Children's Transition Research Articles

Investigating the Effectiveness of Play in Easing Daily Home- To- School-Transition Process for Nursery Pupils at UDS-Early Childhood Centre

This study investigated the effectiveness of play in easing the daily home to the school transition process for nursery pupils at University for Development Studies-Early Childhood Centre. The study employed a mixed design approach (qualitative and quantitative designs) to identify vital aspects of the process in helping to improve the daily home-to-school transition process for children. Ten children participated in the study for a period of two weeks. The children were observed, and their data recorded from 7am to 8am each morning. Informal interviews with ten (10) parents, five (5) teachers and two (2) administrators were conducted to find out more about children's home-to-school transition behaviour. The quantitative analysis was done with the use of SPSS and thematic analysis for qualitative data. It was concluded that: play is effective in smoothening children's transition, separation anxiety was the primary factor that caused poor transition, and that the use of play in school transition is obstructed by rigid school routines, inadequate play equipment and toys and teachers' attitude. It is therefore recommended that teachers and administrators should make provisions to allow children some time to play upon arrival at school before lessons begin, strategies such as window hugging and many others should also be employed to reduce the distress of separating children from their parents upon arrival to school in the morning.

Principles of Cystinosis Transition in Children

Children with chronic illness need special care during the transition to adolescence and adulthood. Cystinosis is a chronic childhood disease characterized by chronic renal failure and multi-organ involvement. With advances in treatment and kidney transplantation methods, the life expectancy of these patients has been prolonged. Renal transplantation is performed for most of the patients in childhood. These patients are at risk of non-adherence due to multiple drug usage and their chronic disease. As a child enters adulthood, parental care decreases and the patient should learn self-management. So the likelihood of non-compliance and loss of kidney transplant is high in transition time. This article gives a brief overview on transition of cystinosis patients from childhood to adolescence and adulthood

School can be wild!

Karen Hart talks to primary teacher Mark Bonner about what inspired him to write his book, My Teachers Are Animals, and how it supports children's transitions.

Crianças em transições na vida cotidiana e nas instituições

The book Children's transitions in everyday life and institutions, firts published in 2019, addresses children's transitions in/between institutional practices in the light of the principles of historical-cultural psychology. Organized by Mariane Hedegaard and Marilyn Fleer, the work portrays diverse empirical situations highlighting the child's perspective in the transitional processes that, occurring from a very early age in childhood, promote the restructuring of their social relationships. This potentially holds the possibility of forming new affective-cognitive capacities. The emphasis on the child's perspective and the institutional dimension in the analysis of the leading activities are pointed out, in this review, as important contributions to Brazilian scholars of this theoretical tradition. We discuss the expansion of the scope of the concept of transition, including “horizontal” passages of microgenetic level, arguing for the transformation of motives and their intentional organization in educational processes to be retained as core aspects of the problem of transitions in development.

Self-regulation mediates the associations between demographic characteristics and Latino children's early achievement

The study explored cognitive flexibility, working memory, and effortful control as mediating factors of the direct associations between children's primary home language and parental foreign-born status and early reading and mathematics trajectories. The study used data from the ECLS-K: 2011 and included Latino children only (age = 5.58; N = 4590). The structural equation modeling results indicate that Latino children whose primary home language is Spanish start kindergarten with lower scores in reading and mathematics compared to children who speak English or another language at home, while children with two-foreign born parents have a higher rate of growth through second grade compared to children with two U.S.-born parents. Working memory and effortful control partially accounted for differences in achievement trajectories through second grade related to children's primary home language and parental foreign-born status. Findings suggest a need for education programs that support Latino children's transition to school and foster self-regulatory skills.

The curvilinear effect of mothers' parenting stress and attunement on children's internalizing symptoms: A six wave study of mother-youth dyads across the transition to adolescence.

