Daily Dilemmas: Coping with Challenges [Video and Guide]
Christi Szakaly-Meredith, Resa Matlock, Ball State University
Part of a series of 16 broadcasts, this videotape is designed to teach child day care workers how to handle daily dilemmas commonly faced in day care settings. It profiles common problems and then provides possible solutions. Behavioral problems addressed include: (1) biting; (2) naptime difficulties; (3) transition time problems; (4) washing and toileting challenges; (5) arrival problems; and (6) departure difficulties. Ways to arrange the classroom environment to encourage positive behavior are discussed, and actual child care providers recommend their own strategies for behavior management.
Christi Szakaly-Meredith, Resa Matlock, Ball State University. Daily Dilemmas: Coping with Challenges [Video and Guide] (1995). Ball State University: Muncie, IN.
Sponsoring Agency: Ball State University
Language: English
Reading Level: Average
Formats Available: Printed Material, Videotape
(The accompanying print guide is titled "Reflections on Practice: A Companion Guide to Indiana's Child Care Collection" - contact producer regarding price)
Ball State University
The Child Care Collection
c/o Christi Szakaly-Meredith
BSU TC 2008
Muncie, IN
46306
Phone: (877) 550-4455
Fax: (765) 285-4045
Email: cszakaly@bsu.edu
Languages Available: English, Spanish
Intended User Audience:
Early childhood care and education professionals can use this material, including child care providers, preschool personnel, K-3rd grade teachers, preservice students in ECE, ECSE, and those working toward CDA (Child Development Associate) certification.
Product Development:
Two co-directors oversee development of the videos in this collection. Both have backgrounds in early childhood education and one of the co-directors is bilingual in Spanish and English. Each video is developed using a multi-step process. First, state level personnel decide on the content areas for new videos (once each year). Second, a team of experts is gathered representing higher education faculty (mostly in-state), state personnel, child care providers from home and center-based settings, and other disciplines as needed for specific topics (e.g., physical therapist). Based on input from the team, a script is developed. Then in-state sites are chosen for filming. A production crew and members of the expert team as well as state level personnel often accompany staff to the sites. Edits to the scripts and video segments are done as a group. The process takes approximately six months to complete.
While the cultural and linguistic diversity portrayed in each video is primarily European-American and English-speaking, an effort is made to film at sites representing diversity in both children and staff (e.g., home child care, preschool center in the inner city, university lab schools).
Product Evaluation:
As noted above, informal evaluation is done during the development of each video. The team reviews the script and footage in an ongoing manner. There are plans for focus groups and surveys to collect data concerning the effectiveness of the videos (presentation and content). The complete set of videos (N =23) are also used as part of CDA certification in Indiana.
Product Dissemination:
As of December 1999, over 1,000 copies of Daily Dilemmas: Coping with Challenges had been distributed throughout the United States.
Review #1
About the reviewer:
The reviewer has a doctoral degree in special education from
the University of Kansas. She has been working with young
children with developmental disabilities for several years.
She holds the certificate in Early Childhood Special Education
(ECSE) issued by Kansas, and the certificate in special education
issued by Korea. Her research interest includes partnerships
between professionals and families of children with disabilities,
positive behavior supports for children with challenging behaviors,
and outcomes of early intervention.
Audience:
The primary audience for this material is early childhood care and education professionals serving children from birth through age eight including child care providers, after school staff, preschool personnel, kindergarten teachers, and home care providers. This material is also intended for preservice students in early childhood education.
Strengths of the Material:
This material consists of a 30-minute video and an 8-page companion guide. The strengths of the videotape include: (a) representing cultural diversity by including children and adults from diverse cultural backgrounds; (b) providing practical activities (e.g., finger play, songs) that can be used in child care settings; and (c) demonstrating effective and age-appropriate intervention and prevention strategies that care providers can use to respond to problem behaviors.
The 8-page guide is broader in its scope than the tape. It facilitates care providers' understanding of challenging behavior and provides a number of instructional strategies to address the difficulty that children with ADD or ADHD may have in childcare settings. This is particularly helpful for the care providers without a background in children with special needs. The companion guide also includes four application activities that can be completed after watching the video. This assists with the transfer of information from the video to individual settings and situations. These activities can also be shared with families (e.g., newsletters, resource list for families).
Limitations of the Material:
This reviewer found two limitations with this material. First, although the companion guide places a great deal of emphasis on collaborating with families, the video does not adequately address this issue. Since the companion guide emphasizes the fact that children's challenging behaviors are often related to family issues and the need for family-professional partnerships, it is a concern that similar information is not included in the video. Second, the companion guide does not use person-first language (e.g., ADHD children, learning disabled child). As individuals with disabilities have gained wider recognition and acceptance in society, a corresponding emphasis on person-first language has also developed. Further, if this material is to be used with preservice students, it is imperative that person-first language be employed.
