Developmental Competencies Research Articles

Health care transition for adolescents with special healthcare needs: Where is nursing?

The population of adolescents with special healthcare needs (ASHCN) surviving into adulthood has increased dramatically over the past two decades. Approximately, nine of every 10 children diagnosed with a chronic condition are expected to reach adulthood. Experts estimate nearly 750,000 ASHCN enter into adulthood each year. Advances in medical treatments, new technologies and scientific discoveries have all contributed to the increases in ASHCN life expectancies. As a result, new demands for services have emerged to address their clear needs for long-term services and supports. Foremost among the ASHCN service needs are healthcare transition services. Healthcare transition is recognized as a needed area of practice to facilitate ASHCN transfer of care from pediatric to adult healthcare and to support the acquisition of the developmental competencies needed to successfully transition to adulthood. Yet, few evidence-based and exemplary models of care exist. Healthcare transition research is in the early stages of development. The medical community has provided the leadership with the development of healthcare transition policy, practice, and research. As a result, policymaking, practice issues, and research have a prominent medically related focus. In contrast, the influence of nursing as it pertains to these areas of professional practice is limited. Opportunities exist for pediatric and child health nursing leaders to provide direction for greater involvement in this emerging and growing field of specialty practice.

Longitudinal Effects of Parental Bereavement on Adolescent Developmental Competence

The aim of this study is to assess the impact of sudden parental bereavement on subsequent attainment of developmental competencies. This longitudinal study reports on 126 youth bereaved by sudden parental death (suicide, accident, or natural death) and 116 demographically similar nonbereaved controls assessed at 9, 21, 33, and 62 months after parental death, and at comparable times in controls. Half were female and 84.7% Caucasian. Youths and care-giving parents were assessed on psychiatric disorders, psychological characteristics, and contextual variables antecedent and subsequent to bereavement. At Month 62, at which time youth on average aged 18.4 years (SD = 3.1), participants were assessed on developmental competence using an adaptation of the Status Questionnaire, peer attachment using the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment, and educational aspirations using the Future Expectations Scale. The bereaved and nonbereaved groups were compared using univariate and multivariate statistics, including path analyses. On univariate analyses, bereaved youth had more difficulties at work, less well-elaborated plans for career development, lower peer attachment, and diminished educational aspirations. The effects of bereavement were most commonly mediated via its effects on offspring and caregiver functioning and family climate, even after adjusting for the impact of predeath characteristics. Outcomes were unrelated to age at the time of parental death, gender of the deceased parent, or cause of death. Children who lost a parent to sudden death evidenced lower competence in work, peer relations, career planning, and educational aspirations, primarily mediated by the impact of bereavement on child and parental functioning and on family climate.

Transforming Primary Care Training—Patient-Centered Medical Home Entrustable Professional Activities for Internal Medicine Residents

The U.S. faces a critical gap between residency training and clinical practice that affects the recruitment and preparation of internal medicine residents for primary care careers. The patient-centered medical home (PCMH) represents a new clinical microsystem that is being widely promoted and implemented to improve access, quality, and sustainability in primary care practice. We address two key questions regarding the training of internal medicine residents for practice in PCMHs. First, what are the educational implications of practice transformations to primary care home models? Second, what must we do differently to prepare internal medicine residents for their futures in PCMHs? The 2011 Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) PCMH Education Summit established seven work groups to address the following topics: resident workplace competencies, teamwork, continuity of care, assessment, faculty development, 'medical home builder' tools, and policy. The output from the competency work group was foundational for the work of other groups. The work group considered several educational frameworks, including developmental milestones, competencies, and entrustable professional activities (EPAs). The competency work group defined 25 internal medicine resident PCMH EPAs. The 2011 National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) PCMH standards served as an organizing framework for EPAs. The list of PCMH EPAs has the potential to begin to transform the education of internal medicine residents for practice and leadership in the PCMH. It will guide curriculum development, learner assessment, and clinical practice redesign for academic health centers.