We aimed to test how deviations in a mother's own parenting stress (PS) levels across her child's transition to adolescence contribute to subsequent changes in her child's internalizing symptom levels. We tested both linear and curvilinear effects, as well as the extent to which a child's perception of his or her mother's attunement alters these links. We further explored whether overall maternal PS levels (relative to the other mothers) further moderate the within-dyad association. These effects were tested in a community sample consisting of 202 mother-child dyads during transition to early adolescence. The dyads were examined within and across six waves, each separated by 6 months. During each wave, the mothers (Mage at baseline = 40.1 years [SD = 6.1]) reported on their PS, while children (Mage at baseline = 10.1 years [SD = .90]) reported on their internalizing symptoms and their perceived maternal attunement. Multilevel within-dyad analyses revealed a U-shaped effect of mothers' PS on concurrent child symptoms, whereas the prospective association was not significant. Maternal attunement moderated the concurrent effects, changing the tipping point at which the concurrent potential benefits of rising PS were outweighed by the potential negative consequences of overburdening the child. Increases in PS prospectively predicted increased symptoms in the child but not when maternal attunement was above the mothers' average level. Global PS levels did not moderate these effects. The results underscore the contribution made by mothers' PS to the emotional trajectories of their children and show that these effects vary as a function of deviations in maternal attunement. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Evidence for discrete profiles of children’s physiological activity across three neurobiological system and their transitions over time

The conceptualization of stress-responsive physiological systems as operating in an integrated manner is evident in several theoretical models of cross-system functioning. However, limited empirical research has modeled the complexity of multisystem activity. Moreover few studies have explored developmentally regulated changes in multisystem activity during early childhood when plasticity is particularly pronounced. The current study used latent profile analysis (LPA) to evaluate multisystem activity during fall and spring of children's transition to kindergarten in three biological systems: the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), sympathetic nervous system (SNS), and hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis. Latent transition analysis (LTA) was then used to examine the stability of profile classification across time. Across both timepoints, three distinct profiles of multisystem activity emerged. One profile was characterized by heightened HPA axis activity (HPA Axis Responders), a second profile was characterized by moderate, typically adaptive patterns across the PNS, SNS, and HPA axis (Active Copers/Mobilizers), and a third profile was characterized by heightened baseline activity, particularly in the PNS and SNS (Anticipatory Arousal/ANS Responders). LTA of fall-to-spring profile classifications indicated higher probabilities that children remained in the same profile over time compared to probabilities of profile changes, suggesting stability in certain patterns of cross-system responsivity. Patterns of profile stability and change were associated with socioemotional outcomes at the end of the school year. Findings highlight the utility of LPA and LTA to detect meaningful patterns of complex multisystem physiological activity across three systems and their associations with early adjustment during an important developmental transition.

Transitions between socio-emotional and cognitive vulnerability profiles from early to middle childhood: a population study using multi-agency administrative records.

Adult psychosocial difficulties, including psychiatric disorders, are often preceded by childhood psychosocial vulnerabilities, presenting critical windows of opportunity for preventative intervention. The present study aimed to identify longitudinal patterns (representing transitions between profiles) of childhood socio-emotional and cognitive vulnerability in the general population from early to middle childhood, in relation to key risk factors (e.g. parental mental illness and offending). Data were drawn from the New South Wales Child Development Study, which combines intergenerational multi-agency administrative records with cross-sectional assessments using data linkage methods. We analysed data from childhood assessments of socio-emotional and cognitive functioning at two time points (ages 5-6 and 10-11years) that were linked with administrative data from government departments of health, child protection, and education for 19,087 children and their parents. Latent profile analyses were used to identify socio-emotional and cognitive profiles at each time point, and latent transition analyses were used to determine the probability and potential moderators of transition between profiles at each age. Three developmental profiles were identified in early childhood, reflecting typically developing, emotionally vulnerable, and cognitively vulnerable children, respectively; two profiles were identified in middle childhood, reflecting typically developing and vulnerable children. Child's sex, child protection services contact, parental mental illness, and parental offending influenced children's transitions between different vulnerability profiles, with the strongest effects for parental mental illness and child protection contact. Early detection of vulnerable children and factors promoting resilience are important steps in directing future health and social policy, and service planning for vulnerable children.

