Understanding the sequential associations between caregiver responsivity and child communication is pivotal for enhancing child outcomes and guiding effective interventions. This dissertation study evaluates the LENA Start™ on caregiver-child communication, focusing on sequential association between caregiver and child communicative behaviors.…

This article highlights two competency-based coaching and mentoring models for the incumbent infant-toddler workforce, designed and implemented at two Illinois institutions of higher education. Each model has been intentionally developed with an antibias and equity lens, focused on cultivating a diverse workforce of practitioners through…

Continuing professional development (CPD) is an essential aspect of early years (EY) workforce planning. In understanding how CPD is currently provided, we depend largely on surveys carried out by separate sector organisations with little synthesis of the data. In this paper, we scrutinise findings relating to CPD from nine surveys of EY managers…

Everyday life activities provide development-enhancing learning opportunities for young children. Since parents, teachers, child care providers, and other caregivers are with infants and toddlers more frequently and for longer periods of time than early childhood intervention practitioners, caregivers need to know how they can support their…

Background: Training parents to implement language and communication intervention strategies is an effective approach to promote language development for children with language delay. Aims: This study introduces an online parent training program conducted in Hubei province, China, which was designed to help parents of language-delayed children…

Children with disabilities often engage in less complex play and fewer spontaneous pretend play behaviors. Research has highlighted the value of providing caregivers with sustained support to promote their active involvement in the learning of their children with disabilities. Caregivers; however, are rarely offered opportunities to facilitate…

In this qualitative study, the author investigated nature as a context for language development. Participants included 15 toddlers and their caretakers who enrolled in a series of environmental education workshops on the topics of grass, butterflies, spiders, and leaves. Using field notes and photographs, the study sought to investigate elements…

The World Health Organization identified the promotion of "Nurturing Care Environments" as a global health priority. Responsive caregiving, 1 of 5 domains describing nurturing care, is critical for healthy child development. Relatively little research has evaluated population-level interventions aimed to increase responsive caregiving…

A skilled workforce is critical to the delivery of quality school age care services. A strategy called Core Knowledge and Competency (CKC) Framework was designed to build the skills and knowledge of after school care educators as they provided before and after school programs in Queensland, Australia. The strategy was to help educators meet the…

Minnesota's R.E.E.T.A.I.N. (Retaining Early Educators Through Attaining Incentives Now) was created by Child Care Aware (CCA) of Minnesota in 2002 to support the retention of committed and highly qualified early childhood education (ECE) teachers and providers. Child care providers are among some of the lowest paid workers in the in the country;…

The purpose of this study was to examine how a delineated coaching process affected the ability of caregivers to take the lead in promoting their children's learning in the context of daily activities. In addition, the correspondence between caregivers' initiations during the intervention and their rate of improvement after the intervention was…

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to highlight the significance of pedagogical leadership (PL) in improving the quality of practice in early childhood development (ECD) centres. ECD in South Africa is defined as the procedures by means of which children from birth to 9 years grow and flourish emotionally, morally, socially, physically and…

Most children in the U.S. spend time in some form of early childhood education (ECE) program prior to entering kindergarten. In fact, children spend an average of 25 hours per week in nonparental care, including center-based care and informal family, friend and neighbor care. Children develop a foundation for learning during these early years, so…

The number of preterm births is increasing globally and in England, yet professional knowledge about the short- and long-term developmental consequences and the psycho-social effect on parents is limited amongst the early years workforce. Using a social-ecological systems theory approach, this paper reports on a mixed-methods study that aimed to…

Research Findings: Young children develop numeracy competencies during interactions with more knowledgeable others. Such interactions typically occur in the home numeracy environment (HNE). In this study a nonintensive intervention procedure was developed to improve both the HNE and numerical competencies. All parents of 113 Australian children…