Large-scale chromatin morpho-functional changes during mammalian oocyte growth and differentiation

Mammalian oocyte development is characterized by impressive changes in chromatin structure and function within the germinal vesicle (GV). These changes are crucial to confer the oocyte with meiotic and developmental competencies. In cow, oocytes collected from early and middle antral follicles present four patterns of chromatin configuration, from GV0 to GV3, and its progressive condensation has been related to the achievement of developmental potential. During oogenesis, follicular cells are essential for the acquisition of meiotic and developmental competencies and communicate with the oocyte by paracrine and gap junction mediated mechanisms. We recently analyzed the role of gap junction communications (GJC) on chromatin remodeling process during the specific phase of folliculogenesis that coincides with the transcriptional silencing and sequential acquisition of meiotic and developmental capabilities. Our studies demonstrated that GJC between germinal and somatic compartments plays a fundamental role in the regulation of chromatin remodeling and transcription activities during the final oocyte differentiation, throughout cAMP dependent mechanism(s).

The social ecology of maternal infant care in socially and economically marginalized community in southern Israel

This study aims to better understand the social ecology of infant care (IC) as experienced and perceived by mothers living in a deprived Arab Bedouin community in Israel, where children's health indicators are poor. We used the integrative model of García Coll et al. (García Coll C, Lamberty G, Jenkins R et al. An integrative model for the study of developmental competencies in minority children. Child Dev 1996; 67: 1891-914) and constructs of the Health Beliefs Model as a study framework for conducting focus groups with 106 mothers in 2007. Results show that mothers believe IC and infant well-being are high priorities. However, distal barriers, including land disputes, a transition from herding to low-paid labor and lifestyle changes have interacted with proximal barriers in Bedouin families, including poor living conditions, poverty and weakened familial relations to inhibit adequate IC practices. Specifically, distal and proximal barriers affect IC directly (e.g. lack of nearby clinics) or indirectly (mothers' self-efficacies) to limit mothers' choices and control over IC, thereby posing threats to infant health. Our findings demonstrate the importance of understanding the complexity of social context in shaping IC among marginalized minority mothers and suggest new ground for addressing proximal and distal barriers through policy interventions. Without contending with both, interventions to strengthen mothers' self-efficacy will have limited success in improving the environment of IC and, consequently, infant health.

Home-Based Head Start and Family Involvement: An Exploratory Study of the Associations Among Home Visiting Frequency and Family Involvement Dimensions

Since 1965, Head Start has stood as a model, two-generational program for promoting developmental competencies among children living in socioeconomic disadvantage for the US and international communities. The cornerstone of Head Start is the promotion of caregivers’ involvement in their young children’s development and early learning. In accomplishing this ambitious goal, Head Start operates from a variety of programming options, one of which is home-based. The home-based Head Start program can occur alone or be combined with a classroom-based program. Relative to its classroom-based counterpart, the home-based program has received little empirical attention. To this end, this study explores the association of home visiting frequency to caregiver involvement as it occurs naturally in a combined Head Start program serving families in small urban communities. The interrelationships of child and family demographics to caregiver involvement as well as participation in the home-based program were also examined. Consistent with prior studies, two-parent families reported greater involvement in the children’s preschool education than other family structures. Additionally, home visiting frequency was higher for Hispanic families relative to African American and Caucasian families. Notably, home visiting frequency did not correspond with families’ report of their involvement with their child at home or preschool or their communication with classroom teachers. Although the exploratory nature of this study does not yield conclusions, it does call attention to the need to empirically investigate the development and integration of evidence-based caregiver involvement interventions in the home-based Head Start program.

Arabidopsis ASYMMETRIC LEAVES2 protein required for leaf morphogenesis consistently forms speckles during mitosis of tobacco BY-2 cells via signals in its specific sequence

Leaf primordia with high division and developmental competencies are generated around the periphery of stem cells at the shoot apex. Arabidopsis ASYMMETRIC-LEAVES2 (AS2) protein plays a key role in the regulation of many genes responsible for flat symmetric leaf formation. The AS2 gene, expressed in leaf primordia, encodes a plant-specific nuclear protein containing an AS2/LOB domain with cysteine repeats (C-motif). AS2 proteins are present in speckles in and around the nucleoli, and in the nucleoplasm of some leaf epidermal cells. We used the tobacco cultured cell line BY-2 expressing the AS2-fused yellow fluorescent protein to examine subnuclear localization of AS2 in dividing cells. AS2 mainly localized to speckles (designated AS2 bodies) in cells undergoing mitosis and distributed in a pairwise manner during the separation of sets of daughter chromosomes. Few interphase cells contained AS2 bodies. Deletion analyses showed that a short stretch of the AS2 amino-terminal sequence and the C-motif play negative and positive roles, respectively, in localizing AS2 to the bodies. These results suggest that AS2 bodies function to properly distribute AS2 to daughter cells during cell division in leaf primordia; and this process is controlled at least partially by signals encoded by the AS2 sequence itself.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10265-012-0479-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Higher rates of behavioural and emotional problems at preschool age in children born moderately preterm