The Effect Transition of Children’s Pre-school School Readiness and Academic Performance Related Factors on the Lower Grades in Elementary School Students’ Academic Accomplishment

The Effect Transition of Children’s Pre-school School Readiness and Academic Performance Related Factors on the Lower Grades in Elementary School Students’ Academic Accomplishment

Bidirectionality in self-regulation and academic skills in play-based early childhood education

Support for the idea that self-regulation and early academic skills co-develop in young children is accumulating. The majority of this research, however, is conducted in countries with a school readiness approach to early childhood education. We investigated bidirectional relations between self-regulation and mathematics, expressive vocabulary, and phonological awareness in children (N = 243, ages 6–7) making the transition from a play-based kindergarten context to a formal educational context in first grade in Norway. Cross-lagged panel models showed that there were bidirectional relations between self-regulation and mathematics, but not between self-regulation and expressive vocabulary or phonological awareness. Expressive vocabulary significantly predicted self-regulation, and self-regulation significantly predicted phonological awareness, although the latter association attenuated when controlling for vocabulary. Given these interrelations, intentionally targeting a combination of these skills in a playful manner may support children's transition from a play-based kindergarten context to a more formal learning environment in first grade.

An integrative analysis of sibling influences on adult children's care-giving for parents

AbstractThe extent to which, and the reasons why, children help to care for their parents are examined in an extensive range of literature. Although care for parents essentially takes place in parent–child dyads, many of these studies acknowledge that the amount of care a child gives is generally the outcome of collective decisions in multiple-child families. However, to our knowledge, no research in Europe enhances our understanding of how sibling characteristics influence an individual child's care-giving. Using data for 14 European countries from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, the present study relates pre-care-giving sibling characteristics to children's subsequent start of giving care. This longitudinal approach allows correction for the endogenous nature of time-changing predictors. The analysis demonstrates that daughters start to care more often when they have brothers instead of sisters. This pattern of gendered intergenerational care particularly applies to southern European countries. We also observe that both pre-care-giving parent–sibling frequency of contact and geographic distances predict children's care-giving transition strongly. Children who are closer to their parents than siblings in terms of contact and proximity have higher odds of care-taking. Finally, being the only child without a job enhances the start of care-giving as well. The results suggest that sibling characteristics are an important factor in explaining intergenerational care differences between children in Europe.

Father Reflections on Doing Family in Stepfamilies

ObjectiveTo explore fathers' experiences as biological parents in father–stepmother families.BackgroundBiological parents play an important role in the formation and development of stepfamily relationships, but little is known about fathers in stepfamilies.MethodIn‐person interviews were conducted with 10 Belgian fathers. Interviews were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis.ResultsThree themes emerged from the data: (a) reflecting on children's experiences and transitions, (b) pursuing a shared family understanding, and (c) innovating new ways of doing fatherhood and family. The first theme centers on fathers' concerns about the impact family transitions may have on their children. The second theme centers on fathers' pursuit of a shared understanding that clarifies family roles and expectations within the stepfamily. The last theme addresses the creativity of these fathers as they co‐construct new stepfamily and fatherhood identities in the absence of culturally ascribed norms.ConclusionGiven their connecting role as parent and partner, biological fathers in stepfamilies are key to the formation and development of a new family narrative.Findings contribute to family practitioners' understanding of how fathers experience stepfamily life.

