About

Amanda P. Williford is the Batten Bicentennial Professor of Early Childhood Education at the UVA School of Education and Human Development. Her scholarship intersects educational, developmental, and clinical psychology, focusing on creating and evaluating interventions that improve children’s school readiness, understanding classroom processes that promote young children’s school adaptation, and applying research to policy and scalable practice. She studies young children’s development of self-regulation skills, classroom engagement, and teacher-child relationships, with the goal of translating developmental and education science into practical and policy applications in early childhood education from birth through age eight. Williford works to build strong relationships with community partners in early childhood education at all levels, ensuring that local and statewide decisions are informed by science. She is currently partnering with the Virginia Department of Education on several initiatives. As a licensed clinical psychologist, she specializes in assessment and interventions supporting young children with challenging behaviors, including early childhood mental health consultation. She mentors Ph.D. students in clinical and school psychology and educational psychology, as well as undergraduate and master's students interested in early childhood research.

Research topics

• Developmental psychology
• Psychology
• Political Science
• Pedagogy
• Social psychology
• Medicine
• Medical education
• Computer Science
• Nursing
• Clinical psychology
• Psychiatry

Selected publications

• Using data to promote inclusion through early childhood mental health consultation

  Frontiers in Education · 2025-01-10 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Introduction Early childhood educators continue to need support to build their capacity to promote positive social and emotional development and address challenging behavior when it occurs, without resorting to exclusion. One approach to improve the experiences and outcomes of young children through better support to educators is Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (ECMHC). ECMHC is an evidence-based intervention that pairs a mental health professional (i.e., “consultant”) with early childhood educators to build the capacity of providers to promote inclusion by supporting young children's social and emotional development. Methods In this paper, we describe a model of ECMHC that combines data-driven action planning and an individualized approach to build educators' capacity to implement social and emotional teaching practices with fidelity. The model begins with in-context classroom observations of child engagement and teaching practices, as well as a teacher-report of child behavior. Based on this observational baseline data, a standardized formula selects a personalized set of social and emotional teaching strategies recommended for the focus of consultation, based on the strengths and challenges of the teacher and child. Strategies included foundational strategies (e.g., fostering strong teacher-child relationships), flexible strategies (e.g., using cues and visuals), and targeted strategies (e.g., supporting problem-solving skills). Consultants and teachers then collaboratively work together to select strategies to focus on in consultation, allowing for flexibility and individualization based on individual teacher and child strengths and challenges. Results We address the following two aims: (1) examine teaching practices and children's behavior at the beginning of consultation and how these data resulted in different recommended teaching strategies, based on our standardized formula, (2) present three case examples to further illustrate how these data guided consultation to improve social and emotional teaching practices during the 2023 to 2024 school year. We found that this baseline data collection and the subsequent data-driven process for selecting strategies was feasible in that all consultants and teachers served by ECMHC were able to use it. We also found variability in baseline data and the associated ECMHC teaching strategies recommended, suggesting that the measures were sensitive to unique classroom needs and individualized recommended strategies accordingly. Discussion We discuss how this approach allowed consultants to tailor ECMHC services to the unique strengths and challenges of each child and teacher dyad, while being firmly grounded in empirical research and previously validated assessments.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Value in time: associations between early childhood educators’ time stress and curriculum implementation

  Early Years Journal of International Research and Development · 2025-04-28

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• The joint development of self-regulation and expressive language in preschool classrooms: Preliminary evidence from a low-income sample

  Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology · 2025-02-13 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Making Connections with Families to Foster Preschool Social-Emotional Skills and Reduce Exclusionary Discipline Practices

  2025-03-14

  book-chapterSenior author

  This chapter provides knowledge and strategies for building and strengthening connections with families. The chapter includes an overview of special education eligibility and exclusionary practices, as well as early childhood mental health. A primary focus of the chapter is on developmentally appropriate and culturally responsive pathways that can reduce the suspension and expulsion of young children and provide intervention for children with disabilities through family partnerships. Using two research projects implemented in Virginia as an example, the chapter highlights practice skills that early childhood educators and researchers can use such as focus groups and community service mapping to build responsive partnerships with families.

  PublisherDOI

• Supporting preschool teachers’ social-emotional competencies and “lenses” for challenging behavior in Virginia’s early childhood mental health consultation program

  Social and Emotional Learning Research Practice and Policy · 2025-03-08 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  This paper introduces the Lenses for Children and Families tool, a practitioner-friendly framework to understand and promote teacher attributions for challenging behavior—or how teachers perceive behaviors. We first argue that teacher attributions for challenging behavior are an important social-emotional competency, and that to shift attributions, teachers draw on other social-emotional competencies including self-awareness, emotion regulation, and perspective taking. Then, we describe how the Lenses tool was used to help early childhood teachers notice and shift their attributions for children’s challenging behaviors as part of the Virginia Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation pilot program. We illustrate examples of teachers and consultants using the Lenses tool through short vignettes drawn from actual cases. We conclude by providing considerations for practitioners interested in addressing teachers’ attributions for challenging behavior as part of their work to support teachers’ social-emotional competencies.

