Rebecca J. Bulotsky-Shearer

• Ph.D.
• Professor (Associate) at University of Miami

Objective The purpose of this study was to examine the longitudinal psychological impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on caregivers of young children in communities of color. Background COVID‐19 has disproportionately affected people of color, with adverse impacts on family functioning and well‐being. However, few studies have examined the longer‐term...

This study explored the experiences of Hispanic families accessing subsidized early care and education programs, and their access to other federal financial assistance programs, designed to increase family self-sufficiency and well-being. Federal programs include subsidized early care and education, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP),...

Introduction In partnership with an urban school district Head Start program, we created a set of intervention supports that built upon the strengths of the district program services already in place. Methods We conducted a randomized control trial to test the use of natural helpers (teachers, special education coaches, and curriculum specialists)...

Given disruptions to early care and education following the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to mitigate long-term impacts of the pandemic on child development among ethnic and racial minority children. Our team is implementing an early childhood mental health consultation (ECMHC) model, or a multi-tiered intervention to support young children’s...

Background/Objectives: High-quality inclusive education is important for promoting the positive development of children with disabilities in early childhood care and education (ECCE) settings. However, ECCE teachers may not have the knowledge and skills to manage challenging behaviors in young children, especially those with disabilities. Infant an...

This mixed methods study examined the impact of a multi-faceted professional development (PD) program for preschool teachers and classroom assistants on teacher-supported assistive technology (AT) use and early literacy development of children with disabilities. Four special education preschools were randomized into intervention (2 schools, 9 teach...

The purpose of this study was to validate the Spanish version of the Family Involvement Questionnaire‐Short Form (FIQ‐SF) for use with Spanish‐speaking families of children enrolled in early childhood education programs. This study examined the factor structure of the FIQ‐SF and established criterion validity for the resulting FIQ‐SF dimension scor...

Introduction Childcare center closures during COVID-19 impacted education for approximately 40 million children nationwide. Unfortunately, COVID-19 restrictions significantly limited the extent that outside personnel could provide in-person support to educators, resulting in the need for innovative approaches to meet childcare centers’ needs. A vir...

The present study validated a newly developed easy‐to‐use observational instrument, the Health Environment Rating Scale‐Early Childhood Consultation‐Classroom version (HERS‐ECC‐C), to measure the quality of the classroom environment within early care and education centers participating in a mental health consultation program in a diverse area of th...

Classroom engagement plays a crucial role in preschoolers' development, yet the correlates of engagement, especially among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and developmental delays (DD), remains unknown. This study examines levels of engagement with classroom social partners and tasks among children in three groups ASD, DD, and typical...

Preschoolers’ language abilities are associated with their social interactions in early childhood classrooms. Few studies, however, have examined associations between social interactions and objective measures of children’s real-time classroom language environments, information key to informing interventions to support preschool children at risk fo...

The Child Behavior Checklist for Ages 1.5–5 (CBCL/1½ –5) has been widely used by researchers and clinicians in the field of special education and psychology. The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the CBCL/1½-5 with a sample of preschool children from low-income families using the Rasch model. Participants included...

Teaching is a stressful profession given teachers’ competing demands. Due to COVID-19, teachers struggle to balance maintaining a safe classroom environment and the traditional child-directed focus of early education. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of an adaptation of Infant/Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (IE...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has had negative psychosocial impacts on young children; teachers in childcare centers continue to be overwhelmed by how to address the downstream psychological effects children are experiencing. This randomized controlled trial will study the role of a community-based, childcare center-support system in improving r...

Despite the efficacy of assistive technology (AT), many children with disabilities do not have access to AT and are not fully benefiting from inclusive preschool education. The current mixed-methods study examined a multi-faceted professional development (PD) intervention aligned with the CEC’s Early Intervention/Early Childhood Special Education (...

Best practices in early childhood include using measures to identify children’s social-emotional and behavioral needs within routine, naturalistic preschool contexts. Aligned with best practices, we examined the combined utility of two contextual measures, a teacher report and a direct observation of classroom behavior in the context of interaction...

Very few studies have examined how to culturally and linguistically (CL) adapt professional development (PD) programs in assistive technology (AT) for Latinx teachers serving young children with disabilities. The purposes of this article are (a) to present an iterative design of a CL-adapted PD program, (b) to examine the impact of this program on...

