A comparison of safe sleep violations in child care and family child care learning homes in Georgia.

BACKGROUND: High rates of infant death associated with sleeping practices continue to persist in the United States. Infants spend a large portion of their day with child care and family child care learning home providers. Safe sleeping practices continue to be an area of need for care providers of young children. METHOD: The current study examines data drawn from a publicly available database of child care licensing reports in Georgia (n = 3,501), which contained data on child care centres and family child care learning homes. Information in the database included characteristics of the centres, year of data collection and the specific violations by child care provider type. RESULTS: Results indicated clear differences in the prevalence of violations between child care centres and family child care learning homes. Within the overall sample, 13.3% of centres and family child care learning homes were cited for safe sleeping practice violations with higher prevalence in licensed child care centres and unaccredited centres. Violations were consistent with those commonly found in child care environments and inconsistent with the American Academy of Pediatrics safe sleep recommendations. CONCLUSIONS: Data from the current study suggest a continued need for professional learning on safe sleep practices.

Asthma and the Public School Teacher: A Two State Study.

Background: Asthma is one of the most common chronic health problems experienced by school-age children. As a result, school professionals need to be well informed about this chronic illness so that they can adequately support the needs of students with asthma. Methods: This study examines data collected from a sample of teachers (n = 593) in 2 large southeastern states regarding their familiarity with asthma self-carry and self-administration laws and policies and training received related to general chronic health conditions including asthma. Results: Teachers, on average, reported little training received at either undergraduate or graduate levels. Although teachers noted knowledge about asthma, acquired through in-service training or to a lesser degree formal education, a high percentage of teachers reported receiving no asthma-related training through such approaches. Conclusions: Data in this study are consistent with data collected in a similar study in 2001 suggesting that while asthma prevalence has increased, education about the condition has not. Implications for school teachers, school administrators, school nurses, teacher educators, and asthma education personnel are provided.

Effects of a supplemental Spanish oral language program on sentence length, complexity, and grammaticality in Spanish-speaking children attending English-only preschools.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a supplemental Spanish language instruction program for children who spoke Spanish as their native language and were attending English-only preschool programs. Specifically, the study evaluated the program's effects on the children's Spanish sentence length in words, subordination index, and grammaticality of sentences. METHOD: Forty-five Spanish-speaking children attending English-only prekindergarten classrooms were selected for study. Of those, 15 children received 30 min of Spanish instruction 5 days a week for 16 weeks. The program targeted 5-10 vocabulary words a week, dialogic book reading, phonemic awareness, and letter knowledge. The remaining 30 children participated in regular preschool English instruction. Students were evaluated before intervention, immediately after intervention, and 4 months following intervention. RESULTS: Repeated measures analyses of variance indicated that the children who received the small-group supplemental Spanish language instruction made significant gains in their Spanish sentence length in words and subordination index when compared to those receiving regular English-only classroom instruction. There were no differences in the children's grammaticality of sentences. DISCUSSION AND CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: The findings demonstrate that a daily short native language program has significant effects on sentence length in words and subordination index in English language learners who are attending English-only preschool programs.

Teacher characteristics and knowledge of asthma.

OBJECTIVES: We explored the characteristics of teachers and their knowledge of asthma and its management in elementary and middle-school classrooms. DESIGN: Teachers completed the Georgia Public School Teachers' Asthma Knowledge and Perception Survey. SAMPLE: The study sample consisted of 593 elementary (n=291) and middle-school teachers (n=302) from Georgia. METHODS: Participants were asked to complete a survey on asthma knowledge. Data were analyzed to examine differences among elementary- and middle-school teachers, teachers' level of educational attainment, teachers' chronic medical condition, and teachers' asthma status. RESULTS: Middle-school teachers were more knowledgeable about asthma than elementary teachers. No differences were found among teachers based on their level of educational attainment. Most teachers strongly agreed that asthma could not be cured, but managed. Teachers with chronic illnesses were more knowledgeable than those without a chronic illness and teachers who had asthma were the most knowledgeable about asthma and its management. CONCLUSIONS: Teacher knowledge of asthma and its management was low among all teachers regardless of educational attainment, health status, or whether teachers taught at elementary or middle-school levels.

Teacher asthma management and information seeking scale.

This article presents the design and evaluation of the Teacher Asthma Management and Information Seeking Scale. Based on a sample of 593 kindergarten to eighth grade teachers, the scale yielded two factors: the Asthma Management (= 0.90) and the Information Seeking Factor (= 0.71). This scale fills a needed gap in the literature regarding assessment tools for school-based asthma management that focus on teacher behavior.

Teacher capability and school resource scale for asthma management.

This paper presents the design and evaluation of the Teacher Capability and School Resource Scale for Asthma Management. Based on a sample of 589 kindergarten to eighth grade teachers, the scale yielded two factors: the Teacher Capability in Social and Emotional Aspects of Asthma Management factor (alpha = 0.83) and the School Resources/Institutional Capability for Asthma Management (alpha = 0.86). This scale fills a needed gap in the literature regarding assessment tools for school-based asthma management that focus on teacher efficacy.

Performance on the PPVT-III and the EVT: applicability of the measures with African American and European American preschool children.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to determine whether two vocabulary measures were appropriate for the evaluation of African American children and children whose mothers have low education levels, regardless of gender. METHOD: Data were collected for 210 high-risk, preschool children from a southeastern state in the United States on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test--Third Edition (PPVT-III; L. M. Dunn & L.M. Dunn, 1997) and the Expressive Vocabulary Test (EVT; K. T. Williams, 1997). RESULTS: Results indicated that African American children and children whose mothers had low education levels tended to score lower on both measures than did children from European American backgrounds and children whose mothers had a high school or higher education; however, this effect was larger for the PPVT-III. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Data suggest that the EVT is a better indicator of a child's "vocabulary" skill, and that the PPVT-III has a greater tendency than the EVT to place African American children and children whose mothers have low education levels at risk for being unfairly identified as presenting with a potential language disorder. These data indicate that practitioners should use alternative assessment methods such as nonstandard and dynamic assessments to test children's vocabulary skill. In particular, if they use the PPVT-III, practitioners should take great caution in interpreting test results as evidence of a vocabulary problem in African American children and children whose mothers have low education levels.