Learning about Young Children’s Challenging Behavior and Impacts on Programs and Families: A State-wide Survey of Virginia’s Early Care and Education Teachers

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Learn about our Supporting Young Children’s Mental Health project.

This report presents the efforts of leaders in Virginia to learn more about teachers’ experience with children who demonstrate challenging behavior in center-based and home-based ECE settings. These leaders partnered with the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) to design and implement a survey of Virginia’s ECE teachers that serve infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. The survey and analysis of responses examined the following questions:

  • How common are different types of challenging behavior?
  • How many children with challenging behavior, in different age groups, do teachers have in their classrooms or child care homes in the course of a year?
  • What are the consequences of challenging behavior, and how often does removal from the ECE setting occur?
  • What are the family circumstances of children with challenging behavior?
  • How do teachers address challenging behavior and what barriers do they face?
  • What factors contribute to the incidence of children with challenging behavior and removal from programs?
  • What supports do teachers believe will help them address the needs of children with challenging behavior?

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