Early Childhood Education: Curriculum Development for Early Childhood Classroom

Despite growing attention to early literacy experiences and emergent literacy perspectives, many children start kindergarten with less than optimal emergent literacy skills. In this article, I review research on efforts to identify what works to support young children's development of emergent literacy in early childhood classrooms prior to starting kindergarten. These efforts include curricula, best practices, and professional development. Such efforts show promise in improving children's emergent literacy skills, but many gaps remain and require further study. In particular, research is necessary to identify ways to improve meaning‐focused skills, understand the generalizability and sustainability of effects, and translate findings into practice.

There are a lot of assistive devices available for visually challenged people to make them self-dependent, but not many writing aids are available that could allow them to have written communication. Assistive devices also suffer from problem of low acceptance rate primarily because they are complex to use, have big cognitive load and are mostly expensive. This paper presents a low cost, portable and easy to use pen like writing aid for visually challenged people based on Morse code communication. Intelligent electronic hardware design has been carried out to make the device light weight and low cost with bill of materials (BOM) of electronic components is only $14. To make the device respond faster, a platform independent and novel software algorithm has been developed that runs on a microcontroller. Average speed of writing with the device is 70–80 characters per minute. It is a low power device with maximum rated voltage and current requirements of 5 V and 100 mA respectively. It is an easy to use and easy to hold device because it is designed in a pen like structure with the help 3D designing software and is made with light weight thermoplastic material using 3D printing technology.

3D Printing can be used to make prosthetic and assistive devices for the physically disabled with the advantages of being affordable and bespoke. A physically challenged test participant was selected who required assistive devices for
writing and typing. The participant had a pilocytic astrocytoma in the left peduncle in 2013, which was successfully removed.
However, some right arm motor function was lost decreasing writing and typing ability, and forcing adaptation of the left arm.
Thus, 3D printed devices were developed to assist the right arm with writing and typing.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) intervention using a speech-generating device (SGD) on acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of multistep requesting and generic small talk in three children with severe autism spectrum disorder (ASD) between the ages of 7 and 13 years. Method: A multiple-baseline design across participants combined with a posttreatment multiple-generalizationprobe design was used to assess acquisition, generalization, and maintenance of target communicative behaviors with the experimenter and the participants’ familiar communication partners (FCPs). Intervention was composed of systematic instruction in the use of an SGD using least-to-most prompting, constant time delay, error correction, and reinforcement. Results: Visual analysis established a strong functional relationship between the independent variable and the two dependent variables (i.e., requesting preferred activities, engaging in generic small talk) for all three participants. Effect size indicator analyses corroborated these findings, indicating strong effects for performing multistep requesting and medium effects for engaging in generic small talk. All participants were able to generalize the acquired communicative behaviors to request new and untrained snacks and activities and engage in generic small talk with FCPs who were not part of the training. Maintenance of acquired communicative behaviors was demonstrated 3 weeks post completion of intervention. Conclusion: This study provides preliminary evidence that AAC intervention using an SGD and incorporating leastto-most prompting, constant time delay, error correction, and reinforcement is effective in terms of multistep requesting and generic small talk behaviors in children with severe ASD.

Child development is a complex process informed by
genetic and environmental factors (Fleer, 2010; Kling,
Campbell & Wilcox, 2010). While some children develop
without significant developmental challenges, children
with disabilities often do not develop typically; therefore,
they need extra support to help them function to their
maximum potential (Fleer, 2010; Kling et al., 2010). A large
body of research has shown that ATDs benefit children
with disabilities by compensating for their disabilities as
well as enabling them to perform daily living activities
(Binger & Light, 2007; Brown et al., 2011). However, much
of the published research did not focus extensively on
how the professional philosophies of preschool teachers
and their support staff inform the use of ATDs in early
intervention classrooms.

Despite the importance of early writing development to children’s school success, research documents that early childhood teachers spend little time actively supporting children’s writing development in preschool classrooms. This article provides a framework for integrating writing experiences across the early childhood curriculum. Practical examples are given regarding how writing opportunities can be incorporated into existing activities and play settings. The metaphor of backgrounding and foregrounding writing experiences is used to illustrate ways that teachers can set writing rich environments and activities in a manner that makes it easier for teachers to bring these experiences into everyday learning opportunities. Attention is given to how teachers can bring writing to the foreground of the curriculum by drawing attention to writing materials, making natural connections with children’s interest and play, and scaffolding children’s early writing attempts and experiences.