The present study examined the extent to which the association between teacher reports of preschool children's approaches to learning–the ways in which children engage in learning activities–and children's academic skills was dependent upon teacher emotional support. Multilevel models were estimated using data from a sample of diverse urban Head St...

The COVID-19 pandemic made its mark on the entire world, upending economies, shifting work and education, and exposing deeply rooted inequities. A particularly vulnerable, yet less studied population includes our youngest children, ages zero to five, whose proximal and distal contexts have been exponentially affected with unknown impacts on health,...

Research Findings: Peer play interactions are important contexts for supporting early learning both at home and at school for preschool children from low-income backgrounds. The current study used structural equation modeling to examine whether teacher-reported learning behaviors in the classroom mediated the relationship between parent-reported pe...

Although there are documented benefits and legislative mandates for children from birth through age 22, assistive technology (AT) is highly underused, especially among young children (Dunst & Trivette, 2011). One of the main reasons for this underuse is that while teachers are legally required to provide AT for children with disabilities, many teac...

Research Findings: The Classroom Assessment Scoring System Toddler (CLASS-T) is one of the most commonly used measures to assess the quality of teacher-child interactions in toddler classrooms. Despite widespread use of the CLASS-T, few studies have examined the factor structure of the CLASS-T for use in Early Head Start (EHS) and subsidized child...

The purpose of the study was to develop and validate a Spanish language form of the Adjustment Scales for Preschool Intervention (ASPI) for use by early childhood teachers. A multi-step, mixed method adaptation and translation process of the English form was used to increase the cultural relevance, linguistic comparability, and metric equivalence o...

Early childhood programs, such as Head Start, that serve children at risk can implement programmatic screening procedures to ensure equitable identification of children displaying a range of socioemotional and behavioral needs. We examined administrative records linked to a program-wide mental health screening tool to examine patterns of special ne...

This study utilized a population-based approach to examine the prevalence of children identified with disabilities in a large, urban Head Start program serving diverse preschool children living in poverty (N=7,301). In addition, the study examined demographic differences in patterns of screening and identification for disability with respect to soc...

Potential bidirectional associations between preschool classroom overactive (or externalizing) and underactive (or internalizing) behaviors and language and literacy skills (i.e., vocabulary and listening comprehension) were examined in a sample of children enrolled in Head Start ( N = 297). Cross-lagged panel designs using structural equation mode...

Background Previous studies show a higher prevalence of obesity among preschool‐age children with developmental disabilities (DDs) versus children who are typically developing (TD). Little is known about parent concerns about obesity in young children with DD. The purpose of this study was to examine concerns regarding paediatric obesity among pare...

Guided by an ecological model, we tested whether teacher–child interaction quality buffered the negative associations between challenging behavior within preschool classroom contexts and language and literacy skills. Associations were examined for a sample of children enrolled an urban Head Start program ( N = 304 children across 53 classrooms). Fi...

To address gaps in the availability of validated measures that assess early childhood teachers' workplace experiences, the current study examined the validity of the Early Childhood Teacher Experiences Scale (ECTES) for use in a diverse Head Start program. Mean differences in the ECTES dimensions of self‐efficacy, job stress, and school support wer...

Guided by an ecological model, the study examined the extent to which domains of teacher-child interaction quality moderated associations between early problem behavior within preschool classroom contexts and social competence. A series of multilevel models were estimated using data from a sample of ethnically and linguistically diverse children fr...

The purpose of this study was to examine the longitudinal, bidirectional relationship between language skills and behavior problems in a sample of 194 preschool children enrolled in Head Start programs. Children were individually assessed using the Preschool Language Scale-5, and teachers completed the Child Behavior Checklist-Teacher Report 1½–5....

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between language skills and behavioural problems and the potential moderating role of the quality of classroom emotional support in this relationship among 242 preschool children from low-income families. The Preschool Language Scale-5 was administered individually to each child. The quality...

Consultation to teachers can be an effective intervention for reducing young children’s challenging behaviors within the classroom, yet there is a need for more efficient approaches that provide data-driven, video-based support to enhance and expand teacher and child impacts. This paper focuses on a newly developed early childhood consultation mode...

