California recently received a highly competitive Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) federal grant to improve the quality of early learning programs and close the achievement gap for vulnerable young children. Over the next three years, California, led by local efforts in 16 counties in collaboration with the California Department…

The present study intends to deepen the understanding of processes of praxeological transformation in education and care contexts for children under three. This prime purpose is associated with evidence concerning these contexts in Portugal, namely the strong social need around them, some results from research that show their low level of quality…

In this article, written by Phil Reed and Lisa Osborne, both from Swansea University, the impact of severity of autism, and the time-input of the treatment programme, on the outcome effectiveness for four early interventions for individuals on the autism spectrum was explored. The four interventions studied were applied behaviour analysis (ABA),…

The Community Connections preschool program (herein referred to as Community Connections) was developed to help prepare children in home-based child care for success in school and in life. It has three goals: (1) to make state prekindergarten classroom experiences available to children in home-based care, (2) to extend classroom learning…

"Spina bifida" is one of the most common birth defects in the United States, affecting some 1,500 babies each year. Spina bifida happens during the first month or so of pregnancy and means that the baby's spine did not close completely. Damage to the nerves and the spinal cord may result. Following a brief story about a child with a…

The purpose of this GEM is to describe how an existing nutrition education program--Nutrition Education Aimed at Toddlers, was adapted for Latino Families to achieve a good fit by considering several components--both surface and deep structure characteristics of culture, and report indicators of its acceptability. (Contains 1 table.)

The parental report instrument is the most efficient developmental detection method and has shown high validity with professional assessment instruments. The reliability and validity of the Taiwan Birth Cohort Study (TBCS) 6-, 18- and 36-month scales have already been established. In this study, the reliability and validity of the 60-month scale…

A shortage of well-prepared professionals imposes limits on access to comprehensive and effective early intervention services to deaf and hard of hearing children. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act expects states to ensure that professionals working with infants and toddlers have relevant skills, however, there are very few…

In a predominantly low-income population-based longitudinal sample of 1,292 children followed from birth, higher level of salivary cortisol assessed at ages 7, 15, and 24 months was uniquely associated with lower executive function ability and to a lesser extent IQ at age 3 years. Measures of positive and negative aspects of parenting and…

Several research groups have previously constructed short forms of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDI) for different languages. We consider the specific aim of constructing such a short form to be used for language screening in a specific age group. We present a novel strategy for the construction, which is applicable…

This study examined the social-emotional content and the quality of social interactions depicted in a sample of 58 DVDs marketed towards infants and toddlers. Infant-directed videos rarely used social interactions between caregiver and child or between peers to present content. Even when videos explicitly targeted social-emotional content,…

A total of 271 early childhood professionals completed pre- and post training knowledge assessments in True-False only (TF) or True-False with "unsure" option formats (TFU). In Study 1, only TFU format was used. In Study 2, participants were randomly assigned to TF or TFU formats. Responses which were initially "unsure" were…

This study examined the bidirectional relationship between parenting and boys' externalizing behaviors in a four-wave longitudinal study of toddlers. Participants were 104 intact two-parent families with toddler sons. When their sons were 17, 23, 29, and 35 months of age, mothers and fathers reported on a broad range of parenting dimensions…

This study examined the temperamental characteristics of 18 toddlers with visual impairments as reported by their Anglo and Latino (Mexican American) parents. Differences in the parents' ratings of the children's temperament were related to the children's level of visual functioning and development. No differences were related to the children's…

The present longitudinal study examines the role of caregiver speech in language development, especially syntactic development, using 47 parent-child pairs of diverse SES background from 14 to 46 months. We assess the diversity (variety) of words and syntactic structures produced by caregivers and children. We use lagged correlations to examine…