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Haymes, Linda K.; And OthersAssessing the Transition and Adjustment ofPreschoolers with Special Needs to an IntegratedProgram. KECRI Working Paper.Kansas Univ., Lawrence. Kansas Early ChildhoodResearch Inst.Special Education Programs (ED/3SERS), Washington,DC.

H024U80001Oct 9119p.

Reports Research/Technical (143)

MFO1 /PCO1 Plus Postage.*Adjustment (to Environment); Behavior Patterns;Behavior Problems; Case Studies; *DevelopmentalDisabilities; Emotional Adjustment; Mainstreaming;Preschool Children; Preschool Education; SocialIntegration; *Student Adjustment; TransitionalPrograms

Classroom observations were conducted with fivechildren, identified as at risk for developmental delay, throughouttheir first year of preschool, to identify their patterns ofadjustment to an integrated preschool program. A video assessment ofeach child was conducted prior to program entry to help teachers plana successful transition. Individual children were then observedbetween 20 and 47 times during the year. During their first weeks inthe school the children demonstrated high rates of unoccupiedbehavior, crying, and pacifier use. Four of the children initiallyreceived high rates of teacher attention which gradually declinedover time. One child continued to require much teacher attention.Teachers used a variety of strategies to assist the children inadjusting to the class including encouraging cooperative play,allowing a parent or sibling to remain with the child for part of theday, shortening the child's initial days, providing small playgroups, and allowing the child to bring a favorite toy from home.Case studies of the five children are provided. Three tables and fivefigures detail study findings. (Contains 13 references.) (113)

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Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be madefrom the original document.

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Assessing the Transition and Adjustmentof Preschoolers with Special Needs

to an Integrated Program

by

Linda K. Haymes

Susan A. Fowler

Alita Y. Cooper

KECRI Working PaperOctober 1991

2

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONOrrice or Educational Research and Improvement

EDUCATIONAL RE SOURCES INFORMATIONCENTER (ERIC)

PY4is document has been reproduced asreceived from the person or organizationorrginating it

I' Minor changes have been made to Improvereproduction quality

Points of mew or opinions slated in this document do not necessarily represent of ticraiOE RI position or policy

BEST COPY AVAILABLE

Preparation of this document was supported in part by the U.S.Department of Education, Office of Special EducationPrograms, under award H024U80001 to the Kansas EarlyChildhood Research institute. The opinions expressed in thisdocument do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of theU.S. Department of Education and no official endorsementshould be inferred. Appreciation is expressed to Sue Young fordata collection, consulting and graphing.

Assessing the Transition and Adjustmentof Preschoolers with Special Needs

to an Integrated Programby

Linda K. HaymesDepartment of Psychology

Claremont Graduate School, Claremont CA

Susan A. FowlerDepartment of Special Education

University of Illinois, Champaign, IL

Alita Y. CooperDepartment of Human Development & Family Life

University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS

AbstractClassroom observations were conducted with five children, throughout their firstyear of preschool, to identify their patterns of adjustment to the program. Each ofthe children was referred by the Community Child Find Program to the inte-grated preschool, due to special needs or conditions indicating risk for develop-mental delay. Three of the children showed high rates of unoccupied behaviorduring the first two weeks of school, which then reduced. One child cried formuch of the first seven days of school, while another used a pacifier constantlyduring the first three weeks. The youngest child continued to show high rates ofunoccupied time throughout his attendance and consistently received high ratesof teacher attention. The other four children received high rates of teacherattention initially, which gradually declined across time. Teachers used a varietyof strategies to assist the children in adjusting to the class. Data are needed todocument the transition of young children with special needs into integratedpreschool programs. Likewise, simple intervention strategies are needed to assistprogram staff in meeting the transition needs of these young children and theirfamilies.

Assessing the Transition and Adjustment of Preschoolers withSpecial Needs to an Integrated Program

Each year thousands of young children beginpreschool. Their first days of school are onesmarked with a variety of adjustments. Typi-cally these include: separating from their par-ent, entering a new and larger playground,following instructions from new adults, andlearning new routines. Most preschoolteachers anticipate that young children, andeven some parents, will require a few days toadjust to the new routines and expectations ofpreschool. Prolonged periods of adjustment,however, can raise concerns regarding theappropriateness of the program for the child,or the readiness of the child for the program(e.g., Hairs, Rosenkoetter & Fowler, 1991;tains, Fowler & Chandler, 1988).