This study examines the psychometric properties and utility of the Individualized Classroom Assessment Scoring System (inCLASS) and the Adjustment Scales for Preschool Intervention (ASPI) after they were adapted for use by consultants and teachers as part of the development of a new early childhood consultation model called Learning to Objectively...

Large-scale early childhood studies use the first two subscales of the Preschool Language Assessment Scale, “Simon Says” and “Art Show” (PreLAS2000; Duncan & De Avila, 1998) to guide decisions about the most appropriate language (or languages) researchers should use when directly assessing the academic skills of dual language learner (DLL) children...

Hierarchical data are becoming increasingly complex, often involving more than two levels. Centering decisions in multilevel models are closely tied to substantive hypotheses and require researchers to be clear and cautious about their choices. This study investigated the implications of group mean centering (i.e., centering within context; CWC) an...

The construct validity of the Family Involvement Questionnaire–Short Form (FIQ-SF) was examined in an independent sample of ethnically and linguistically diverse low-income families (N = 498) enrolled in an urban Head Start program in the Southeast. A series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses replicated the three-factor structure ident...

Research has shown that early interventions are most successful when they have a comprehensive focus that is individualized to children's needs. The present study employed a person-centered approach to identify profiles, or subgroups, of children displaying early patterns of peer play behaviors in an ethnically and linguistically diverse Head Start...

makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the "Content") contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in...

The Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA) is a social-emotional assessment widely used by early childhood educational programs to inform early identification and intervention efforts. However, its construct validity is not well-established in independent samples of children from low-income backgrounds. We examined the construct validity of the...

This review examines the U.S. federal response to the crisis in child mental health in relation to its efforts to address the crisis in public education. By presenting side-by-side federal responses to these two seemingly unrelated crises, this review highlights the co-occurring nature of the problems. The interconnectedness of these crises explain...

Given theoretical and empirical support for the importance of peer play within the preschool classroom to early learning, the present study tested the hypothesis that associations between teacher-reported problem behavior and academic skills were mediated by difficulties in peer play (disruptive and disconnected play), for a representative sample (...

Little is known about preschool teachers’ attitudes and beliefs toward science teaching, in part, because the field lacks valid and reliable measures of these teacher-related factors. To address this need, the current study developed and validated a rating scale (P-TABS) using a statewide sample of Head Start teachers (N = 507). A series of explora...

Among a nationally representative sample of 2,529 Head Start children, patterns of social-emotional readiness were identified at the beginning and end of children's first preschool year. This study documented that although the majority of children remain in a qualitatively similar social-emotional readiness profile across the year, 34% of children...

Employing a developmental and ecological model, the study identified initial levels and rates of change in academic skills for subgroups of preschool children exhibiting problem behavior within routine classroom situations. Six distinct latent profile types of emotional and behavioral adjustment were identified for a cohort of low-income children e...

Guided by a developmental–ecological framework and Head Start's two-generational approach, this study examined two dimensions of Head Start program quality, classroom quality and parent involvement and their unique and interactive contribution to children's vocabulary, literacy, and mathematics skills growth from the beginning of Head Start through...

Abstract— Guided by a strengths‐based resiliency framework, this article reviews a body of research on the positive influence of interactive peer play for African American preschool children from low‐income households. This literature provides evidence for positive associations among interactive peer play experiences at home and in school, and chil...

Guided by an ecological theoretical model, the authors used a series of multilevel models to examine associations among children's individual problem behavior, the classroom behavioral context, and school readiness outcomes for a cohort of low-income children (N = 3,861) enrolled in 229 urban Head Start classrooms. Associations were examined betwee...

Complex survey data, as highlighted in this issue of Evaluation Review, provide a wealth of opportunities for answering methodological and/or applied research questions. However, the analytic issues of nonindependence and unequal selection probability must be addressed when analyzing this type of data. Thus, to ensure that research questions are ac...

Complex survey data are collected by means other than simple random samples. This creates two analytical issues: nonindependence and unequal selection probability. Failing to address these issues results in underestimated standard errors and biased parameter estimates. Using data from the nationally representative Head Start Family and Child Experi...

