This compilation of extensive facts and figures on topics pertaining to America's children and families is a ready reference for journalists, advocates, and others who need easy access to data on conditions and trends. The book's first nine chapters are: (1) "The Changing American Family"; (2) "Children's Growth and…

Noting that communities and states all across America are working to achieve the first National Education Goal--by the year 2000, all children in America will start school ready to learn--this paper provides information on efforts to meet that goal. The first portion of the paper presents a definition of readiness to learn devised by the Education…

This document is comprised of the proceedings from the first Central and Eastern European Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) meeting in Budapest, Hungary, October 24-28, 1999, convened to begin the development of an ECCD network in the region to address the similar needs and concerns of children in these countries. Following an…

In this paper, an overview of children's psychological processes is presented within the context of adoption, foster care, or other type of placement which requires the child to develop the coping skills necessary to continue toward optimal growth psychologically, cognitively, and socially. Findings from a research review indicate that children…

Applied a person-centered approach to childhood personality development in 28 diverse samples of 3- to 6-year-olds studied over 6 years. Identified resilient, overcontrolled, and undercontrolled personality types. Found that the undercontrolled personality type related to intellectual decline over 6 years. The number of family risks predicted…

Identified predictors of outcomes for 30-month-olds with developmental delays or biomedical risk factors in child care. Found that after accounting for selection effects, child characteristics at 12 months, and home caregiving quality, no child-care variables predicted development or attachment security. Older entry age predicted greater…

Assessment at age seven of 17 very low birthweight (VLBW) children who had chronic lung disease (CLD) at birth and 28 VLBW children without CLD found that, although CLD did not appear to confer much added risk to health, it did seem to add significantly to risks for poor school performance that are known to be associated with very low…

Examined contributions of different risk factors to predicting children's psychological and academic outcomes at end of first grade. Found that each analysis level contributed to prediction of most outcomes; 18 to 29% of outcome variance was predicted; a common set of predictors predicted numerous outcomes; ethnicity showed little unique…

Background: Prisoners' children appear to suffer profound psychosocial difficulties during their parents' imprisonment. However, no previous study has examined later-life outcomes for prisoners' children compared to children separated from parents for other reasons. We hypothesise that parental imprisonment predicts boys' antisocial and delinquent…

A Study found that although planning vicious violence in teens' cases varied in its time frame or intricacy, almost all the tragic events had a lead time from days to months in which some preemptive action could have been taken. Indeed, in a large number of the cases, the assailant eventually broke his code of silence and told either a peer or an…

Compelling evidence from neuroscience about how early relationships and experience influence the architecture of the brain, and in turn early school success, has led to increasing policy and practice attention to implementing child development and family support programs like Early Head Start for infants and toddlers. But, there is also a group of…

Antisocial behavior has been the object of investigation in many studies seeking to establish its etiological factors as well as risk factors which help to perpetuate such behavior over the course of the individual's life. In this paper, we seek to classify and clarify risk factors underlying the origin and development of antisocial behaviors from…

This report examines the prevalence of selected accomplishments and difficulties in a national sample of 4,423 children from 3 to 5 years of age who had not yet started kindergarten. The data were collected as part of the 1993 National Household Education Survey (NHES). The report focused on 2,000 children who had turned 4 by the end of 1992 and…

These 12 monthly newsletters from 1995 explore the myriad problems encountered by children and adolescents as they grow up. Regular departments in the newsletter issues include "Keep Your Eye On...," which briefly presents results of research into childhood and adolescent problems; "New Research," summarizing research from recent publications and…

This document reports the proceedings of a conference on early childhood and family research sponsored by the Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF). Presentations at the conference consisted of reports of research, literature reviews, descriptions of projects funded by ACYF, and commentaries on research and practice in Head Start.…