What Evidence of Change Emerges When Students with Behavioral and Learning Challenges are Placed in an Early Childhood Montessori Environment in Rural China?

Under current circumstances, educational issues such as the achievement gap, non-cognitive development, Executive Function, and students with challenging behaviors impact day-to-day classroom practices and fundamentally reshape the results of education. The purpose of this research was to utilize the Montessori environment and principles, as well as the “normalization” approach developed by Dr. Maria Montessori, to help students with behavioral and learning challenges find the balance of their mental developmental processes and maximize their academic achievement at the same time. This action research conducted focused-group case studies of the Montessori Normalization process for children possessing behavioral and learning challenges at a preschool in rural China. The research applied pre-and post-assessment for the 3-6-year-old participants to investigate the evidence of improvement. The assessment utilized indicators based on symptom guidelines for ADHD, ASD, Learning disorders, and Learning Difficulties, published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The study’s findings indicate that the Montessori-guided early childhood education intervention had helped students with behavioral and learning challenges, thereby providing an alternative solution for addressing the challenge of the development gap. This research also suggested that Montessori-based classrooms provide a positive, nurturing environment for gifted children with learning difficulties (exceptional learners) who confront challenges in a mainstream classroom

The Strong Families Program: Differential Impacts of Resilience and Parent Management Training

Childhood behavior problems are pervasive with 50% of non-referred families citing noncompliance and behavior problems as an issue (Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1981). Many behavioral parent trainings (BPTs) treat these behaviors at an early age. Recently, adaptions to BPTs include group formats increasing accessibility and decreasing cost, especially for rural families with limited resources (Niec, Barnett, Prewett, & Stanley Chatham, 2016). Beyond BPTs, Alvord, Zucker, and Johnson Grados (2011) developed the Resilience Builder Program to enhance children’s social, emotional, and behavioral skills through a cognitive behavioral framework. The Resilience Builder Program improves anxious and depressive symptoms and reduces behavior problems in children (Watson, Rich, Sanchez, O’Brien, & Alvord, 2013). Although researchers (Borden, Schultz, Herman, & Brooks, 2010) theorized about the suitability for combining BPTs and resilience training, no such study examining the combination of these interventions exists to date. The current study sought to examine the effectiveness of a group treatment combining BPT and resilience training on reducing parental stress and child externalizing behaviors and increasing children’s resilience. A six-week group treatment format consisting of a parent training only group (e.g., Standard Group) and a parent training plus resilience group (e.g., Resilience Group) was utilized to determine the change in child externalizing behaviors, parental stress, and resilience. Multiple 2 (Group Type: Standard; Resilience) X 3 (Time: pre-; mid-; post) factorial ANOVAs were used to analyze the data. Results demonstrated no significant interactions between Group Type (Standard; Resilience) X Time (pre-; mid-; post) for parent stress, children’s resilience, or children’s externalizing behaviors. Significant main effects of Time were found across groups demonstrating a significant decrease in parental stress and children’s externalizing behaviors, and a significant increase in children’s resilience. However, when child age was included as a covariate, these effects did not hold. While there are limitations based on sample size (N = 15) and a lack of control group, there appears to be promising support for using shortened, group-based interventions in the treatment of externalizing behaviors among children. These results indicate BPT alone may be effective in increasing childhood resilience. Future research should aim to address limitations

(Re)Animating the Horror Genre: Explorations in Children\u27s Animated Horror Films

This project seeks to define the subgenre of children\u27s animated horror film by examining its classification within the children\u27s film genre and its use of generic conventions of horror. While this project does not aim to conflate children\u27s film as a genre and animation as a medium, the scope of this project will be limited to children\u27s animated horror films from 1993 - present day. In order to explore the subgenre of children\u27s animated horror films from 1993-present, I will focus specifically on the following films: Tim Burton\u27s The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were Rabbit (2005), Tim Burton\u27s Corpse Bride (2006), Monster House (2006), Igor (2008), Coraline (2009), 9 (2009), Frankenweenie (2012), Hotel Transylvania (2012), and ParaNorman (2012). These films not only raise questions about children and childhood, but also specifically engage in the generic conventions of horror through various monsters, use of comedy, gender stereotypes, and generic hybridity. By engaging in conversations with the conventions of horror films, children\u27s animated horror film legitimates its status as a horror subgenre, not merely simple children\u27s films

Origin Story: Educators, the Code, and the Making of the Silver Age of Comics, 1940-1971

My dissertation interrogates the role played by teachers, professors, researchers, administrators, and librarians in comics activism in the years before the establishment of the Comics Code Authority. Teachers occupied a unique space: public servants in one sense, subject matter experts in another. At the same time, they were not impervious to the media’s treatment of the anti-comics crusade, nor were they immune to the sway of religion, politics, and race in the conversation. Using teachers’ professional journals and local newspapers, I find that educators existed on both sides of the debate as drivers of the action—sometimes as actors, but also as proxies and participants. In addition, as arbiters of kids’ free time, keepers of literacy, imparters of citizenship, developers of good taste, and specialists in the behavior and needs of students, teachers had a special vantage point from which to observe the effects of comics on young readers. Theirs was a valuable position, and it was coopted by any number of factions jockeying for influence. Probing the records of the comic book industry’s regulatory body, I determined that educators were targets of the industry’s campaign to legitimate the genre. My dissertation also situates universities as key sites of pro-comics activities and expands the actors in the anti-comics campaign to include independent scholars, as well as university faculty, administrators, and students. Peer-reviewed research was used by parties on both sides of the debate. Evaluating this scholarship, I conclude that unaffiliated researchers made consequential contributions to the debate, speaking directly to the public in ways that more traditional researchers could not. Finally, my project establishes the nuance in educators’ role in the anti-comics campaign and surveys the ways they were actors, subjects, and instruments in the movement. Utilizing textual analyses of key Silver Age comics, I find that the comic books created in the wake of the anti-comics crusade were direct outgrowths of the anxieties and aspirations of educators—a deliberate effort by comic book publishers to gain their endorsement