The adjustment of young children withspecial needs to community preschools is aparticularly important issue today. The fed-eral regulations for special education pre-school services define placement in private ornot-for-profit public preschools (e.g., HeadStart) as one of the least restrictive environ-ment options for these children (34 CFR Part300.052). In some states, local educationagencies have developed agreements withprivate community preschools that allow chil-dren with developmental delays to attendcommunity preschools with peers who do nothave disabilities and to receive special educa-tion services within those integrated pro-grams (cf. Fowler, Haim & Rosenkoetter,1990). To assist families and community pro-grams with the transition of children to pre-school, research is needed to identify thekinds of transition adjustments to preschool,the duration of the adjustment, as well asstrategies that ease the transition into crassactivities. This information may help pro-

grams to meet the needs of each incomingchild and avoid conclusions that children are"not ready" for preschool. Likewise, this in-formation may assist families who often wantto know what they can do to prepare theirchildren for group care experiences (Hanline& Knowlton, 1988; McDonald, Kyselka &Siebert, 1989; Murphy & Vincent, 1989).Stress for families with children who havespecial needs often increases at transitionpoints in their children's lives, such as schoolentrance (Barber, Turnbull, Behr & Kerns,1988; Hanline, Suchman & Demmerle, 1989).Finally, this information will be valuable toearly intervention staff, who are charged withthe development of a transition plan for eachchild receiving early intervention services, sixmonths prior to the child's third birthday. Ifimportant skills or experiences can be identi-fied before transition, then these can be in-cluded in the plan to guide families and staffin preparing the child for preschool entrance(Haim et al., 1991; Lazzari & Kilgo, 1989).

Research on the transition to preschool islimited. Most research conducted on chil-dren's transitions have focused on the transi-tion from preschool to kindergarten orelementary school (cf. Fowler, Schwartz &Atwater, 1991). The purpose of this studywas to begin collecting information about thetransition of young children who are at riskfor developmental delays to their first pre-school program. The behavior of five chil-dren was assessed over the duration of theirfirst year of preschool to identify possible pat-terns of adjustment to school. In addition,several short intQrvention strategies were de-veloped and used to assist the staff, childrenand their families with school adjustment.11

4

Methods

Subjects and settingFive childrenfour boys and one girlpar-ticipated in the study. None of the childrenhad been involved in group care, and this wastheir first preschool experience. Adam was 42months old at the onset of the study. He wasreferred for preschool services by the community Child Find program because of his birthhistory and concerns about immaturity andacting-out behaviors. Adam was born pre-maturely, with a birth weight of one pound,akid had a history of extensive hospitalizationas an infant. Beth, age 30 months, was refer-red for speech concerns and was considered"at risk" due to maternal and paternal use ofalcohol during pregnancy and the father'sphysical abuse of the mother. At the onset ofpreschool, she and her mother were living ina transitional home for battered women.Chris, age 60 months, was referred due toTourette's Syndrome and because his motherreported he exhibited behavior problems inthe home. Dan, age 37 months, was referredto the program for language concerns. Inaddition, the family reported that he had"periods of confusion". The child's motherhad a history of illegal drug and alcoholabuse during pregnancy. Eric, age 30 months,displayed autistic characteristics. His olderbrother, age 42 months, already had beendiagnosed as autistic.

The five children attended an integratedclassroom in the Child Development Centerof a Midwestern university during the 1989-90 school year. The preschool met four days aweek for two-and-a-half hours each day. Theclass consisted of 20 children ranging in agefrom 2 years 6 months to five years. Half ofthe children in the class were identified asdevelopmentally delayed or as at ilsk fordelays, These children entered the programat different points in the school year, follow-ing their identification and referral.

The classroom was staffed by three orfour undergraduate practicum teachers andtwo graduate students and supervised by afaculty member who was certified in earlychildhood education.

