Worldwide, a large number of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers are enroled in formal non-parental early childhood education or care (ECEC). Theoretically, lower adult/child ratios (fewer children per adult) and smaller group sizes are hypothesised to be associated with positive child outcomes in ECEC. A lower adult/child ratio and a smaller…

Over the past three decades, our understanding of science learning in early childhood has improved exponentially and today we have a strong empirically based understanding of science experiences for children aged three to six years. However, our understanding of science learning as it occurs for children from birth to three years, is limited. We…

Policymakers, child care providers, and parents face tradeoffs in determining how much to spend on child care, including how many hours to purchase, and the features of programs that might influence quality. Given these tradeoffs, it is useful to understand what constitutes quality, the cost of care features associated with quality, the effects of…

The Sustainable Development Goals mandate that by 2030, all children should have access to quality early child development opportunities, healthcare and pre-primary education. Yet validated measures of ECD in low and middle income countries (LMICs) are rare. To address this gap, a Systematic Review (SR) of measures available to profile the…

This article analyses early years education policy in England from 1918 to 1972, applying the theoretical ideas of John Kingdon. Throughout this period, the educational needs of young children were a low political priority, but they did occasionally rise on the agenda. When the issue gained prominence, politicians considered two key policy…

During the past three decades, extensive literature has accumulated on the early years of life for children. Research findings unequivocally agree that these years are a critical period of intense learning for children which provides the foundation for later academic and social success. This review explores the literature on the complex…

Spatial representation and thinking have evolutionary importance for any mobile organism. In addition, they help reasoning in domains that are not obviously spatial, for example, through the use of graphs and diagrams. This article reviews the literature suggesting that mental spatial transformation abilities, while present in some precursory form…

The upcoming Congressional reauthorization of the Early Head Start program provides an opportunity to focus on what can be done to achieve even greater impacts for infants, toddlers, and families in Early Head Start. In this policy brief, the Zero to Three Policy Center presents its recommendations for Congressional action and discusses scientific…

The paper reviews the methodology of quantitative documentation of the progress of handicapped, delayed, and at risk infants in early intervention programs. The authors discuss design and analysis issues, concluding that the use of several designs and analytic techniques provides useful exploration of hypotheses in early intervention programs.…

Horizontal and vertical prediction performance matrix analyses on 15 early identification studies of children at risk for school problems suggested ten conclusions, including the following: that teacher perceptions and behavioral skill analyses seem to be efficient and useful predictors of school problems; and that physical indices, developmental…

Early intervention services provided to infants and toddlers with disabilities and their families include case management. A historical framework for the concept of case management is presented, the role of the case manager in early intervention is explored, and competencies involved in the role are outlined. (Author/JDD)

Presents evidence that human infants possess a mechanism for determining and representing small numbers of entities and procedures for operating on these representations to extract numerical relationships between them. Presents a model for this mechanism and discusses its relation to later numerical knowledge. Contains 42 references. (MKR)

The article reviews the literature on normal cognitive development and specific cognitive skills required for picture recognition in children 12 to 30 months old. Conclusions are drawn concerning appropriate presentation in designing software for a cognitively young population. (Author/DB)

A study was conducted to develop baseline information on special education early intervention programs. A review of the literature revealed the following: the effects of a stimulating or depriving environment appear to be most powerful in the early years of childhood; there is evidence that the effects of early intervention programs for children…

The presentations and tables in this document deal with the development of mastery motivation from infancy to early preschool years. Discussion was focused on three questions: (1) whether mastery motivation can be measured in infants and young children; (2) whether it is possible to distinguish mastery motivation from cognitive functioning; and…