This guidebook rejects a simplistic view of children's development of self-esteem in favor of a perspective that locates the concept in the larger contexts of children's social, cognitive, moral, and personality development. Part I concerns ways in which young children develop a sense of value. A general introduction to the concept of self-esteem…

Issues are discussed and recommendations are offered to policymakers on the preparation of practitioners to work with infants, toddlers, and their families. Section I examines eforts to define "competence" for practitioners and programs. Section II describes in detail four key elements of training for infant/family practitioners, illustrating how…

A curriculum was developed for the purpose of training child care teachers to provide high quality music and art experiences for infants and toddlers. Introductory material provides a brief overview of the curriculum development project, giving specific attention to the completion of grant objectives, advisory committee involvement, dissemination…

Part of a volume which explores current issues in service delivery to infants and toddlers (ages birth to 3) with handicapping conditions, this chapter provides an overview of the relationships among screening, assessment, and curriculum in programming for this population, with attention to the potential impact of Public Law 99-457 and the…

Part of a volume which explores current issues in service delivery to infants and toddlers with handicapping conditions, this chapter discusses the nature of parent involvement in early childhood special education. Acceptance of the basic axiom of parent involvement needs to be accompanied by an understanding of individual differences in family…

Self-paced instructional materials concerning day care for 2-year-old children are provided in this staff development module, intended for the caregiver or teacher in a military child care center. The module consists of several short discussions describing what toddlers are like and suggesting how they can be helped to handle their feelings, how…

A sample of 80 families with a 2- or 3-year-old child in day care in one of four popular forms (baby sitter in the child's own home, family day care, part-time nursery program, and full-time day care center program) participated in a study of the effects of forms of care on children's development. Parents and caretakers were interviewed, and…

This longitudinal study identified hard-to-manage older toddlers and younger preschoolers, assessed the developmental course and prognostic significance of their difficult behavior, and delineated family factors possibly associated with early and persistent problems. Obtained from parents, teachers, and observers, cross-situational and…

A communicative repair has been defined as the ability to persist in communication and to modify, repeat, or revise a signal when the initial communication attempt failed. From an operant perspective, initial communicative acts and communicative repairs can be considered members of a response class in which each response produces the same outcome.…

In this study, everyday mother-to-toddler speech patterns among disadvantaged and advantaged groups were examined in the home environment. The Schachter FIS-C (Functions of Interpersonal Speech of Caretakers) language measuring instrument was applied to mother speech in three sociolinguistic urban groups: black disadvantaged, black advantaged, and…

This study investigated the child rearing environments in 8 community based day care centers and 16 family day care homes and the social competencies of the toddlers enrolled in them. Subjects were forty 19-month-old toddlers from similar backgrounds, half in each type of day care. Socially directed behaviors between the toddler and peers, and…

The goal of ensuring that all children are "ready for school" has become a national priority. As a result, programs that support children's school readiness are becoming more and more important to policy-makers, funders, and parents. It is becoming very clear that efforts to improve school success cannot begin at kindergarten, nor focus…

Each year, Early Head Start (EHS) and migrant and seasonal Head Start grantees are invited to share their experiences in providing high-quality services for expectant parents and families with infants and toddlers. This report highlights how 10 Early Head Start and Migrant and Seasonal Head Start grantees respond to mental health needs of infants,…

Early Head Start (EHS) is a comprehensive, two-generation program providing intensive services from before birth to age 3 to promote improved outcomes in children's development, family development, staff development, and community development. The second of a 3-volume series designed to share the experiences of the 17 EHS programs participating in…

Despite the plethora of new electronic media aimed at very young children, little is known about which media are available to children and whether or how children engage with them. This study reports on a nationally representative telephone survey of more than 1,000 parents of children ages 6 months through 6 years, conducted in Spring 2003. The…