Home Environment and Early Cognitive Development

Home Environment and Early Cognitive Development
Author: Allen W. Gottfried
Publisher: Academic Press
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2013-10-22
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1483273385

Home Environment and Early Cognitive Development: Longitudinal Research presents the results of longitudinal studies in Canada and the United States that looked into the relationship between home environment and early cognitive development. The aim of these investigations is to determine the specific or process home environmental variables that correlate with and possibly regulate cognitive development during infancy and the preschool years. Comprised of 10 chapters, this book begins with a brief introduction to the issues investigated. Each of the following seven chapters is devoted to a longitudinal investigation, with emphasis on data presentation, analysis, and interpretation. The influence of home environment on cognitive development in young children of middle-socioeconomic-status families as well as Mexican-American children is considered. Assessments of cognitive development are carried out using standard psychometric tests of intelligence; Piagetian-type measures of sensorimotor development; measures of language development; and measures of recognition memory for infants. The final chapter assesses the implications for intervention of the link between home environment and early cognitive development. This monograph will be of interest to psychologists and sociologists.

Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8

Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 587
Release: 2015-07-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0309324882

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.

Early Experience and Human Development

Early Experience and Human Development
Author: Theodore D. Wachs
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1461592151

Our goal in writing this book was to fill a perceived gap in the early experi ence literature. Most existing volumes on early experience and development can be dichotomized on a basic versus an applied dimension. Volumes falling on the basic side are designed for researchers and theoreticians in the biomed ical and behavioral sciences. Most existing basic volumes are either primarily based on infrahuman data or are based on single major human studies. In going over these volumes, we are not convinced of the generality of infrahu man data to the human level; in addition, we were concerned about the replicability of findings from single studies, however well designed these studies were. As a result, the relevance of data from these volumes to applied human problems is quite limited. In contrast, volumes falling on the applied side are designed primarily for those involved in intervention work with infants and young children. These applied books generally tend to be vague and nonempirical compilations of the views of experts and the collective "wisdom of the ages. " Rarely in applied volumes do we find conclusions based on solid, consistent, empirical findings.

Parenting Matters

Parenting Matters
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 525
Release: 2016-11-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0309388570

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

Early Childhood Mathematics Skill Development in the Home Environment

Early Childhood Mathematics Skill Development in the Home Environment
Author: Belinda Blevins-Knabe
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 207
Release: 2016-10-17
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 331943974X

This volume presents current research on the connections between the home and family environment on children’s mathematics development. Focusing on infancy through first grade, it details the role of parents and other caregivers in promoting numeracy and the ways their active participation can prepare young children for learning about formal mathematics. Research data answer key questions regarding the development of numeracy alongside cognitive and linguistic skills, early acquisition of specific math skills, and numeracy of children with atypical language skills. The book also provides practical recommendations for parents and other caregivers as well as implications for future research studies and curriculum design. Included in the coverage: Ways to optimize home numeracy environments. Individual differences in numerical abilities. Cross-cultural comparisons and ways to scaffold young children's mathematical skills. Mathematics and language in the home environment. Center-based and family-based child care. Games and home numeracy practice. Early Childhood Mathematics Skill Development in the Home Environment is an essential resource for researchers, graduate students, and professionals in infancy and early childhood development, child and school psychology, early childhood education, social work, mathematics education, and educational psychology.

Development During Middle Childhood

Development During Middle Childhood
Author: Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 448
Release: 1984-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0309034787

For the first time, a report focuses specifically on middle childhoodâ€"a discrete, pivotal period of development. In this review of research, experts examine the physical health and cognitive development of 6- to 12-year-old children as well as their surroundings: school and home environment, ecocultural setting, and family and peer relationships.

Family Environment and Intellectual Functioning

Family Environment and Intellectual Functioning
Author: Elena L. Grigorenko
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2001-04
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1135671117

What is the impact of the family environment on us, particularly with regard to our intellectual functioning? Does the role of early family environment wear off, as some researchers have suggested, or does it maintain or possibly even become more important as we grow older? This book examines the interrelationship between family environment and intellectual functioning in a lifespan perspective. Covering a wide range of topics, it provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date examination of life-span family influences on various aspects of intellectual function. For cognitive, development/lifespan, and educational psychologists, and scholars studying the family and its influences, this volume will help: *students learn about family effects; *researchers update themselves in this active area of investigation; *therapists understand problems in intellectual functioning in their clients and in treating these clients successfully; and *educators gain a better grasp on how the students they teach are products not only of their genes and environments, in general, but of their family environments, in particular.

Spaces for Children

Spaces for Children
Author: T.G. David
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2013-11-11
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1468452274

As a developmental psychologist with a strong interest in children's re sponse to the physical environment, I take particular pleasure in writing a foreword to the present volume. It provides impressive evidence of the con cern that workers in environmental psychology and environmental design are displaying for the child as a user of the designed environment and indi cates a recognition of the need to apply theory and findings from develop mental and environmental psychology to the design of environments for children. This seems to me to mark a shift in focus and concern from the earlier days of the interaction between environmental designers and psy chologists that occurred some two decades ago and provided the impetus for the establishment of environmental psychology as a subdiscipline. Whether because children-though they are consumers of designed environments are not the architect's clients or because it seemed easier to work with adults who could be asked to make ratings of environmental spaces and comment on them at length, a focus on the child in interaction with en vironments was comparatively slow in developing in the field of environ ment and behavior. As the chapters of the present volume indicate, that situation is no longer true today, and this is a change that all concerned with the well-being and optimal functioning of children will welcome.