Abstract
Connecticut preschool teachers were surveyed on their knowledge of, confidence in, and barriers to promoting sensory, motor, and self-regulation skills. Relative areas of need were sensory processing and defensiveness, and a barrier was the lack of staff training.
Primary Author and Speaker: Courtney Richards
Additional Authors and Speakers: Olivia Gougler, Kathryn Rich, Kellie Zawadzki
Contributing Authors: Kathryn Burns, Amanda Gold, Emma Kilgallon, Melanie Quint, Anna Scortichini
High quality early childhood education programs are currently a high-priority public health issue in the United States (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, n.d). Preschool years are formative in the development of sensory, motor, and self-regulation skills and these are essential for school readiness (Williams et al., 2019) A non-experimental descriptive quantitative survey, based on a review of the literature, was used to explore current knowledge, confidence level, & barriers of Connecticut (CT) private community preschool teachers to promote sensory, motor, & self-regulation skills in their students. The survey data was collected on SurveyMonkey and further analyzed on Microsoft Excel. The 34 respondents reported relatively lowest levels of knowledge and confidence in the areas of sensory defensiveness & sensory processing. Regarding their education on sensory integration/sensory processing, 60% of the respondents reported receiving less than eight hours of formal training. The largest barriers reported were staff training (68%), adequate staffing (60%), and supplies (52%). Subsequently, the researchers created an education module on the identified areas of need. OTPs in the United States work in public pre-schools yet more needs to be done expanding to health promotion and development at the community and population levels in pre-schools (Jasmin et al., 2018). This study outlined initial areas of focus for occupational therapy practitioners to partner with private community pre-schools to address these formative skills.
Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. (n.d.). Increase the proportion of children who participate in high-quality early childhood education programs. Healthy People 2030. https://health.gov/healthypeople/objectives-and-data/browse-objectives/children/increase-proportion-children-who- participate-high-quality-early-childhood-education-programs-emc-d03
Williams, P. G., Lerner, M. A., Sells, J., Alderman, S. L., Hashikawa, A., Mendelsohn, A., McFadden, T., Navsaria, D., Peacock, G., Scholer, S., Takagishi, J., Vanderbilt, D., De Pinto, C. L., Attisha, E., Beers, N., Gibson, E., Gorski, P., Kjolhede, C., O’Leary, S. C., … Weiss-Harrison, A. (2019). School readiness. Pediatrics, 144(2). https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2019-1766
Jasmin, E., Gauthier, A., Julien, M., & Hui, C. (2017). Occupational therapy in preschools: A synthesis of current knowledge. Early Childhood Education Journal, 46(1), 73–82. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-017-0840-3