EXPLORING THE RELATION BETWEEN POSITIVE BEHAVIOR SUPPORT AND LANGUAGE LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES IN PRESCHOOL CLASSROOMS.

与来自社会经济地位较高家庭的同龄人相比，来自低收入家庭的儿童可能在开始正规教育时语言技能较低（哈特& Risely，1995;霍夫，2003）。这种缺陷可以在学生未来的学业成功中发挥关键作用，因为口语技能是识字能力发展的关键组成部分（见Dickinson，Golinkoff和Hirsch-Pasek，2010）。找到方法来培养和促进这些有风险的儿童的语言发展是至关重要的，特别是考虑到这种成就差距持续存在并扩大到成年初期的证据（霍夫，2003;里尔登，2011）。高质量的儿童保育和学前教育计划可以帮助调解来自不同社会经济地位背景的儿童之间的这些差异（Vernon-Feagans & Hines，2013）。然而，最近的元分析表明，专业发展的努力，以提高质量的教师与儿童的语言互动在课堂上的结果是不一致的和相对较小的影响，对儿童的语言成果（坎宁安和凯泽，在准备;马库森布朗等人，2017年）。 探讨哪些课堂和教师层面的因素可能会影响教师与儿童的语言互动可能是了解如何更好地支持教师使用语言支持策略的关键。这项拟议研究的目标是扩展有关影响高危幼儿课堂语言学习环境的因素的已知信息。两个主要的研究问题将得到解决：（1）分数的措施，课堂行为管理和社会情感支持的数量和质量的教师与儿童的语言互动在中心时间在学前班教室？(2)接受过行为管理和社会情感支持培训的教师是否比未接受培训的教师与儿童进行更高质量的语言互动？ 这项研究的参与者将是大约40名为3至5岁儿童服务的儿童保育和学前班教师。该研究将通过两种方式探索积极行为支持和教师语言支持策略之间的关系：初始相关设计研究和实验研究设计研究，其中随机接受金字塔模型培训或“一切照旧”的教师子集将在培训前和培训后进行评估。这些研究的结果将为理解旨在促进积极行为的课堂积极互动与教师使用语言发展支持策略之间的关系提供基础。潜在的这些发现将建议的方式，在积极的行为支持培训的好处可以利用，也提高教师与儿童的语言相关的互动。由于积极的行为和语言成果都是关注儿童的风险，提高针对这两个发展领域的专业发展的有效性和效率是很重要的领域。

Children from low-income backgrounds are likely to begin formal schooling with lower language skills as compared to their peers from higher SES homes (Hart & Risely, 1995; Hoff, 2003). This deficit can play a critical role in student's future academic success, as oral language skills are a key component in literacy development (see Dickinson, Golinkoff, & Hirsch-Pasek, 2010). Finding ways to foster and promote language development early in these at-risk children is essential, especially considering the evidence that this achievement gap persists and widens into young adulthood (Hoff, 2003; Reardon, 2011). High quality childcare and preschool programs can help mediate these differences among children from varying SES backgrounds (Vernon-Feagans & Hines, 2013). However, recent meta-analyses have indicated that professional development efforts to enhance the quality of teacher-child language interactions in classrooms result in inconsistent and relatively small effects on child language outcomes (Cunningham & Kaiser, in preparation; Markussen-Brown et al., 2017). Exploring what classroom and teacher level factors may influence teacher-child language interactions may be key in understanding how to better support teachers in their use of language support strategies. The goal of the proposed study is to extend what is known about factors that contribute to the language learning environment in classrooms for young children at-risk. Two primary research questions will be addressed: (1) are scores on measures of classroom behavior management and social-emotional support associated with the quantity and quality of teacher-child language interactions during center time in preschool classrooms? (2) do teachers who receive training in behavior management and social emotional support engage in higher quality language interactions with children as compared to teachers who do not receive training? The participants in this study will be approximately 40 teachers in childcare and Head Start classrooms serving children ages three to five. The study will explore the relationship between positive behavior support and teacher language support strategies in two ways: an initial correlational design study and an experimental research design study in which a subset of teachers who have been randomized to receive Pyramid Model training or “business as usual” will be assessed pre- and post-training. Results from these studies will provide a foundation for understanding the relationship between overall positive interactions in the classroom designed to promote positive behavior and teacher use of language development support strategies. Potentially these findings will suggest ways in which the benefits of training in positive behavior support can be leveraged to also improve teacher-child language related interactions. Because both positive behavior and language outcomes are of concern in children at-risk, increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of professional development in targeting both developmental areas is important to the field.