Z C

ProceduresTwo sets of observations were collected witheach child. A single observation was col-lected during the child's first school visit,prior to preschool entry. After entry, a seriesof observations was collected in the classroomthroughout the school year. The children didnot begin preschool on the same data; rather,their entrance to the program was spaced atleast two weeks apart.Video assessment before school entry. Afive-part video assessment was conductedwith each child and the parent prior to entryinto the program. Each child and parent wasinvited to visit the classroom during the weekbefore the child entered preschool. Theyvisited at a time when class was not in ses-sion, but activities were available and one ortwo children of the same age were presentand available to play. The visit consisted offive segments, each approximately fiveminutes in duration. The visit was video-taped for data collection purposes.

The five 5-minute segments were simu-lated play situations that were common toevents likely to occur in the actual classroomenvironment. The segments included:1. simulated play group with one to two

peers, parent and teacher present;2. same play group with parent departing at

the onset and absent for at least 4 of the 5minutes;

3. same play group with teacher present butremoved from activity and parent absent;

4. parent delivery of 10 paced instructions ina structured activity (clean up, workingpuzzle); and

5. teacher delivery of 10 paced instructionsin alimilar activity.

The purpose of the video assessment wasto identify, in advance, the conditions underwhich a preschool child is likely to exhibitbehavior that may interfere with a smoothschool adjustment. We anticipated that teach-ers would consult with parents about how tocreate a smooth transition, based on the infor-mation obtained in the video assessment, and

56

K rc121

Table 1. Schedule of observations

Daily 2 x /Week 1 / Week 1-2 / Month

TotalSessionsObserved

Adam 1-23 24-37 38-47 47

Beth 1-8 9-20 21-22 23-25 25

Chris 1-12 15-27 13-14 27

Dan 1-10 11-16 17-21 21

Eric 1-8 9-20 20

would develop programs for the child priorto entry.

Classroom observations. During the firsteight days of school attendance, each childwas observed for 100 consecutive 10-secondintervals (16 minutes 40 seconds) as soon asthey entered the classroom. On day 15 forAdam, and day 9 for all other children, theobservation schedule was shifted to accom-modate the increasing number of new chil-dren entering the classroom. At this point,children were observed three times duringthe first hour of school, during which freeplay activities were scheduled. Typically,children were observed for 33 consecutiveintervals each soon after arrival, midway dur-ing the free play hour, and near the end of thehour. Likewise, the frequency of observationswas shifted from daily to twice weekly, thento weekly, and eventually to once or twicemonthly. See Table 1 for each child's observa-tion schedule.

Dependent measures. The following teacher,parent and child behaviors were observed:*

General teacher attentionTeacher attentionincluded prompts, instructions, praise andgeneral conversation directed to the childindividually or as a member of a group.

* A detailed observation code and scoring Instruc-tions are available from the first author uponwritten request.

General parent attentionThe definition wasthe same as that used for teacher atten-tion.

Child cooperative behaviorThe child was en-gaged in play with at least one peer in thesame area or activity. The behavior in-cluded verbal interaction, nonverbal inter-action, and playing on or with the samepiece of equipment as a peer, and within 3feet of a peer.

Child unoccupied timeThe child was notengaged in play or was not manipulatingany material in the free play area.

Child negative behaviorThe child was en-gaged in physical aggression to peers orclassroom materials, verbal aggression topeers, or other loud vocal behavior.

Child cryingThe child was engaged inshrill vocalizations, tantrums orscreaming.

ReliabilityReliability was calculated for the occurrenceand nonoccurrence of behaviors for all sub-jects and was collected at least three times persubject. Occurrence and nonoccurrence werecalculated by the formula:

Number of Agreements

Number of Disagreements + Agreementsx 100

In general, reliability typically exceeded.80 for behavior occurrence and nonoccur-rence. In a few instances, reliability was

6 7

lower, due to very low rates of behavior.Occurrence reliability is presented for eachbehavior and child in Table 2,

InterventionsBased on the results from the video assess-ment and the child's subsequent classroombehavior, we determined if interventionswere necessary to assist the child's adjust-ment to the classroom.

General procedures for preschool entry. Tofacilitate each child's transition to preschool,we used a general intervention plan, whichconsisted of one of. more of the followingcomponents:(a) instructing the teachers to use direct and

indirect primes to facilitate cooperativeplay,

(b)allowing a parent or sibling to stay forpart of the day with the child,

(c) shortening the child's initial days,(d)providing small play groups outside of

the classroom or in a quiet area of theroom as a way of introducing the child toa group of playmates,

(e) allowing the child to bring a favorite toyform home, and

(f) encouraging the child to bring a picture offamily members to class.