As wearable assistive devices, such as prostheses and exoskeletons, become increasingly sophisticated and effective, the mental workload associated with their use remains high and becomes a major challenge to their ecological use and long-term adoption. Numerous methods of measuring mental workload co-exist, making analysis of this research topic difficult. The aim of this review is to examine how mental workload resulting from the use of wearable assistive devices has been measured, in order to gain insight into the specific possibilities and limitations of this field. Literature searches were conducted in the main scientific databases and 60 articles measuring the mental workload induced by the use of a wearable assistive device were included in this study. Three main families of methods were identified, the most common being ’dual task’ and ’subjective assessment’ methods, followed by those based on ’physiological measures’, which included a wide variety of methods. The variability of the measurements was particularly high, making comparison difficult. There is as yet any evidence that any particular method of measuring mental workload is more appropriate to the field of wearable assistive devices. Each method has intrinsic limitations such as subjectivity, imprecision, robustness or complexity of implementation or interpretation. A promising metric seems to be the measurement of brain activity, as it is the only method that is directly related to mental workload. Finally, regardless of the measurement method chosen, special attention should be paid to the measurement of mental workload in the context of wearable assistive devices. In particular, certain practical considerations, such as ecological situations and environments or the level of expertise of the participants tested, may be essential to ensure the validity of the mental workload assessed.

Planning is one of the professional tasks teachers have to carry out before their direct action in the classrooms. This planning is closely interrelated to the way teachers teach. The question about how and why teachers reach their decisions in their pre-class planning is a classical one in the research into curricular design and development. The aim of this paper will therefore be to establish whether there is a relationship between curricular planning and curricular practices, studying how nine early childhood education teachers using an ICT resource plan their actions and execute them. For the research, we obtained video recordings of classroom practices and interviewed the teachers just before they went into class. By applying qualitative data analysis, we have been able to identify the elements taken into consideration when the teachers make decisions in lesson, their conceptions about ICT, and the types of activity that are held in all the classes. The results confirm the conclusions reached by previous studies on the relationships between planning and doing, in the sense that the activities, understood to be teaching strategies, are the ones that link the design of what is to be done and direct action. Likewise, the results ratify prior research on the role of materials and resources as aspects that teachers can rely on for support in the management and presentation of classroom tasks and content. The introduction of ICT does not modify the teachers' curricular planning and development.

Public policies can influence how speech-language
pathologists (SLPs) provide services to students with
disabilities. Specifically, this article is intended to provide
background information and critical analysis regarding the
Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) as it relates to speechlanguage pathology practice and provision of services to
students with disabilities within the schools

In recent years there has been an increasing focus on the missing “T” of technology and “E” of engineering in early childhood STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) curricula. Robotics offers a playful and tangible way for children to engage with both T and E concepts during their foundational early childhood years. This study looks at N = 60 children in pre-kindergarten through second grade who completed an 8-week robotics curriculum in their classrooms using the KIWI robotics kit combined with a tangible programming language. Children were assessed on their knowledge of foundational robotics and programming concepts upon completion of the curriculum. Results show that beginning in pre-kindergarten, children were able to master basic robotics and programming skills, while the older children were able to master increasingly complex concepts using the same robotics kit in the same amount of time. Implications for developmentally appropriate design of technology, as well as structure and pace of robotics curricula for young children are addressed.

