Browsing by Subject "ryhmäsensitiivisyys"

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of a novel pedagogical intervention (PedaSens) to increase adult emotional availability and to support adult–child interaction in toddler day care groups. The research questions are: 1) How did the emotional availability appear in adult-child interaction of the group? 2) How did the emotional availability of the adult-child interaction change in relation to the control group before and after the measurement? 3) What are the effects of adult educational background and children group size to the emotional availability of the adults and children? Most research on children's attachment and interactions has focused solely on dyadic parent-child contexts. However, according to interaction and neurobiology research there is accumulating evidence about the importance of sensitive interactions in multiple relationships on child's biological brain plasticity and stress response regulation. Previous research has demonstrated that a child seems to benefit from a number of day care-group relationships that are fostered in co-operation with other children and adults. Positive relationships are formed when the adults stay in interaction and respond sensitively to the needs of the child as well as to the whole group. A total of 45 kindergarten professionals and 15 public day care centers from southern Finland participated in the study. The total number of toddler groups was 17, with children 1–4 years of age. The data was collected by videotaping and observing the interaction between the adults and the children as part of the normal daily activities in the group. The first EA assessment between the intervention and control groups was conducted before the intervention and the second one six months after the beginning of the intervention. During the study period participants had five supervision sessions with the trainer. Non-parametric statistical analysis revealed a significant effect between the first and the second measurement on the adult interaction non-intrusiveness in the research group. This effect was not visible in the control group assessments which suggests that emotional availability of the intervention group seems to have increased during the EA intervention. In other ways, effects of the intervention were not significant in repeated measurements between intervention and control group (One-way ANOVA). Teacher's emotional availability in the dimension of non-hostility was significantly higher compared to other professional groups in the first measurement. These differences seemed to level off during the intervention and after the six month's study period differences between the professional groups were not significant. The study revealed the benefits of the pedagogical interventions to the development of early childhood education quality. It also enables critical conversation concerning the measurements used in pedagogical interventions.