Various combinations of these procedureswere used for all children in the classroom.The specific procedures utilized with a childwere based on consultations bet-ween staffand parents and the child's expressed desiresfor an individual or item.

Additional individualized interventions.We developed specific plans to facilitate achild's adjustment if the pre7entry videotapeassessment and initial 8 days of observations

Table 2. Occurrence

Coo erative

reliability

UnoccupiedTime

LoudVocal

1.00

TotalNegative

.71

SpecificProblemBehaylor

TeacherAttention

.89Adam .89 1.00aggression

.60

Beth 1.00 .93padfier

1.00 .89

Chris .86 .99 .95

Dan .92 .93 .70 -- .97

Eric * .93 1.00-

1.00

stereotypicbehavior

.74

materialaggression

1.00

.92

Behavior was never observed during reliability checks.

7

Table 3. List of intervention strategies used with each child

teacher primes

family member in class

shorter initial days

access to pacifier

access to parent's photograph

special interventions:

play group outside of class

attend to the victim

put pacifier in locker

ignore crying/tantrums/inappropriate behavior

saydo report

Adam Bgth Chris Diut

4 4 4 4

4

4 4 4

4

4

4

4

4

4 4 4

4

Eric

4

indicated that the child was having difficultyadjusting to the demands and routine of theclassroom. Specific intervention strategieswere implemented for three of the children:

4

4

Adam, Beth and Chris. These will bedescribed in the Case Studies section. A listof intervention strategies used for each childis presented in Table 3.

Case Studies:Interpretation and Discussion

Three of the five childrenAdam, Beth andChrisshowed problem behaviors on entryto preschool that were reduced over the first15 sessions of school. Adam also showed re-curring behavior problems (e.g., aggression topeers and tantrums) that required continuedmonitoring and intervention by teachers.Dan did not show transition-related behaviorproblems. Eric, who entered school in thesecond half of the year, showed high rates ofunoccupied and self-stimulatory behaviorthat did not change over the course of his en-rollment. The data collected with each ofthese children and intervention procedures

used by the teachers to facilitate their entryinto preschool will be discussed.

8

AdamFigure 1 presents Adam's percentages of co-operative play, Of unoccupied time, and ofcrying (a behavior often occurring as part of atantrum). (Figures are located at the end ofthis document.)

During the first 6 sessions of preschool,Adam showed very little cooperative play(less than 5%) and often a very disruptivelevel of loud vocal behavior. He often cried

intensely on entering the classroom, fre-quently calling for his mother and demandingto go home, and sometimes he sprawled onthe floor refusing to move and crying for upto an hour. In order to engage Adam with hispeers, who were avoiding him, the teachersformed a play group for Adam with twoother classmates on days 6 and 7. The group,which met in a small room outside of theclassroom, was formed specifically for Adamto practice cooperative play and to have con-tact with potential playmates. On day 9,teachers began attending to Adam only whenhe was not crying; at these moments, theyprompted cooperative play with peers andappropriate use of toys. Adam's cooperativeplay began increasing concurrent with theseteaching strategies, and his loud, disruptivebehavior and obvious distress disappeared.The extent to which his behavior changeswere a direct function of the teachers' behav-iors and the introduction of the small playgroup, or were a function of the passage oftime, of course cannot be determined. Anec-dotally, it should be noted that one of thepeers in his small play group became a stead-fast playmate of Adam. Adam's cooperativebehavior for the rest of the school year, al-though variable, averaged 35%above nor-mal levels for a 3-year-old child. Followinghis adjustment period, his unoccupied timeaveraged 10%.

Because Adam appeared to be very recep-tive to positive teacher attention, this atten-tion was manipulated when subsequentbehavior problems emerged. For instance,when aggression to peers became a problemlater in the year, teachers implemented adifferential attention procedure, known as"attend to the victim" (Pinkston, Reese,LeBlanc & Baer, 1973). If Adam showedphysical or verbal aggression to a playmate,the nearest teacher intervened with the play-mate, removing him or her a safe distancefrom Adam and lavishing attention on theplaymate. Adam received no attention fromthe teacher for his aggression. This procedurewas in effect from session 23 to the end of theschool year (session 47). Aggression emergedfollowing a school break at session 16 and

averaged 6% between sessions 16 and 22,before the onset of intervention. Interventionreduced it gradually to 2%.

