Using Sensing Technologies to Understand Children's Experiences in Early Childhood Education Classrooms

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Children within the same early education classroom can have vastly different experiences. However, many of the measures designed to capture children’s classroom experiences focus on the classroom as a whole or require costly and potentially biased in-person observations. Sensing technologies are a newly emerging approach to the objective study of children’s classroom experiences. Sensing technologies include location trackers and voice recorders paired with algorithms that can capture and quantify continuous information to allow for a more complete understanding of a child’s classroom experiences (e.g., interactions with peers and teachers).

A goal of this symposium is to demonstrate how these developing sensing technologies can be applied in early education settings to increase the present understanding of children’s individual classroom experiences. As these technologies are still in their nascent stages, both the opportunities and challenges presented by the application of sensing technologies in classroom environments will be addressed. The first presentation focuses on the use of sensing technologies to understand the experiences of a socially isolated preschooler without a diagnosed disability before and during the implementation of a peer-mediated intervention designed to increase peer interactions. The second presentation applies sensing technologies to understand the language and social interactions of children with developmental delays and disabilities and their typically developing peers in 12 inclusive preschool classrooms. The final presentation will provide an overview of the findings of three studies where sensing technologies were applied in inclusive early childhood classrooms. Both the successes and challenges encountered in these studies will be discussed.

Sub Unit

• School Readiness/Childcare

Chair

• Tiffany Jamie Foster, Ohio State University

Discussant

• Laura M. Justice, Ohio State University

Individual Presentations

• Piloting a Peer-Mediated Intervention for Socially Isolated Preschoolers - Presenting Author: Tiffany Jamie Foster, Ohio State University; Nan XIAO, Ohio State University; G. Logan Pelfrey, The Ohio State University; Hugo Gonzalez Villasanti; Matthew Brock; Laura M. Justice, Ohio State University

• Objective Measurement of Sex Differences and Developmental Delays and Disabilities in Preschool Classroom Social Networks - Presenting Author: Regina Fasano, University of Miami; Laura Vitale, University of Miami; Daniel Messinger, University of Miami; Lynn K Perry, University of Miami

• Using Sensing Tools to Examine Talk Within Locations of the Early Childhood Inclusive Classroom - Presenting Author: Dwight Irvin, University of Kansas