ObjectiveTo compare preschool children born moderately preterm (MP; 32–35 weeks' gestation) and children born at term (38–41 weeks' gestation) regarding the occurrence of behavioural and emotional problems, overall, for separate...

Intact cumulus cells have beneficial effects to oocytes undergoing vitrification cryopreservation

Our purpose is to determine whether cumulus cells enclosed around the oocyte during vitrification process have any beneficial effects on oocyte metabolism and developmental competencies. Basic animal study to evaluate developmental competencies of MII oocyte after cryopreservation with or without cumulus cells. We superovulated the mice with PMSG and HCG, then collected MII oocytes 14 hours after HCG injection. The collected oocytes were divided into vitrification-denuded oocyte (V-DO) group, vitrification-cumulus oocyte complex (V-COC) group, and control group. Each group included 50 oocytes for study. We used 15% dimethyl sulfoxmide plus 15% ethylene glycol as cryoprotectant and followed the standard vitrification procedures. The vitrified oocytes were stored in liquid nitrogen for at least 24 hours before warming, then cultured in 37OC, 5% CO2 incubator for 2 hours for recovering. We compared oocyte survival rates, Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) contents, piezo-intracyplasmic sperm injection (piezo-ICSI) fertilization rates, and blastocyst formation rates among all three groups. Our results showed that both V-DO and V-COC groups have comparable oocyte survival rates after cryopreservation. Piezo-ICSI fertilization rates had no significant differences among V-DO and V-COC group, however, fertilization rates in both vitrification groups were lower than the rate in control group. COC group had higher ATP content and blastocyst formation rate as compared to the results from DO group.Table 1Comparison.GroupMIISurvivalATP Content (pmole/oocyte)FertilizationBlastocystV-DO5046 (92.0%)0.082 +/- 0.01*42 (91.3%)26 (61.9%)∗A significant difference: P less than 0.05.V-COC5047 (94.0%)0.110 +/- 0.0143 (91.5%)32 (74.4%)Control500.158 +/- 0.0147 (94.0%)39 (83.0%)* A significant difference: P less than 0.05. Open table in a new tab We conclude that oocytes with intact cumulus cells have better intracellular energy profiles and developmental competencies when undergoes vitritrification/warming procedures as compared with denuded oocytes.

The Psychological Measurement of Childhood Sexual Development in Western Societies: Methodological Challenges

Children can display sexual behavior or have sexual experiences. Different psychological research methods are available for studying these kinds of behaviors and feelings, such as interviewing or observing children (direct methods), asking adolescents or adults to retrospectively report their childhood memories or using intermediaries to observe children (indirect methods). Each of these methods has its own advantages and limitations. Based on a review of the literature, this work answers three questions: (a) What research methods are generally used to study childhood sexual development? (b) What insight do these methods give into the sexual behaviors or feelings of children? and (c) What are the advantages and limitations of each of these research methods in this research domain? Almost all studies on childhood sexual behavior and feelings use either observational or retrospective methods. In both types of studies, only behavior that is considered to be sexual from an adult perspective is reported. To gain insight into the child's perspective, one has to rely on methods other than observations or retrospective research, such as interviews with children that match their developmental limitations and competencies.

Methylation status in the intragenic differentially methylated region of the IGF2 locus in Bos taurus indicus oocytes with different developmental competencies

