Conference Program

Challenging behaviors exhibited by young children in early childhood classrooms have been interpreted through a deficit lens in which behaviors are attributed to the child, parenting, or genetic traits. Children from marginalized communities, such as those who are Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC), those who have disabilities, or those who live in poverty, are subject to such attributes. In these multilayer perspectives, children who are exhibiting challenging behaviors are seen as being oppositional and intentional rather than as responses to trauma. Trauma is not typically considered a plausible explanation for the behavior (Bartlett, 2019).

This presentation examines how early childhood educators who participated in a Research-Practice Partnership (RPP) focused on trauma in professional learning sessions shifted their interpretations of challenging behavior from a deficit lens to responding to the behavior from a trauma lens. This shift facilitated educators' understanding of relational and contextual care. This research explores how an RPP sustained collaborative planning between research and educators, resulting in a relational, trauma-informed lens that supported educators and practices over time.

The foundation of this research was based on the framework of an RPP (Arce-Trigatti et al., 2024; Hendrick et al., 2017, 2023). This framework focused on long-term collaboration between educators and researchers to solve complex issues and problems through research on educational improvements and equitable transformations. Another foundational component of this research was based on the framework of SAMSA’s guiding principles to a trauma-informed approach, which includes safety, peer support, trustworthiness and transparency, collaboration, and empowerment (SAMSA, 2026). Both frameworks position learning as a collaborative process in which educators transform their beliefs about challenging behaviors through a trauma-informed lens and the impact that trauma has on child development and behaviors.

A qualitative case study was used to investigate how educators perceived and described challenging behaviors, and how those perceptions and descriptions evolved after participation in a professional learning community embedded within an RPP. There was one research question addressed in the study: 1) How do early childhood educators’ perceptions of challenging behaviors shift over time following participation in a sustained professional learning community?  

There were 6 educators from a rural community in the Southeastern United States who participated in the study, and data were collected from a qualitative survey before the professional learning community started and again four years later. Participants consisted of both lead teachers with bachelor’s degrees and teaching assistants with a two-year degree. Open-ended qualitative surveys that explored participants' descriptions of challenging behaviors that occurred in the classroom, as well as perceptions of trauma-informed care, were used to collect the data.

Preliminary results indicated a substantial shift in the perspectives of educators’ beliefs about challenging behaviors. Pre-interview results framed challenging behaviors as intentional or caused by poor parenting practices or genetics. Post-interview results revealed a shift in perceptions of challenging behaviors and connected the behaviors to trauma. Participants described implementing strategies that were based on relationships and brain development. These findings indicate that professional learning through an RPP can transform perceptions and practices.