People with incomplete spinal cord injury disabilities can be able to live a healthy, productive, and
dignified life by using Assistive devices as their role in improving gait. Facilitate locomotion rehabilitation. And enable people with incomplete SCI to ambulate in an upright position. Objective: This systematic review aimed to examine the effectiveness of the role of using assistive devices in gait rehabilitation in patients with incomplete SCI. Material and Methods: Studies were identified from 2000 to 2020 by electronic search using PubMed, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Google Scholar, and Physiotherapy Evidence Database (Pedro). They were reviewed if they were randomized control trials focused on the effectiveness of Assistive devices on Gait in Patients in age more than 18 years with incomplete Spinal Cord Injury being published in English. Eight studies were selected according to inclusive and exclusive criteria and descriptive analysis was conducted due to heterogeneity. Results: Eight trials were identified with good quality methodology. Descriptive analysis was applied for three studies that supported the use of assistive devices for those patients and meta-analysis was applied for five studies. The mean difference across all the five studies is -0.69 (95% CI -0.93, -0.45). According to AACPDM, there is level II evidence that supports the use of the assistive device as a method to be able to live a healthy, productive, and dignified life. Conclusion: The current level of evidence supports the effectiveness of assistive devices in improving gait in patients with incomplete spinal cord injury.

The World Health Organization pointed out that over 285 million people worldwide suffer from loss of vision and blindness, and that the number could drop drastically in just a few years. About 90% of the blind and visually impaired (B&VI) live at a low income that means these people cannot buy the expensive assistive devices for the spatial cognition. In this work, the new concept of the smart city assistive infrastructure with distributed server-client architecture is presented for the B&VI using the inclusive smart assistive component that interacts with other subsystems of the smart city (smart buildings, smart mobility, smart energy, etc.) via IoT protocols such as MQTT. The main constituents of thin client are as follows: Raspberry Pi 3 B board with camera for the objects detection / recognition, ultrasonic sensor(s) HC-SR04 for the obstacles identification on the short-range distance up to 5 m, GPS module for the global navigation, iBeacon Bluetooth low energy proximity sensing software, MQTT IoT protocol for the mutual communication of clients, Python multithread application, Raspbian OS. The thin client hardware is of affordable price USD 70. The objects detection and recognition are implemented on the thin clients via the Histogram of Oriented Gradients with Euclidean distance classifier (HOG+EDC). The design of the recognition models, the file hosting of the training images and the knowledge base with the recognition rules are done on server(s). The modified Viola-Jones fast face detector with the combination of features "eye" and "nose" is proposed to speed up the image processing, but its detection rate is not 100%. Hence, it can be applied only with the subsequent recognition using HOG+EDC. [

The purpose of this manuscript is to identify social narrative strategies that can be used to enhance the social skills of young children identified with autism spectrum disorder. We provide a description as well as scenarios describing how educators might consider using social narrative strategies. We conclude with resources to attain additional information.

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and complex communication needs are increasingly taught to use tablet-based speech-generating devices (SGDs). An important issue in designing such interventions is the selection of an appropriate format for displaying vocabulary. The purpose of this study was to determine (a) whether young children with ASD can be taught to use different SGD vocabulary display formats and (b) whether there are differences across the formats on a range of secondary measures (e.g., preference and generalization). Method: Five preschoolers with ASD (and prior experience with simpler aided augmentative and alternative communication) were taught to use grid and visual scene display SGDs during a play-based intervention. Acquisition of functional responding was assessed using a single-case experimental design. Secondary variables included error types, antecedents for communication, preference, and generalization. Results: All participants increased their use of functional target vocabulary using both the grid and the simple visual scene display. Of the five participants, three showed similar performance with both formats, whereas two had slightly higher rates of functional responding with the grid. Individualized differences across participants and formats were apparent across secondary variables (e.g., preference, error types, generalization). Conclusions: Both simple grid and visual scene displays may be viable options when teaching functional use of SGDs to children with ASD who have prior aided augmentative and alternative communication experience. Analyzing secondary variables beyond device acquisition (e.g., generalization, preference) may have implications for individualizing intervention.

Success in post-school environments, such as the employment and community access,
is increased when an individual is independent of instructor or caregiver support.
Individuals with disabilities can self-instruct using various forms of assistive technology to alleviate instructor support, thus increasing their autonomy. This study used a
multiple probe across behaviors design replicated across two participants to examine
the effectiveness of a video activity schedule (VidAS) to increase independence in
novel vocational tasks across three school settings (i.e., office, cafeteria, library). Both
participants, one participant with an intellectual disability and one participant with a traumatic brain injury, were able to self-instruct using VidAS and independently
complete all three tasks within each environment. Implications for teachers and practitioners working with transition-age youth with disabilities are discussed as well as limitations to the current study.