Oocyte quality is one of the most important aspects of in vitro embryo development. Extensive epigenetic programming must occur during oocyte growth and maturation. A specific DNA methylation pattern of the imprinted genes must be established on differentially methylated regions (DMR). The insulin-like growth factor 2 (IGF2) gene is an important growth factor, and it is imprinted in several mammalian species. The aim of this study was to evaluate the methylation pattern on the DMR of the last exon of IGF2 in immature and mature bovine oocytes with different developmental competencies. Mature oocytes from large follicles were less methylated (28.93%) than immature oocytes from large follicles (77.38% P = 0.002), and there was also a tendency towards lower methylation in mature oocytes from large follicles (28.93%) compared with mature oocytes from small follicles (52.58% P = 0.07). Immature oocytes from small and large follicles showed 53.85% (7/13) and 91.66% (11/12) hypermethylated sequences, respectively, whereas mature oocytes from small and large follicles showed 61.11% (11/18) and 40% (4/10), respectively. The hypomethylation pattern in mature oocytes from large follicles may be related to the higher competence of these oocytes. Our results suggest that the methylation pattern in this DMR may be a useful parameter to investigate as a molecular marker for oocyte competence in cattle and as a model for studies in other species.

The early developmental competencies and school readiness of low-income, immigrant children: Influences of generation, race/ethnicity, and national origins

Abstract Though much valuable research has been conducted on the academic achievement of school-age immigrant youth, less is known about the early developmental competencies of immigrant children during the preschool years. This study describes the school readiness of 2194 low-income children receiving subsidies to attend child care with emphasis on how nativity status (generation), race/ethnicity, and national origins might be related to children's preparedness for kindergarten. The Learning Accomplishment Profile–Diagnostic (LAP-D) was used to measure cognitive and language skills, while teacher-report on the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA) measured socio-emotional protective factors and behavior concerns. Results demonstrate that variation does exist in school readiness according to nativity-based factors. First- and second-generation immigrants lagged behind children in non-immigrant families in cognitive and language skills but excelled by comparison in socio-emotional skills and behavior. In many cases, first-generation immigrant children showed more advanced development than second-generation immigrant children, providing some evidence in the early years for an immigrant advantage. The present study raises awareness regarding some of the strengths immigrant children demonstrate from a very young age—strengths that can be built upon to encourage their later success and academic achievement.

Enriching Children, Enriching the Nation: Public Investment in High-Quality Prekindergarten

Enriching Children, Enriching the Nation: Public Investment in High-Quality Prekindergarten by Robert G. Lynch, PhD, Washington DC, Economic Policy Institute, 2007, 134 pp, Paperback, $14.95. Despite gaps in population-based comprehensive interventions for children living in poverty, the cumulative evidence indicates that early intervention, Head Start, and quality early childhood experiences significantly contribute to children’s readiness for school, educational success, social competencies, and adult outcomes.1–4 Most recently, economists have examined how investments in young children promote developmental and social-emotional competencies. In Enriching Children, Enriching the Nation, Robert Lynch reviews model studies and gives economically based recommendations for publicly funded high-quality prekindergarten programs. His short monograph reviews four model prekindergarten programs and uses cost-benefit analysis to examine the impact of targeted versus universal prekindergarten programs. The Introduction describes compelling evidence for the necessity of high-quality, publicly funded early childhood development programs in the US. Lynch provides an analysis of the shortcomings of the US system in implementing effective health and educational policies. He demonstrates that how missed opportunities cascade into educational underachievement and adverse health outcomes. He describes the significant impact that high-quality early childhood programs have on school preparedness, graduation rates, special education requirements, teenage pregnancy, and incarceration. Chapter 1 describes characteristics of high-quality prekindergarten programs by analyzing four model programs: the Perry Preschool Project in Michigan, the Abecedarian Early Childhood Intervention in North Carolina, Head Start, and the Chicago Parent-Child Centers. Lynch places specific emphasis on the Chicago Parent-Child Center program, with recent outcomes to age 24 in which long-term benefits include positive outcomes to individuals, as well as high returns on public investments.4 The subsequent chapters delve into a detailed analysis of the long-term effects of either targeted or universal high-quality prekindergarten programs on government, crime, and the economy. Lynch demonstrates that a targeted program serving the poorest 25% of 3 and 4 year olds would have an extremely high cost-benefit ratio. It would be less expensive to implement, take fewer years to show a net return, and might lower the achievement gap between rich and poor. A universal program for all children, regardless of income, would take longer to have a positive return, but would have larger net benefits in the long-term because of a broader impact on a larger number of children. Lynch asserts that this kind of program would be likely to have greater public support and would benefit both children at highest risk and those without risk. Lynch’s analyses include comprehensive tables and charts that specifically illustrate state-specific costs and benefits of such programs as well as net economic and crime benefits over time. While written from the perspective of an economist, Enriching Children, Enriching the Nation is a succinct and readable review of critically important research. Though at times repetitive and data-laden, Lynch provides compelling evidence for public policy changes that have potential to significantly shape child and family outcomes in the US. This monograph is complimentary to important textbooks of Guralnick,5 Shonkoff and Meisels,6 and Gross et al7 as well as recent writings by Nobel laureate economist James Heckman8 and should be required reading of all child health professionals. Lynch asserts on economic grounds that investments in high-quality prekindergarten programs would powerfully impact all generations and all children regardless of socioeconomic status by improving educational achievement, increasing worker competitiveness, and decreasing adolescent and adult crime rates. Lynch drives home the lesson that currently, as a country, we have not ensured that all children will enter kindergarten ready to learn and that high-quality early childhood intervention is essential to address if we wish to reverse this condition. Sarah Dilley, MS Michael E. Msall, MD Kennedy Research Center on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities University of Chicago Comer and La Rabida Children’s Hospitals Chicago, IL