Research suggests that promoting adaptive approaches to learning early in childhood may help close the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged children. Recent research has identified specific child-level and classroom-level variables that are significantly associated with preschoolers' approaches to learning. However, further research is needed t...

Relations between early problem behavior in preschool classrooms and a comprehensive set of school readiness outcomes were examined for a stratified random sample (N ϭ 256) of 4-year-old children enrolled in a large, urban school district Head Start program. A series of multilevel models examined the unique contribution of early problem behavior in...

The relations between early emotional and behavioral problems in classroom situations and peer social competence were examined for a representative sample of urban Head Start children. Behavior problems were assessed within the context of routine peer, teacher, and structured learning classroom situations early in the preschool year. Two path model...

An empirical typology of classroom emotional and behavioral adjustment was developed for preschool children living in urban poverty. Multistage hierarchical cluster analyses were applied to identify six distinct and reliable subtypes of classroom adjustment, differentiated by high and low levels of behavioral (aggressive, inattentive, oppositional,...

Relations between classroom behavior problems early in the preschool year and elementary school literacy and language outcomes were examined for an entire cohort of four-year-old Head Start children (N = 2682). A cross-classified random effects model was used that controlled for the variance in literacy outcomes attributed to: (a) child-level demog...

In partnership with a local Head Start program in the southeastern United States, this study sought to: (a) examine the influence of problem behaviors on preschool language and literacy and mathematics achievement and (b) identify mechanisms that explain why children with behavior problems have difficulty learning in the preschool classroom. Childr...

This study used a developmental-ecological approach to investigate the relationship across the school year between early problems in preschool classroom situations and a comprehensive set of readiness competencies for urban low-income children. Study 1 identified 3 reliable and unique underlying classroom situational dimensions where behavior probl...

The present study identified higher order relationships among teacher assessments of approaches to learning and emotional and behavioral adjustment constructs for low-income urban preschool children. It examined the unique contribution of these dimensions to cognitive and social competencies and risk of poor academic outcomes. Analyses of a large r...

Child maltreatment is a national social problem that disproportionately threatens the development of our most vulnerable groups of children. The challenge of responding to the needs of these vulnerable young children is particularly daunting for mental health scientist-practitioners. Recently, the U.S. surgeon general (USDHHS, 1999) called attentio...

The study examined the unique relationship between multiple dimensions of classroom behavioral adjustment problems and salient social–emotional competencies for urban Head Start children. These relationships were investigated using a hierarchical model that controlled for the variance in social–emotional outcomes attributed to age, gender, and verb...

v. (li, 1298 p.) ; 29 cm Bibliog. Includes bibliographical references and indexes Subject Child development --Encyclopedias. Youth development --Encyclopedias. Adolescence --Encyclopedias. Developmental psychology --Encyclopedias. ' Community development --Encyclopedias. Review Status LIB USE ONLY LIB USE ONLY Message 1 of I 9/7/2009 4:18 PM

A series of studies extended psychometric research on the Adjustment Scales for Preschool Intervention (ASPI). The ASPI is a multidimensional measure of preschool emotional and behavioral adjustment for use within formal early childhood educational programs. These studies used a multiple method, multisource approach to provide additional evidence f...

This study addressed the needs of low-income, urban children evidencing emotional and behavioral problems within the preschool classroom. Informed by a developmental-ecological model, the study explored the dynamic transactions between behavioral adjustment and the demands of routine, classroom situations. It examined: (a) the latent structure of p...

The study examined the multivariate relationship between dimensions of preschool emotional and behavioral adjustment assessed at the beginning of the year by the Adjustment Scales for Preschool Intervention (ASPI) and multiple learning and social competencies at the end of the year with an urban Head Start sample. This study also examined the diffe...

The purpose of this article is to present a conceptual framework for advancing mental health science and practice for vulnerable children that is in accord with the Surgeon General's priorities for change. Three elements distinguish the framework presented. It is: (a) population-focused, (b) child-centered, and (c) partnership-based. Empirical rese...

The study examined the multivariate relationship between dimensions of preschool emotional and behavioral adjustment assessed at the beginning of the year by the Adjustment Scales for Preschool Intervention (ASPI) and multiple learning and social competencies at the end of the year with an urban Head Start sample. This study also examined the diffe...