Effect of a Mixture of Fibers and Carbohydrates on Intestinal Transit in Children Diagnosed With Functional Constipation

Effect of a Mixture of Fibers and Carbohydrates on Intestinal Transit in Children Diagnosed With Functional Constipation

An Autobiographical Narrative Inquiry Into the Experiences of a Vietnamese Mother: Living Alongside Children in Transition to Canada

Since my family came to Canada, family story nights have become our daily practice. Within such moments, I explore how I, as a mother, have been sustaining the Vietnamese language and traditions in my family and how, when transitioning to a new land, this has become the core of our familiar curriculum making (Huber, Murphy, & Clandinin, 2011). As I share Vietnamese stories with my children, they reply to me in English. Also, they only have a distant understanding of Vietnamese culture and the intergenerational traditions of our great family back home. Acknowledging these transitional processes allows me to nurture their love and understanding of Vietnamese language, culture and traditions. As I inquire into my own experiences as a mother, I trace my ancestral heritage in my homeland, where, in Thúy’s (2012) words, “a country is no longer a place but a lullaby.” Meaningfully, the following questions have shaped my research puzzles: (a) What are possible ways to build our familial curriculum in integration with our homeland language, culture, and traditions; and (b) How could I as a mother sustain these three essential areas in my children’s lives in Canada? I embrace autobiographical narrative inquiry as the methodology for my paper. Narrative inquiry draws attention to story as both the phenomenon under study and narrative as the methodology for the inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 1994). I will be living, telling, retelling, and reliving (Clandinin, 2013) my storied experiences and my children’s in our familial curriculum making through cooking, reading, and painting. By attending to my daughters’ experiences, I inquire into their transitions differently, that is to understand their own transitions narratively (Clandinin, Steeves & Caine, 2013). Significantly, this paper will bring understandings on Vietnamese newcomer mother’s and children’s familial curriculum making as a way to sustain the homeland’s language, culture, and traditions and to support the children in their transition to a new country as well as inform related realities, knowledges, and approaches in education.Keywords: experience; transition; curriculum making; language; culture; traditions

Using Stakeholder Engagement to Develop a Hospital-Initiated, Patient-Centered Intervention to Improve Hospital-to-Home Transitions for Children With Asthma.

Stakeholder engagement is emerging as a tool for clinician investigators to learn from patients, families, and health professionals to better design and implement interventions that are responsive to patient and family needs and preferences. In this article, we demonstrate that multidisciplinary stakeholder engagement can meaningfully influence intervention design. We present a model of efficient yet substantive engagement of parents and health professionals in developing a hospital-to-home transition intervention for children hospitalized with asthma. We engaged parents during the acute hospitalization with one-on-one interviews, and we used one-on-one interviews and focus groups to engage key health professionals to facilitate meaningful engagement. We worked with a group of selected parent advisory council members (composed of parents of children with asthma) to refine the information gained from the parents and health professionals. We found that multidimensional stakeholder engagement can meaningfully shape intervention development, and we hope that these tools can be used or adapted to other hospital-based quality improvement, education, or research efforts.

A comparative study of educational placement and school adjustment of children with cochlear implants between China and Czech Republic

To investigate and compare educational placement and school adjustment of children with cochlear implants between China and Czech Republic for more appropriate educational placement, and facilitating school adjustment. This comparative study of 43 children with cochlear implants between Czech and China was conducted through questionnaire survey and in-depth interview followed by field observation. Among a continuum of educational placement including regular class, resource room, deaf school, institution and home stay, research findings suggest participant children generally adapt to the placement based on three indicators: environmental conditions, interpersonal relationship and academic achievement. Statistically significant difference exists in overall school adjustment of children between the groups. Child characteristics, family related and placement related factors influence on both of educational placement and school adjustment. Educational support provided in regular school is inadequate. Reported by both groups that communication barrier and poor academic performance are main reasons for children's transition from regular class to deaf school.

Framing transitions in a positive light

It is only by grasping the context of children's transitions that we can begin to understand how they might experience changes in their life. To support the child, practitioners must prioritise on communication while also being responsive to what they may be unable to express.

