Possessing sufficient social skills is a crucial aspect of child development. The level of social skill that a child has is a strong predictor of their future behavioral functioning and academic achievement. Due to the impact social skills have on a child's later life, having a better understanding of how to enhance social development is…

Purpose: This study examines object permanence development in infants with motor delays (MD) compared with infants with typical development (TD) and in relation to sitting skill. Methods: Fifty-six infants with MD (mean age = 10 months) and 36 with TD (mean age = 5.7 months) were assessed at baseline and then at 1.5, 3, and 6 months postbaseline.…

This booklet is in response to commonly asked questions from parents about preparing for, and entering kindergarten. Some questions parents ask are about district policy. Nebraska has over 200 individual school districts, each having their own board, superintendent, and policies. The Nebraska Department of Education provides guidance and…

In 2006, several dedicated early childhood professionals began work on the creation of the "Nebraska Core Competencies for Early Childhood Professionals." Representatives from across Nebraska worked together. After the input from various focus groups, the document became public in July of 2007. The current revision process began in late…

The Early Learning Guidelines: Nebraska's Birth to Five Learning and Development Standards (hereafter referred to as the Guidelines) is a resource to provide information about young children's learning and development. The Guidelines are intended to assist adults in planning and providing meaningful learning experiences and environments for…

The purpose of this study was to empirically examine the dimensionality of language ability for young children (4-8 years) from prekindergarten to third grade (n = 915), theorizing that measures of vocabulary and grammar ability will represent a unitary trait across these ages, and to determine whether discourse skills represent an additional…

This resource provides parents with widely held expectations for their child's development prior to kindergarten and ways parents can encourage their child's growth. Although a child's growth and development follows a general pattern, all children grow at different rates. Some children will be doing things earlier or later than others. There's no…

Research Findings: The objective of this study was to understand how instructional book-reading style and emotional quality of reading interact and relate to cognitive skills in a sample of at-risk infants and toddlers. Participants were 81 parents and their children participating in Early Head Start programs in the rural Midwest. Correlation and…

The goal of the Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools (CYFS) is to the conduct of high-quality interdisciplinary research to promote the intellectual, behavioral and social-emotional development and functioning of individuals across educational, familial and community contexts. The Center creates the context for…

This booklet is in response to commonly asked questions from parents about preparing for, and entering kindergarten. Some questions parents ask are about district policy. Nebraska has over 200 individual school districts, each having their own board, superintendent, and policies. The Nebraska Department of Education provides guidance and…

This study examined differences in kindergarten children's behavioral functioning across rural and non-rural communities, as well as explored the effect of risk in each setting (i.e., rural, nonrural) on these children's behavior. Data from 116 kindergarten students and their parents and teachers was analyzed. Multileveling modeling was used to…

The authors show how teachers can use nature explorations as a personal guide in implementing early learning standards. They describe five outdoor experiences of children in age groups ranging from 20 months to 5 years. A chart specifies which of the Nebraska state learning guidelines and Creative Curriculum goals the experiences meet, across the…

Experiences in the natural world help children understand life cycles and seasons, make prediction and become aware of the interdependence between plants, animals, and elements like rain and sun. Early childhood is a critical time to support children's connections to the natural world because young children are naturally curious and there is so…

Like all states, Nebraska faces distinct challenges in how it allocates resources to meet the most immediate needs of its citizens while investing responsibly in long-term social and economic growth. This report presents selected indicators that describe the status of infants and toddlers in Nebraska; Often comparable data for the U.S. as a whole…

The purpose of the study was to make a qualitative assessment of the impact of school consolidation on several rural Nebraska communities that have recently lost their schools. This research uses a multiple-case study design with interviews conducted in three Nebraska communities. The data from this research fell into four broad themes: social…