  PublisherDOI

• Readiness for change in early childhood education: Insights from social emotional coaches and infant and early childhood mental health consultants

  Infant Mental Health Journal · 2025-04-23

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  This study explores readiness for change (RFC) in infant and early childhood education through the perspectives of infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) consultants and social-emotional (SEL) coaches. Specifically, this research examines how these professionals perceive educators' RFC, identify barriers and facilitators to engagement, and implement strategies to tailor intervention efforts based on educators' individual levels of readiness. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 13 IECMH consultants and SEL coaches in the southeastern United States, with demographic data indicating a predominantly female sample, diverse in racial backgrounds and professional experience. Thematic analysis identified key themes, including the importance of individualized approaches, supportive relationships, and the influence of both structural and internal barriers on educators' RFC. Findings underscore the need for validated measures of RFC and suggest that enhancing RFC may strengthen the impact of IECMHC and practice-based coaching interventions. These insights contribute to a deeper understanding of the complexities involved in fostering RFC and offer practical implications for practitioners, researchers, and policymakers.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Examining the Relationship Between Community Resources and Early Disability Identification: Variation by Child Race or Ethnicity

  Prevention Science · 2025-08-16 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Early identification and intervention support for children with disabilities improve their cognitive, educational, and social outcomes. Studies show that disability identification varies by child race and ethnicity, with children from historically marginalized populations being less likely to be identified during early childhood, where identification tends to happen in the community. One major factor that varies across communities is their resources, broadly defined as the environmental, social, and economic factors within a geographically defined area. While extensive evidence exists noting inequitable distribution of community resources by race and ethnicity, little research has examined whether community resources are associated with differential early disability identification rates. This study explored the association between the availability of community resources and early disability identification and whether it varied by child race or ethnicity. Leveraging 2019 statewide data collected through the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE), we combined information about 91,210 incoming kindergarteners with the Child Opportunity Index 2.0 (COI), a measure of community resources known to be associated with child development. After controlling for multiple covariates, children entering kindergarten at schools in higher-resourced communities were more likely to be identified with a disability prior to kindergarten. Although access to community resources and early disability identification rates varied by child race and/or ethnicity, the interaction effect was not significant. This study has implications for viewing community resources as potential malleable factors to address children's varying needs prior to the start of formal schooling.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Developing Self-Regulation Through Peer Relationships: The Moderating Roles of Classroom Emotional Support and Free Play in Preschool

  Early Education and Development · 2025-11-09

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Supporting all learners through high quality early childhood curricula: STREAMin3 implementation across Virginia

  Frontiers in Education · 2024-12-18

  articleOpen access

  Introduction Curricula are an essential component of high-quality early learning experiences. Unfortunately, many early childhood educators face challenges in accessing evidence-based curricula, and implementation fidelity to curriculum is often poor without aligned support, including professional development for educators. This is especially true for educators within family day homes and private programs, who receive the lowest pay, struggle to access meaningful support, and leave the profession at high rates, compared to publicly funded programs. Methods In this paper, we describe the STREAMin 3 birth-to-five curriculum model. We focus on describing how the curriculum model is intended to be used program-wide in infant, toddler, and preschool classroom, how the curriculum components support social, emotional, and academic skills, and how the aligned and embedded professional development model is designed to build educator capacity. We then present implementation data from the scaling of STREAMin 3 during 2022 to 2023 in over 2,000 early childhood education classroom settings in Virginia that received state or federal funding. Results We found that educators used and enjoyed the curriculum. Educators at private programs and family day homes reported higher satisfaction, compared to those at public programs and in early childhood special education settings. On average, educators reported implementing curriculum components two to three days a week. Discussion We discuss implications, including the need to support educators across settings as curricula and other initiatives are implemented at-scale across states. We discuss the need for future research to explore approaches to increase educator engagement and implementation, with attention to the unique needs of different program types.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Elucidating linkages of executive functioning to school readiness skill gains: The mediating role of behavioral engagement in the PreK classroom

  Early Childhood Research Quarterly · 2024-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Behavioral engagement and executive functions as contributors to school readiness

  NIH · $4.6M · 2005–2022

• Behavioral engagement and executive functions as contributors to school readiness

  NIH · $595k · 2005–2020

Frequent coauthors

• Jason T. Downer

  University of Virginia

  30 shared

• Pilar Álamos

  Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

  22 shared

• Virginia E. Vitiello

  University of Virginia

  19 shared

• Jennifer LoCasale‐Crouch

  Virginia Commonwealth University

  18 shared

• Jessica Vick Whittaker

  University of Virginia

  17 shared

• Bridget K. Hamre

  Institute for Advanced Study

  15 shared

• Ann M. Partee

  University of Virginia

  15 shared

• Robert C. Pianta

  University of Virginia

  13 shared

Labs

• Early Childhood Education - VirginiaPI

Awards & honors

• Virginia Education Science Training (VEST) Fellowships
• Sheila C. Johnson Center for Clinical Services