Lifetime Achievement and Quality of Life in Adult Survivors of Pediatric Heart Transplant

Purpose As survival in pediatric heart transplant (HTx) improves, an increasing proportion of children receiving HTx are entering adulthood. Many quality of life (QOL) studies have looked at adult HTx patients, but only a few have looked at the population who received a HTx as a child. It is important to examine how this chronic illness affects children's development and eventual transition to adulthood, so that we may improve counseling of future patients. Methods Patients who received a HTx with the pediatric program at Columbia University Medical Center from 1984 through August 1, 2007, who are now > 18 years old and have survived over 10 years since HTx were asked to complete 2 surveys: (1) CHONY Pediatric Heart Transplant Life Achievement Survey, which examines marital and employment status, education level, personal income, health insurance status, and living environment, and (2) Quality of Life Index (QLI) by Ferrans and Powers, which scores life satisfaction from 0 (least satisfied) to 1 (most satisfied) as an overall score, and in 4 distinct domains (health/function, socioeconomic, psych/spiritual, and family). Results The Life Achievement Survey was completed by 54 patients (median age 8 years at transplant and 25 years at time of survey, 44% female, 26% transplanted for congenital heart disease). Fifteen patients have either been married (1 divorced) or part of an unmarried couple, and 7 have children (6 biological including 1 female). Thirty-seven patients are either employed or a student, and 16 earn over $25,000 annually. Almost a third of patients (n=16) live independently, while 5 are homeowners. Fifty patients completed the QLI and reported a mean overall QLI 0.76±0.14. The scores in the health/function, socioeconomic, psych/spiritual, and family domains were 0.77, 0.74, 0.74, and 0.8, respectively. Conclusion Our cohort of adult survivors of pediatric HTx have achieved many standard adult milestones such as receiving an education, maintaining relationships, being employed, and living independently. Additionally, they report a suitable QOL, especially in the health/function and family domains.

"My Child May Be Ready, but I Am Not": Parents' Experiences of Their Children's Transition to Inclusive Fitness Settings.

Parents play an essential role in the transition from separate physical activity programs to inclusive settings for their children. The purpose of this study was to explore experiences of parents as they anticipate and prepare for their children experiencing disability to transition, understand strategies used to address transition, and gain insights into the supports important to families during transition. Using an interpretative phenomenological analysis research approach, semistructured one-on-one interviews were conducted with 8 parents whose children were undergoing the transition from separate to inclusive community fitness contexts. Four themes described the experiences of parents as they anticipated, prepared for, and supported their child to transition: My child may be ready, but I am not; fear of outside judgment; playing by their rules; and reframing our thinking. Using Schlossberg's model, the tensions parents faced as they negotiated new roles, relationships, routines, and assumptions as they moved through the transition process were uncovered. The parents experienced transition alongside their children, providing insights for fitness and health-promotion professionals. Without preparation for transition, apprehensions and hesitancy may postpone or prevent their children's transition to community programs.

The Precocious Period: The Impact of Early Menarche on Schooling in India

This paper studies the impact of early onset of menstruation on school enrollment in India, where the onset of menstruation (menarche) has immense socio-cultural importance, and menarche marks a child's transition into womanhood. Estimates based on a difference-in-differences model show that starting menses before age twelve decreases school enrollment by 13\%. While understanding the role of menarche, a universal biological event for all women, in determining education is a critical end in itself, it also has implications for the effect of early nutrition on girls' well-being. Better-nourished girls typically reach menarche earlier, and if menarche impedes schooling, their gains due to better nutrition may be undercut. The effect of menarche on school enrollment is stronger if girls live in communities where the perceived safety among children is low or if they belong to social groups with restrictive gender norms. Conversely, dropout rates are lower in communities with higher expected wages for female-dominated professions. Jointly, these findings suggest that the interaction between cultural norms and the local economic opportunities shapes female education decisions in response to menses.