This article describes the evaluation of a pilot Montessori-based home visiting program called "Mi Pequeño Mundo" (MPM) aimed at promoting optimal child development in Spanish-speaking Latine children from birth to three years old in Hennepin County, Minnesota. Phase I included World Cafés and interviews to gather Centro Tyrone Guzman…

Home visiting connects expectant parents, new caregivers, and their young children with a support person, called a home visitor. The home visitor meets regularly with the family, develops a relationship with them, and supports them to achieve their goals and meet their needs. To reach the thousands of additional families who could benefit from…

Children show a bias toward information about shape when labeling or determining category membership for novel objects. The body of work with human children suggests that the shape bias is not restricted to linguistic contexts but is highly contingent on task demands. Testing nonhumans could provide additional information about the salience of…

Two consequentially related education policy topics in the United States are kindergarten entry assessments (KEAs) and the growing number of students who are "English learners" (ELs). In this study, I compared the content of, and home language use policies for six state KEAs, all of which were comprised of items from the GOLD®…

A labor force of migrant farmworkers, mostly of Latino origin, largely support the agriculture industry in the US. While migrant labor is essential in the modern food system, food insecurity remains high among migrant farmworkers. Presented are the results from a survey on food insecurity, access, and farm to preschool involving 32 farmworker…

The connection between brain rhythms at rest and cognition remains poorly understood. This is especially true during early childhood in which neuroimaging data are relatively scarce. We developed a new method for collecting eyes closed and eyes open resting state electroencephalography (EEG) suitable for young children. We report results…

This study examined the predictive significance of maternal sensitivity in early childhood for electrophysiological responding to and cognitive appraisals of infant crying at midlife in a sample of 73 adults (age = 39 years; 43 females; 58 parents) from the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation. When listening to an infant crying,…

In the context of the importance of nature experiences in supporting development during early childhood and toward encouraging the use of natural outdoor settings with young children, research was undertaken to explore potential relationships among parents' and young children's preferences regarding outdoor play settings and young children's…

In a notoriously cold-seasoned region, this paper explored how our formal education and non-formal environmental education (EE) gatekeepers of Northeastern Minnesota regard the importance of outdoor play and cold weather for young students. This research study explored the relationship between participant gatekeepers' beliefs of the benefits…

This study examined the effects of incremental rehearsal (IR) on letter sound expression for one kindergarten and one first grade English learner who were below district benchmark for letter sound fluency. A single-subject multiple-baseline design across sets of unknown letter sounds was used to evaluate the effect of IR on letter-sound expression…

Early educators often do not have even basic expectations of working conditions -- such as program policies providing for payment for planning time, staff meetings, and professional development; a salary schedule accounting for experience and varied levels of education; and provision of health, retirement, sick-, and vacation-leave benefits that…

Remembering the temporal information associated with personal past events is critical for autobiographical memory, yet we know relatively little about the development of this capacity. In the present research, we investigated temporal memory for naturally occurring personal events in 4-, 6-, and 8-year-old children. Parents recorded unique events…

Joint attention, or the shared focus of attention between objects or events and a social partner, is a crucial milestone in the development of social communication and a notable area of deficit in children with autism spectrum disorder. While valid parent-report screening measures of social communication are available, the majority of these…

This research examined preservice early childhood educators' perceptions of outdoor settings and their intentions to use outdoor settings in their teaching practice. Students enrolled in an early childhood education program (n = 110) at a university in the Great Lakes region completed surveys that assessed perceptions of natural settings,…

As more children are growing up in cities than ever before, cities are investigating new ways to become more child-friendly, and to measure their progress towards this goal. Data dashboards are one tool that can help a city set policy priorities, monitor progress, encourage collaboration, inform decisions, increase accountability, and strengthen…