Award Date

5-2010

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Special Education

Department

Special Education

First Committee Member

Nancy Sileo, Chair

Second Committee Member

Kyle Higgins

Third Committee Member

Michelle Tannock

Graduate Faculty Representative

Richard Tandy

Number of Pages

213

Abstract

More children are receiving care outside of their home under the age of six (Childstats.gov, 2007). The quality of these programs has a direct impact on student’s readiness for school (Burchinal, Roberts, Nabors, & Bryant, 1996). Social readiness is the foundation for school readiness and academic achievement (Blair, 2002; Brigman, Lane, Lane, Lawrence, & Switzer, 1999; Raver, 2004). Acquisition of social skills plays a key role in preschool age children’s readiness for school, thus interventions that teach young children social skills are of importance. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of Social Story interventions on preschool age children with and without disabilities. In this study, a Social Story-Only intervention was examined along with a Social Story-Plus Practice Session intervention to determine if Social Stories were an effective intervention for preschool- age children with and without disabilities. The study examined teachers’ perceptions of the interventions using the Teacher Impression Scale (Odom & McConnell, 1997) as well as student interactions using the Social Interaction Observation System (Kreimeyer, Antia, Coyner, Eldredge, & Gupta, 1991). The study took place in a public preschool / learning center. Observations of student play were video recorded during play activities including blocks, housekeeping, table toys and dramatic play. The Social Story interventions were conducted over a five week period, with additional data collected at pre-intervention and maintenance periods. The data were analyzed using a mixed model ANOVA. Based on the results of the data analysis, there was no statistically significant change in teacher perception over the course of the intervention as a result of the Social Story intervention. There was no statistically significant change in the acquisition of social skills by the participants over the course of the intervention as a result of the Social Story intervention. These results should be utilized cautiously as there were additional factors that may have impacted the results.

Keywords

Children with disabilities; Early childhood development; Interventions; Preschool children; School readiness; Social skills; Social stories

Disciplines

Curriculum and Social Inquiry | Education | Special Education and Teaching

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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