Adaptations:
This reviewer suggests several adaptations. First, although the videotape does not include a segment about family-professional partnerships, users can plan and perform a role-play on this topic as part of the training session. This role-play can be developed based on a specific child and his/her family or be based on another source (e.g., text example, video segment). Also, in order to enhance this material for early childhood providers, a brief checklist to use with families could be developed focusing on different events and situations that may affect a child's behavior (e.g., amount of sleep, illness).
Second, users may want to develop a fact sheet discussing person-first language to address the use of disability-first language in the companion guide. This is also needed because the language that care providers use influences the language children use in their interactions and conversations. It is critical to assist care providers to be role models in using appropriate terminology to describe individuals with disabilities.
Finally, a list of other print and internet-based resources could be included for users, such as information about positive behavioral support (PBS) strategies (e.g., http://pbis.org) and about children with learning difficulties or attention disorders (e.g., http://www.ldonline.org) would be beneficial.
Generalizability:
Though this material was developed for child care personnel in Indiana, the material can be used by communities in different states. However, this material is largely based on strategies for children without disabilities. Therefore, supplementary information will probably be needed for users working with children with more severe behavioral, physical, or intellectual challenges that affect their behavior.
Recommendations:
Recommend with adaptations. This reviewer highly recommends this material for use in training early childhood care providers. With the adaptations suggested above, this material will provide information and strategies for early childhood care providers about ways to cope with the daily challenges in caring young children.
Producer's Response:
Not available at this time.
Review #2
About the reviewer:
The reviewer is an English/American Sign Language bilingual speech-language
pathologist and audiologist. She has spent the majority of her
ten-year career exploring language learning issues of deaf and hard
of hearing children. Her special area of interest is deaf children
whose first language is American Sign Language.
Audience:
The intended users of this material are early childhood educators, administrators, and preservice students. This material is available in both English and Spanish.
Strengths of the Material:
The material includes a video and companion guide from Indiana's Child Care Collection Video Series. The material describes challenging behavior in preschoolers and developmentally appropriate approaches for preventing and dealing with these behaviors. The video is high quality and offers visual examples of the strategies described in the video and companion guide.
The material covered on the videotape was appropriate and useful for the intended audience. Information concerning issues such as biting, naptime, transition times, arrival and departure times, and the emotional variations in young children were both interesting and developmentally accurate. An overview is provided on the nature of challenging behavior, as well as suggestions for preventing or minimizing such difficulties. Suggestions are both sensitive and compassionate for this age group and in working with families and include strategies suitable for daycare center staff and home based daycare providers.
The companion guide offers self-study activities and additional information to support and enhance the video. Although not addressed in the video portion of this material, a number of possible home stresses and family issues related to challenging behavior is discussed along with suggestions for follow-up activities. These activities are meant to encourage the synthesis of the material presented in the video.
Limitations of the Material:
The material assumes mainstream American values and practices. As such, adaptations for diverse and/or multicultural/multilingual families are left to individual early childhood educators and staff. The companion guide does not address any specific linguistic minority group, the needs of bilingual children, or practices unique to specific cultural groups. In addition, the video does not include closed or open captions for Deaf and Hard of Hearing early childhood educators or a written transcript. Finally, the video predominantly shows English-speaking, European American children and adults with a very small minority representation. In fact, the experts who provide additional information on the video are all European Americans; no other group is represented.
Adaptations:
The following adaptations and additions can enhance this material's use with culturally and linguistically diverse students and early childhood educators.
· Closed or open captions should be added to future versions of videotapes in this series. For the current versions, print transcripts should be made available.
· Because discipline and approaches for dealing with challenging behaviors vary widely from culture to culture, educators will need to be aware that the suggestions in this material may not be appropriate for all children and families. Early childhood educators should be encouraged to explore these issues with individual diverse families. It is also important to consider the wide differences in how "problem behavior" is defined and how discipline is approached across cultures.
· Future versions of this videotape might include examples of cultural conflicts relating to discipline and explore culturally and linguistically sensitive suggestions for handling them.
· If possible, future versions of the video should provide a more balanced representation of adults and children from different minority groups, particularly when choosing adult experts.
Generalizability:
The material is appropriate for its intended audiences. The material was designed for early childhood educators in Indiana, but could be used in other regions of the United States with similar demographics.
Recommendations:
Recommend with adaptations. The material offers developmentally appropriate suggestions for handling challenging behaviors in a variety of early childhood settings. With the adaptations suggested above to account for differences in culture and language, this material would be useful for its intended audiences.
Producer's Response:
Not available at this time.
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