, school readiness is no
  longer the responsibility of the child, but
  rather the responsibility of the systems within
  which the child operates.
• Mesosystemic influences -- connections among
  home, school, other primary systems -- provide
  critical contexts for development.

5
Why Continuity?

• Children who experience borders (discontinuities)
  among home, school and peer/community worlds have
  the most difficulty making transitions across
  contexts and are at greatest risk for poor school
  performance and mental health concerns.
• Students who experience congruent worlds (i.e.,
  where similar values, expectations, and ways of
  behaving are evident among family, school, and
  peers), make easy and smooth transitions across
  these environments. -Phelan, Davidson, Yu
  (1998)
• Children at risk can succeed against the odds
  when they experience congruent messages,
  expectations, goals, values, priorities, and
  supports from families, schools, and
  communities. -- Bempechat (1998)

6
Why Continuity?

• Parent-professional partnerships have important
  outcomes for children
• Increased academic performance, socioemotional
  benefits, better work habits, more consistent
  school attendance, school completion
• Parent-professional partnerships have important
  outcomes for parents
• Encourages intentionality
• Promotes self-efficacy builds confidence
• Enhances skills builds competence
• Parent-professional partnerships have important
  outcomes for educators
• More time is spent on instructional rather than
  curricular activities
• Positive relations are reported with family
  members
• Higher ratings of effectiveness are related to
  increased parent involvement activities

7
What Predicts Parent Engagement?

• Role construction general principles guiding a
  parents definition of the parenting role,
  beliefs about child development child-rearing,
  beliefs about appropriate home/parental roles in
  education
• Establishes a range of activities that parents
  will consider important, necessary, permissible
  for their own actions on behalf of their child
• Sense of self-efficacy parents beliefs about
  their ability to influence their childs
  developmental and educational outcomes, and their
  effectiveness in influencing their childs school
  learning
• Enables parents to assume that their involvement
  will positively influence childrens
  learning/school performance
• Opportunities, invitations, demands for
  participation degree to which parents believe
  the school and child desire their involvement,
  including a climate that is inviting with
  opportunities and expectations for involvement
• Influences parents basic decisions to be involved
• -- Hoover-Dempsey Sandler, 1997

8
Home-School Variables that Predict Involvement

• The 4 As
• Approach value is placed on home and school as
  partners
• Attitude beliefs on the part of all participants
  about roles and relationships
• Atmosphere climate in the home and school is
  conducive for partnership to occur
• Actions opportunities, invitations, two-way
  communication
• -- Christenson Sheridan (2001)

9
The Importance of Quality Relationships

• The goal of parent engagement is not merely to
  get families involved, but rather to connect
  important contexts for strengthening childrens
  learning and development (Christenson
  Sheridan, 2001).
• Quality relationships among caregivers may be
  considered a primary protective factor (Weissberg
  Greenberg, 1998) for children.
• Relationships across home and school (parent and
  caregiver) are amenable to intervention.

10
Enhancing Continuity through Relationships

• Intervention efforts must extend beyond a parent
  or educator focus, and embrace a shared mission,
  bi-directional communication, and mutual respect
  emphasizing collaboration and co-equal
  decision-making among all participants
• Establish role construct wherein parents are
  essential in learning and development early on
• Build confidence (self-efficacy), and competence
  (skills, capacity)
• Provide culturally sensitive, meaningful
  opportunities
• Establish temporal continuity, or a pathway for
  continued participation and collaboration, across
  transition contexts and periods

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Collaborative (Conjoint) Consultation

• A dynamic, empowering process wherein service
  providers and caregivers work jointly and
  cooperatively with each other vis a vis learning
  and developmental goals.
• Involves structured, supportive interactions,
  wherein a consultant, parent and educator engage
  in collaborative decision-making via 4 stages
• Needs/Problem identification
• Needs/Problem analysis
• Cross-system plan development and implementation
• Cross-system plan evaluation
• -- Sheridan, Kratochwill, Bergan (1996)

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Collaborative (Conjoint) Consultation

• Goal Promote academic, socioemotional, and
  behavioral outcomes for children through joint,
  mutual, cross-system planning
• Goal Promote parent engagement within a
  developmental, culturally sensitive, systemic
  context
• Goal Strengthen relationships between systems
  on behalf of childrens learning and development
• Address the priorities and concerns regarding
  childrens learning and development
• Strengthen social supports and promote
  collaboration among systems
• Develop and enhance competencies and skills of
  parents and educators, including skills related
  to partnering across systems

13
Preliminary Study

• Research has shown the positive effects of
  conjoint consultation with elementary, middle,
  and secondary students (cf. Sheridan, Eagle,
  Cowan, Mickelson, 2001).
• We are testing the effects of parent engagement
  (warmth/sensitivity support for childs
  autonomy active participation across learning
  contexts) early in development (birth 5).
• A preliminary study investigated the effects of
  one aspect of parent engagement active
  participation through collaborative, cross-system
  (i.e., conjoint) consultation -- on aptitudes
  deemed important for school readiness
• Academic skills
• Behavioral regulation
• Social skills and positive peer relationships