Teachers noted that Adam also hadtrouble adjusting to other transitions in theschool day (which could not be captured byour observations during the first hour). Heoften cried and sometimes tantrummed whenrequired to leave the classroom for cognitivetasks. He also tended to tantrum when a newperson (e.g., student teacher) was introducedto the classroom.

BethBeth's lack of cooperative play, high percent-age of unoccupied time, and consistent use ofa mouth pacifier were behaviors of concernduring her transition to the classroom. Toreduce pacifier use, teachers began removingit from Beth when she entered the classroomand placing it in her locker, where it was stillvisible and available. Beth was free toretrieve it if she wanted it. As can be seen inFigure 2, Beth used the pacifier for most of thefirst 12 sessions and then left it in her cubbyfrom day 13 on.

No specific interventions, beyond theusual classroom procedures, were introducedto increase Beth's cooperative play or toreduce her unoccupied behavior. Her unoc-cupied behavior was most evident during thefirst 8 sessions of school. After several daysof no cooperative play at the onset of enroll-ment, she began joining in the play activitiesand showing some cooperative play, al-though her performance continued to be vari-able. It should be noted that all of her playwas nonverbal, even when she was no longerusing the pacifier. As a result, referral forspeech and hearing evaluations were initi-ated; she subsequently received speech andlanguage services.

Beth's mother also appeared to showtransition-related behavior. For the first 8days, she accompanied Beth to school, re-mained in the classroom for much of the freeplay hour, and directed attention to Beth foran average 12% of the observations. Beth'smother sta3-ed to visit only sporadically after

0

inrETTITHI

day 8, and her departure corresponded withBeth's increase in cooperative play. The samepattern was observed at the onset of schoolafter a brief holiday; again, Beth's motherremained, observing for 4 consecutive days,and Beth's cooperative play was near zero(see sessions 17-20).

ChrisFigure 3 presents Chris's cooperative playand unoccupied behavior.

As can be seen, Chris entered preschoolshowing virtually no cooperative play andspent most of his time (and on sessions 2 and3, all of his time) unoccupied. By session 8,however, his unoccupied time had decreasedto very low levels and he began playing coop-eratively, Because his play behavior wassomewhat variable, teachers initiated a "saydo procedure" (cf. Rogers-Warren & Baer,1976) on session 17 to promote more consis-tent peer interaction. A teacher asked Chrisat the start of each school day to tell her whathe would do. She prompted him to promiseto share, play with classmates, talk with class-mates, and not sit in his locker. Chris wasgiven a stamp for saying what he would do;at the end of the play time, he earned a stickerif he did what he said he would do. His aver-age rate of cooperative play increased from14% to 26% following implementation of theprocedure, and with the exception or twodays (one in which he was ill and the last dayof school) his unoccupied time remained low.

The extent to which the procedure furtherfacilitated Chris's adjustment to the class can-not be determined, as Chris was showing im-proved behavior when the procedure wasimplemented. However, the "saydo" tech-nique took little time and provided a dailyframework for the teacher and Chris to re-view independent play skills and to recognizeand reward his achievement of those playbehaviors. Although Chris was referred tothe classroom in part because of his mother'sreport of his aggressive behaviors in thehome, no aggression was observed at school.

Dan

Dan showed no clear pattern of behaviorsindicating a difficult transition to the class-room, although teacher records indicate thathe cried the first two days of school when itwas time for him to depart for home. As canbe seen in Figure x, Dan showed a variablebut low rate of cooperative play which aver-aged 12%.

Although his cooperative play was low,he did not substitute unoccupied behrvior forcooperative play, as had Beth and Adaminitially. Rather, Dan's unoccupied timeremained relatively stable, averaging 20%.Much of his activity could be characterized asparallel play. Dan did occasionally tantrumover access to classroom materials. Theteachers used an ignoring strategy for thetantrums, provided extra attention to himwhen he was sharing, and prompted him touse words to ask for materials.

