Kate E Williams

Background: Knowledge of early brain development is increasingly important in early childhood education but no studies have focussed solely on the neuroscience knowledge and attitudes of early childhood educators.Methods: 524 Australian early childhood educators completed a survey measuring their neuroscience knowledge, attitudes, and self-efficacy, sources of knowledge, and perspectives on training needs.Results: Although educators held relevant understandings, there was widespread belief in ‘neuromyths’. Participants held strong positive attitudes toward neuroscience regardless of their socio-demographic background. Participants who held a Bachelor degree or higher, and those in a leadership position, had higher neuro-literacy and self-efficacy. Less than a quarter reported receiving adequate neuroscience content in their pre-service training.Conclusion: While there is a policy mandate and positive attitudes toward using neuroscience in early childhood education, the sector is currently hampered by limited pre-service training content, and inadequate in-service professional learning. Further transdisciplinary work is required to address these gaps.

Self-regulation skills are an important predictor of school readiness and early school achievement. Research identifies that experiences of early stress in disadvantaged households can affect young children’s brain architecture, often manifested in poor self-regulatory functioning. While there are documented benefits of coordinated movement activities and music education to improve self-regulation, few interventions have focused exclusively on rhythmic movement activities within a universal preschool setting. This study investigated the effectiveness of a preschool intervention, delivered across eight weeks by generalist preschool teachers, which focused on coordinated rhythmic movement with music to improve self-regulation and executive function. The program is known as RAMSR (Rhythm and Movement for Self-Regulation). The study involved 213 children across eight preschools in disadvantaged communities. The intervention group received 16 to 20 sessions of a rhythm and movement program over eight weeks, while the control group undertook the usual preschool program. Primary outcome measures were executive function and self-regulation with secondary outcomes being school readiness and visual motor integration. Children across the study had baseline measures demonstrating substantial self-regulation and executive function challenges when compared to norms on these measures. Post intervention, significant intervention effects were found for self-regulation and importantly, fidelity and teacher report measures show that it is feasible for educators without any music background to deliver the program. These findings are important given that children from low socioeconomic backgrounds are both more likely to need support for self-regulation to support school transition and have inequitable access to quality music and movement programs. This study confirms that universal access to this beneficial approach can be created through building capacity in early childhood educators. This trial was registered pre-recruitment with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry, ACTRN12619001342101.

Child observation is a critical component of quality pedagogical practice in early childhood education and care (ECEC). Yet there are very few tools that support educators to systematically undertake observations to better understand the individual experiences of very young children within ECEC services. The ORICL (Observe, Reflect, Improve Children’s Learning) tool was co-designed by ECEC experts, service providers and educators to be used for this purpose by educators working with children aged under three years. It is a unique 117-item educator report across five domains of learning and well-being that rates the experiences of individual children, and the responses of educators and peers to the child’s initiatives, actions and communications. This paper describes the first feasibility studyof ORICL in 12 ECEC services across Australia with a focus on the quantitative child data collected, and early psychometric properties of the tool. ORICL records were provided by 21 educators for a total of 66 children.Findings suggest that the ORICL items can be readily observed and rated by educators for children aged under three years, the rating scale is appropriate, and there is early evidence to support the domain structure of the tool. Further research on the ways such a tool can provide useful data for both educators and researchers, and stimulate enhanced practice in infant-toddler ECEC, is warranted.

Background:
Growth in early self-regulation skills has been linked to positive health, wellbeing, and achievement trajectories across the lifespan. While individual studies have documented specific influences on self-regulation competencies in early childhood, few have modelled a comprehensive range of predictors of self-regulation change across health, development, and environment simultaneously. This study aimed to examine the concurrent associations among a range of proximal and distal inuences on change in children’s self-regulation skills over 2 years from age 4-5 years.

Methods:
Data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (N= 4983) were used in a structural equation model, predicting a multi-source composite measure of self-regulation at each of 4-5 years and 6-7 years. By controlling for earlier self-regulation and covariates, the model examined the relative contributions of a comprehensive range of variables to self-regulation change including health, development, educational, home environment, time-use, and neighbourhood characteristics.

Results:
The signicant predictors of children’s self-regulation growth across 4 to 7 years were fewer behavioural sleep problems, higher gross motor and pre-academic skills, lower levels of maternal and paternal angry parenting, and lower levels of nancial hardship. There were also marginal effects for high-quality home learning environments and child-educator relationships.

Conclusion:
Findings suggest that if we are to successfully foster children’s self-regulation skills, interventionists would do well to operate not only on children’s current capacities but also key aspects of their surrounding context.