Early Social-Emotional Development: Your Guide to Promoting Children’s Positive Behavior

With expulsion rates three times higher in pre-K classrooms than in K–12 classrooms*, behavior is one of the biggest and most pressing challenges faced by early childhood educators and providers. Find research-based guidance and strategies in this book, an essential resource for professionals working with children from birth to age 5.

You'll start with a comprehensive, reader-friendly overview of early growth and learning across developmental domains, with special emphasis on the components of emotional development and the environmental factors that influence it. Then you'll learn the guiding principles for nurturing social emotional development, aligned with the positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) framework and the Pyramid Model. Concrete examples of specific, research based strategies help you put the principles into action and improve child outcomes in both center- and home-based settings.

A keystone of professional preparation for both preservice and in-service early childhood providers, this book will show you how to work effectively with children, families, and colleagues to foster social emotional growth in the critical early years.

DISCOVER HOW TO

• apply evidence-based universal prevention strategies to proactively support social-emotional growth
• collect data and use tailored secondary behavior strategies with children who have more intensive challenges
• collaborate with families and share concerns sensitively
• overcome roadblocks to PBIS through team communication and consistency
• encourage mindfulness in yourself and parental caregivers
• ensure that providers, caregivers, agencies, and other stakeholders work together and share accountability
• engage in ongoing reflection to improve your self-efficacy and confidence

PRACTICAL MATERIALS: Sample scenarios that show you how to apply strategies, suggestions for collaborating effectively with families, insights from parents and educators, reflection questions, supplemental exercises to reinforce what you have learned, and access to a sampling of useful web-based resources

*Gilliam, W. S. (2005). Prekindergarteners left behind: Expulsion rates in state prekindergarten systems. New York: Foundation for Child Development.

Dr. Nicole Megan Edwards is currently an Associate Professor of Special Education at Rowan University and previously worked at Georgia State University as Associate Director of a statewide early intervention professional development initiative. She began her career as a center-based and home-based early intervention provider in New York City, working with infants and toddlers with special needs and their families. She earned her M.Ed. in Early Childhood Special Education from New York University and Ph.D. in Special Education from University of Maryland, College Park and became a university faculty member in 2013. Dr. Edwards teaches several courses, including Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports.

She is a member of the Division for Early Childhood (DEC) and Teacher Education Division (TED) of the Council for Exceptional Children, the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), Zero to Three, and the American Educational Research Association (AERA). She is an annual conference proposal reviewer for DEC and AERA, reviews for Early Education and Development and Journal of Early Intervention, serves on the editorial board for TEACHING Exceptional Children, serves as co-leader of the Division for Early Childhood's Early Intervention Special Interest Group, and disseminates research at professional conferences and in peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Edwards' research interests include improving access to and quality of early intervention early childhood/ early childhood special education (across birth–five settings), family–provider collaboration and capacity building, the perceived role of caregivers and providers in early emotional development, and roadblocks to implementing Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports. She lives with her husband and two sons in Pennsylvania.

Dr. Susanne Denham is an applied developmental psychologist with particular expertise in the social and emotional development of children; she received her doctorate from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Dr. Denham has used 11 years of hands-on experience as a school psychologist to aid her research, which focuses on the role of emotional competence in children's social and academic functioning, its assessment, and the role that parents and teachers play in fostering it. She has been funded by the Institute for Education Sciences, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (in partnership with Head Start and the Administration for Children and Families), the W.T. Grant Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, and the National Science Foundation. She has served on numerous editorial boards, and is past co-editor of the journal Social Development, as well as current editor of Early Education Development.