Connections Through Clubs: Collaboration and Coordination of a Schoolwide Program

The Through program provides all students with the opportunity to participate in a small-group extracurricular activity and mentoring experience led by school faculty, staff, and community members during the school day throughout the academic year. This schoolwide program was developed in response to identified school needs and as a means to facilitate a strengths-enhancing school environment and to promote the developmental competencies of all students, both of which have been linked to academic and personal success. The purpose of this article is to describe the inception, implementation, and preliminary evaluation of the Connections Through Clubs program. In addition, the school counselor's collaboration, coordination, and advocacy efforts to implement this program are highlighted.

Connections through Clubs: Collaboration and Coordination of a Schoolwide Program

The “Connections Through Clubs” program provides all students with the opportunity to participate in a small-group extracurricular activity and mentoring experience led by school faculty, staff, and community members during the school day throughout the academic year. This schoolwide program was developed in response to identified school needs and as a means to facilitate a strengths-enhancing school environment and to promote the developmental competencies of all students, both of which have been linked to academic and personal success. The purpose of this article is to describe the inception, implementation, and preliminary evaluation of the Connections Through Clubs program. In addition, the school counselor's collaboration, coordination, and advocacy efforts to implement this program are highlighted.

Developmental competence of gametes reconstructed by germinal vesicle transplantation from fresh and cryopreserved bovine oocytes

To evaluate the use of fresh or frozen bovine oocytes as an animal model for reconstructing artificial gametes by germinal vesicle transplantation (GVT), to study nucleocytoplasmic interaction and define clinical procedures for ooplasm donation in humans. Prospective experimental study. University-based experimental laboratory. Bovine oocytes from slaughterhouse ovaries. A total of 446 gametes were reconstructed from fresh immature oocytes; nuclear and cytoplasmic competencies were analyzed through the assessment of meiotic progression and cytoskeleton reorganization; embryonic developmental capability was evaluated after parthenogenetic activation of metaphase II (MII) reconstructed oocytes. Furthermore, the distribution of mitochondria in karyoplast and cytoplast in grafted oocytes was studied. Finally, meiotic and developmental competencies were determined in 199 gametes reconstructed from vitrified immature oocytes. Maturational and developmental rate of reconstructed oocytes, cytoskeleton organization, and mitochondrial distribution. Gametes reconstructed from either fresh or cryopreserved immature oocytes showed similar meiotic competence (41.6% vs. 37.7%, respectively). All reconstituted oocytes that reached MII displayed a normal distribution of cytoskeletal elements. Embryonic developmental capability was higher in oocytes derived from fresh than from cryopreserved gametes (30.8% vs. 8.1%, respectively). Finally, oocyte centrifugation was effective in obtaining karyoplasts with <5% of mitochondria. Cows can provide a suitable organism model to develop GVT technique in both research and clinical settings as well as in fertility preservation programs.

