This article addresses the need to refocus the view of the natural environment as a family-chosen placement for early intervention services. Psycho-ecological theories are used to broaden the conception of the natural environment and illuminate possibilities for early intervention that utilize community and home resources while respecting family…

Indoor air pollution is responsible for the deaths and illness of millions of young children in developing countries. This study investigated the acceptability (willingness to try) and feasibility (ability to perform) of four indoor air pollution reduction behaviors (improve stove maintenance practices, child location practices, ventilation…

The report provides an annual report and financial review for 1994 of the Bernard van Leer Foundation, a private institution that was created for broad humanitarian purposes in 1949, and shows the varied aspects of the foundation's activities in the project field. In addition, it includes a number of feature articles which highlight specific…

This document provides an annual report and financial review for 1995 of the Bernard van Leer Foundation, a private institution created in 1949 for broad humanitarian purposes. The report includes feature articles highlighting specific aspects of the year's activities: (1) "Growing Up in France: Parental Creches"; (2) "Changing the…

Rearing children is life's most important job, yet parents often have little training or preparation for this awesome responsibility. Thus, different perspectives of important emotional milestones of development for children, parents, and families, are covered in this text. It introduces a psychodynamic perspective which focuses on the meaning of…

This study examined the psychosocial adjustment of young children who were living in families where domestic violence had occurred, and presented implications for early childhood teachers. The research data were collected in a structured interview with 54 mothers who had at least 1 child between 3 and 6 years of age. These women had left a violent…

Even though current wisdom holds that adoptive parents should talk with their child about adoption as early as possible, no guidelines exist to prepare parents for the various ways their children might respond when these conversations take place. This book discusses how young children make sense of the fact that they are adopted, how their…

A study examined the role that children, mothers, and fathers played in the construction of explanations in a corpus of mealtime conversations. Data for the study were drawn from conversations collected as part of the Home-School Study of Language and Literacy Development. Subjects, 32 preschool children eligible for the Head Start program and…

Examined were the home verbal environments of three multiply handicapped language impaired children (3, 6, and 8 years old). Each child wore an FM transmitter-microphone for 3 1/2 consecutive days. Prliminary analysis of the acoustic data was in terms of actual data time, parental lesson time, and number of engaged (verbal interactions) and…

Examines some of the ways television may influence the imagination, motor activity, and aggressiveness of preschool and early school-aged children. Proposes a model in which a number of family and personal variables influence the growing child's response to television, and reports the results of several empirical studies that investigated family…

Reports on two studies related to the effect of early stress on the social and academic development of boys and girls. Suggested that the social resiliency of boys was relatively consistent from age 3 to 18, while girls had no such pattern. Academic performance of boys was lower than girls. (TW)

This study focused on family influences on the academic success of first-grade children born to low-income, adolescent mothers. The families in this study were participants in a family support program for teen mothers called Family TIES (Trust, Information, Encouragement, and Support). Families were eligible for services provided by…

Examines the recent history of early childhood intervention efforts; discusses principles that guided the formation of intervention programs in the 1960s and 1970s; describes the Head Start program and lessons learned from its development; considers issues in evaluating intervention programs; and presents suggestions for future directions in early…

Two groups of children, 12 to 30 months (N=14) and 31 to 78 months (N=12), showing increased lead burden were compared to a sample matched for age, sex, and socioeconomic status but evincing no increased lead burden. For the younger children, significant deficits in maternal IQ and quality of the caregiving environment were associated with…

This paper provides a conceptual model of the language learning environment of young children, incorporating child engagement with the physical environment, contributions of child and caregiver, and caregiver mediation of physical environment. A case study illustrates the impact of a relatively simple home environmental intervention on a…