Eric

The behavioral observations conducted withEric, who entered the classroom in the springsemester at age 30 months, also did not showa clear pattern of transition-related behavior.Teacher reports, however, indicate that hecried sporadically following his mother'sdeparture on the first few days of school andattempted to retrieve his coat to follow. Hetypically demonstrated no eye contact,although after the fourth week of school hewould make eye contact if requested. Asevident in Figure 5, Eric was unoccupied 42%or more of the time, and he engaged in somestereotypic behavior (usually hand flapping,rapid finger movements and object twirling).Perhaps the most notable aspect of Eric'sentry to the classroom was the amount ofteacher attention he received. Teacherattention to Eric averaged 60% of theobserved day during the first two weeks anddecreased somewhat to an average of 49%across the nine weeks that he attended school.

Summary

The varied behaviors exhibited by the chil-dren who entered preschool support thenotion that transition planning is needed alsoat the preschool classroom entry level. Suchplanning may help to ensure that childrenand families receive support through theinitial adjustment period, which lastedseveral weeks for some children. Teachersalso may need to be prepared to provide extraattention for some children throughout theyear, as was the case with Eric and Adam.Figure 6 presents the range of teacher atten-tion to the five children.

The data were aggregated across subjects.Each data point is based on the same numeri-cal session for all subjects (i.e., session 1 is thesum of all subjects' first day in school) anddoes not represent actual calendar time. Theshaded section represents the highest rate andlowest rate of attention directed to any of thefive subjects. The average rate is representedby the heavy line. A clear downward trend inaverage rates of attention occurs across thefirst 25 sessions of data collection. However,teacher attention to children during the first 8sessions of school (approximately the firsttwo weeks for each child) ranged from 36%(Beth) to 60% (Eric). This intensive level ofsupport may require extra adult assistance inthe classroom or initially shorter visits for thechildren, until they have had the time andexperience to adjust. For some children, ratesof attention continued to be high even afterthe first two weeks (e.g., Adam at 41%%; Ericat 42%).

The use of the pre-entry visit by the childand parent to the classroom provided theteaching staff with a generally accurate viewof the child's likely adjustment to preschool.The children who exhibited separation prob-lems in the classroom (Adam, Chris, Eric)showed separation anxiety in the visit, whentheir mother left for the five-minute playsegment. Other behaviors were evident too.Adam showed negative and loud vocalbehavior during 12% of the visit; Beth used

her pacifier throughout the visit and engagedin almost no cooperative play; Chris and Danshowed no cooperative play; and Eric, whowas unoccupied over 80% of the visit, alsocried throughout half of it. Interestingly, Eric,who received the most attention during histransition into the class, also received thehighest rate of teacher attention during hispre-entry visit (73%).

Several parents reported that the visit wasreassuring and the teachers found it to be anideal opportunity for identifying strengthsand needs of the child with the parent, fordeveloping a plan for meeting the child'sentry needs to the classroom with the parents,and for discussing ways in which the parentcould help with the transition.

It should be noted that the children werereferred to the university preschool followingtheir participation in the Community ChildFind program, designed to identify childrenwith developmental delays. The children didnot enter the program with a formal transi-tion plan, as they had not participated in anearly intervention program or received anindividualized family service plan. In fact,the community did not yet have an earlyintervention program. However, the inter-vention procedures (presented in Table 3)used to facilitate the adjustment of the chil-dren to the preschool program may be appro-priate to include in transition plans for otheryoung children who are moving from anearly intervention program to a preschoolprogram. Such transition plans will berequired for children who at age 3 are exitingearly intervention services for preschoolservices. The plan is to include steps to "helpthe child adjust to, and function in a newsetting': More research is needed to identifythe adjustments that children may experienceirt their entry to preschool. This study pro-vides a picture of the adjustment of fivechildren identified as at risk for developmen-tal delays and describes the strategies used bytheir teachers.

11 1 2

References

Barber, P.A., Turnbull, A.P., Behr, S.K. & Kerns,G.M. (1988). A family systems perspective inearly childhood special education. In S.L. Odom& M.B. Karnes (Eds.), Early Intervention forInfants and Children with Handicaps: AnEmpirical Base (pp. 179-198). Baltimore, MD:Paul Brookes.

Federal Register (1989, April 27). Department ofEducation, 34 CFR part 300, Assistance toStates for Education of Handicapped Children;Final Regulations (pp. 18254-18255).Washington, DC: U.S. Government PrintingOffice.