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Sample

• 48 children under the age of 6 (M4.9) and their
  parents and early childhood educators
• 32 male 77 Caucasian
• 66 enrolled in public preschool setting 32 in
  Head Start 2 in private preschools
• 73 of targets were behavioral 19 were
  academic 7 were social
• 14 lived in households with lt15K annual income
  13 spoke a language other than English in the
  home 20 lived in single adult households

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Consultation Procedures

• Targets were identified for each child, and
  included behavioral regulation (e.g.,
  tantrums), socioemotional (e.g., peer
  relations), and academic (e.g., letter
  recognition) goals.
• Parents, teachers, and consultants met and
  jointly identified a primary need, set goals
  specific to the child, co-constructed a plan to
  be implemented across home and school contexts,
  implemented the plan across settings, used data
  to determine attainment of goals, and recycled
  through the collaborative planning stages to
  address additional needs.
• Parents and teachers were mutually responsible
  for assessing the childs strengths and needs,
  implementing plans to address the needs, and
  evaluating progress toward goals.

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Outcome Measures

• Direct Observations - conducted at home and
  school
• Parent-Teacher Relationship Scale II (PTRS-II) -
  collected to assess change in parent-teacher
  relationship (Vickers Minke, 1995)
• 2 Factors Joining and Communication to Other
• Social Validity Measures - collected to assess
  clinical meaningfulness of change
• Acceptability of CBC- Assessed with the
  Behavioral Intervention Rating Scale (BIRS) -
  Acceptability factor (Elliott Von Brock
  Treuting, 1991)
• Perceived Effectiveness of CBC - Assessed with
  the Behavioral Intervention Rating Scale (BIRS) -
  Effectiveness factor (Elliott Von Brock
  Treuting, 1991)

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Analyses

• A series of single subject designs were used to
  test the effects of CBC on individual cases,
  given unique target concerns, prioritized needs,
  and intervention plans.
• General effectiveness of CBC on case outcomes was
  evaluated through Effect Size analysis (Busk
  Serlin, 1992)
• Effect sizes in home and school settings for each
  case were computed to discern degree of behavior
  change as a function of CBC-based interventions
  across baseline and intervention conditions.
• Effectiveness of CBC in strengthening the parent
  and teacher relationship was evaluated through
  paired sample t-tests for Joining, Communication
  to Other, and Total scores.
• Perceptions of CBC effectiveness and
  acceptability were collected post-consultation
  and evaluated descriptively.

18
Results Median Effect Sizes Across Home and
School Settings
19
Parent PTRS Mean RatingsJoining and
Communication-to-Other
4.7
4.7
4.8
4.5
4.4
3.9

• Ratings made on a scale of 1 (poor) 5
  (excellent).
• Paired sample t-tests were used to examine
  parents perceptions of their relationship with
  their childs teacher pre- and post-test.
• A significant difference was found in
  communication following consultation (p lt .01).

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Teacher PTRS Mean RatingsJoining and
Communication-to-Other
4.2
4.2
4.1
4.0
4.0
4.1

• Ratings made on a scale of 1 (poor) 5
  (excellent).
• Paired sample t-tests were used to examine
  teachers perceptions of their relationship with
  the childs parent.
• No significant differences were found between
  pre-consultation and post-consultation
  assessments.

21
Parent and Teacher Social Validity Ratings
(BIRS-R)
Ratings were made on a scale of 1-6, where high
scores denote greater levels of perceived
effectiveness and acceptability.
22
Discussion

• Overall median effect sizes suggest large
  treatment effects. A high degree of variability
  in case outcomes suggests that CBC was more
  effective for some young children than others.
• CBC may provide a mechanism for parents to
  communicate more openly with their childs
  teacher. The relational context promoted in CBC
  may enable increased communication from parent
  teacher.
• Neither parents nor teachers reported a
  significant change in joining with each other as
  a function of CBC. Elevated pre-consultation
  ratings suggest that parents and teachers may
  have believed that optimal levels already
  existed.

23
Discussion

• Consistent with previous research, parents and
  teachers reported high degrees of acceptance and
  effectiveness with CBC (based on BIRS-R scores).
• Ratings of effectiveness were relatively lower
  than acceptance, suggesting that something about
  the model was particularly acceptable to parents
  and teachers.
• Research is needed to
• identify relational variables that affect
  communication patterns, home-school partnerships,
  and child outcomes
• predict the effects of collaborative consultation
  on child and family outcomes at the transition to
  kindergarten and beyond
• determine the effect of consultation on parents
  role construct and self-efficacy, and the nature
  and scope of involvement over time and
  educational contexts.