Fowler, S.A., Haim, A.H. & Rosenkoetter, S.E.(1990). The transition between early interventionservices and preschool services: Administrativeand policy issues. Topics In Early ChildhoodSpecial Education, 9(4), 55-65.

Fowler, S.A., Schwartz, 1. & Atwater, J.B. (1991).Perspectives on the transition from preschool tokindergarten for children with disabilities andtheir families. Exceptional Children, S8,136-145.

Mains, A.H., Fowler, S.A. & Chandler, L.K. (1988).Planning school transitions: Family andprofessional collaboration. Journal of theDivision for Early Childhood, 12, 108-115.

Mains, A.H., Rosenkoetter, S.E. & Fowler, S.A.(1991). Transition planning with families inearly intervention programs. Infants and Young

Children, 3,38-47.

Ilanline, M.F., Suchman, S., & Demmerle, C. (1989).Beginning public school. Teaching ExceptionalChildren, 22, 61-62.

Hanline, M.F. & Knowlton, A. (1988). A collabora-tive model for providing support to parents duringtheir child's transition from infant intervention topreschool special education public school pro-grams. Journal of the Division for EarlyChildhood, 12, 116-125.

Lazzari, A.M. & Kilgo, J.L. (1989). Practicalmethods for supporting parents in early transi-tions. Teaching Exceptional Children, 22,40-43.

McDonald, L., Kyselka, G.M. & Siebert, P. (1989).Parent perspectives: Transition to preschool.Teaching Exceptional Children, 22, 4-8.

Murphy, M. & Vincent, L.J. (1989). Identification ofcritical skills for success in day care. Journal ofEarly Intervention, 13, 221-229.

Pinkston, E.M., Reese, N.M., LeBlanc, J.M. & Baer,D.M. (1973). Independent control of a preschoolchild's aggression and peer interactions by con-tingent teacher attention. Journal of AppliedBehavior Analysis, 6, 115-124.

Rogers-Warren, A. & Baer, D.M. (1976). Correspon-dence between saying and doing: Teachingchildren to share and praise. Journal of AppliedBehavior Analysis, 9, 335-354.

Figure 1. Percentage of cooperative behavior, unoccupied time andcrying exhibited by Adam.

Arrows represent the introduction of brief interventions. The first arrow represents theone-day introduction of a small play group outside of the classroom. The second arrowrepresents the introduction of the "Attend to the victim" intervention. The abbreviation"ts" represents the onset of time sampling.

ADAM (age 42 mos.)

um

1 3 5t 7 1-9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47

Ite

411 II

Data Taken: daily 2 x / week 1 - 2 x / month

Sessions

El Crying CooperativeBehavior

0 Unoccupied Time

Figure 2. Percentage of cooperative behavior, unoccupied time andpacifier use exhibited by Beth.

BETH (age 30 mos.)

1 2 3 4 5 8 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 18 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

IPData Take

I 0n: daily 2 x / week I x / 1 - 2 x /

I

Sessions

e Pacifier

0 Unoccupied

Cooperative

week month

100

80

60

40

20

Figure 3. Percentage of cooperative behavior and unoccupied timeexhibited by Chris.

The arrow represents the introduction of the "saydo" intervention to promote his peerintPraction.

CHRIS (age 60 mos.)

1 2 3 4 5 6 . 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 1

Data Taken:

to

daily

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 28 27

1 x/week

Sessions

2x/week

0 Unoccupied Time i Cooperative Behavior

156

Figure 4. Percentage of cooperative behavior, unoccupied time andnegative behavior exhibited by Dan.

Dal (age 37 mos.)

100

80

60

1 2 3 4

0

Di

Data Taken:

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

daily

Sessions

2x/week

0 UnoccupiedTh.Total Negative

CooperativeBehavior

16

1 7

x / week

Figure 5. Percentage of Eric's cooperative behavior, unoccupied timeand attention received from the teacher.

ERI ( age 30 mos. )

. - -2 3 4 5 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

is

dal),

100

80

60

40

20

Data Taken:

MEL.

SESSIONS

2 x / week

0 UnocalPled Cooperative BehaviorThu

1111 Teacher Attention

Figure 6. Average and range of percentage of intervals of teacherattention to the five children across the first 25 observationsessions.