CHILDREN IN IMMIGRANT FAMILIES: LOOKING TO AMERICA’S FUTURE

Children in immigrant families account for nearly one-in-four children in the U.S. They are the fastest growing population of children, and they are leading the nation’s racial and ethnic transformation. As a consequence, baby-boomers will depend heavily for economic support during retirement on race-ethnic minorities, many of whom grew up in immigrant families. Because the current circumstances and future prospects of children in immigrant families are important not only to these children themselves, but to all Americans, this report uses data from Census 2000 to portray the lives of children with immigrant parents and highlights policy and program initiatives that will foster the future success of these children. This report begins by discussing the diverse origins and destinations of children in immigrant families. It then highlights substantial evidence that children in immigrant families have deep roots in the U.S. refl ected in their own citizenship, as well as their parents’ citizenship and length of residence in this country, their own and their parents’ English fl uency, and their family commitment to homeownership. Based on a new alternative to the offi cial poverty measure, the report continues by discussing economic challenges confronted by many immigrant families. It also portrays additional immigrant strengths and challenges associated with family composition, parental education and employment, and access for children of immigrants to early education and the later years of schooling. Looking toward fostering a successful future for these children, the report identifi es promising policy and programmatic initiatives for language and literacy training, and for assuring access to education, health, and other essential services, and it identifi es immigrant-related questions that should be asked in all research studies involving children and families.

Reconsidering Teamwork

Although developing “teamwork” is commonly discussed as a goal for youth work, the meaning of teamwork is rarely articulated. Drawing from field research with programs for children and youth in a Chicago public housing community and with a community of Angolan refugee camps, this article demonstrates that teamwork has multiple potential meanings. The popular meaning, regularly invoked in the media, sports, and business settings and often assumed in youth development settings, focuses on efficient productivity. In the two local communities considered here, however, teamwork often meant prioritizing loyal affiliations or hierarchical social order above and beyond efficient productivity. The author concludes that reflective considerations of developmental competencies, such as teamwork, are important for respecting diverse models of positive youth development.

LARGE-SCALE CHROMATIN STRUCTURE AND TRANSCRIPTIONAL ACTIVITY DURING FINAL DIFFERENTIATION OF BOVINE OOCYTE

The oocyte genome is subject to several levels of regulation, and functional differentiation of large-scale chromatin structure provides an important epigenetic mechanism for the developmental control of global gene expression. Dynamic changes in chromatin structure and function occur during oocyte growth in several mammalian species. In cow, we recently characterized the morphological transitions in the germinal vesicle (GV) during final stages of oogenesys in which chromatin acquires different configurations. In particular, we identified four discrete stages of GV (from GV0 to GV3), characterized by an increase of chromatin condensation, which was related to the sequential achievement of meiotic and embryonic developmental competencies. However, in bovine species, little is known concerning the unique molecular mechanisms involved in the regulation of large-scale chromatin structure and its impact on global transcription and the expression of specific genes involved in the later aspect of oocyte differentiation as well as in the control of the subsequent embryogenesis. The aim of the present study was to analyze the total transcriptional activity and the expression of a panel of genes which could be essential for the developmental competence in bovine oocytes, collected from early and middle antral follicles and sorted on the basis of their chromatin configuration. Global transcriptional activity was analyzed by H3-Uridine incorporation and subsequent autoradiography on semithin Epon sections, while gene expression was examined by RT-PCR with specific primers designed on the basis of sequence database available. In particular, we investigated on the expression pattern of DNA methyl transferase-1, which is involved in the maintenance of methylation pattern of imprinted genes after fertilization, nucleoplasmin-1, nucleoplasmin-2 and nucleoplasmin-3, which are involved in the organization of the nuclear compartment and zygotic arrest-1 that plays an important role after fertilization during the embryonic genome activation. The results indicate that an increase in chromatin condensation is related to global transcriptional silencing in bovine oocyte. In fact, while oocytes with GV0 configuration exhibited high level of transcription, GV1 and GV2 stages showed a remarkable decrease of transcription and the acquisition of GV3 configuration was associated with global repression of transcriptional activity. The gene expression analysis revealed that all the transcripts were present in the different GV categories, regardless of the chromatin configuration, suggesting the potential action of additional levels of gene regulation. Ongoing semi-quantitative analysis aim at clarifying the regulation of gene expression during the chromatin remodeling process and may provide a better understanding of the mechanisms involved in multiple and hierarchical large-scale chromatin modifications that regulate global transcription before the onset of meiosis. (Work supported by MIUR PRIN 2005Work supported by MIUR PRIN 2005073071-003 and “L'Oreal Italy For Women in Science”) (poster)

DAP in the ’hood: Perceptions of child care practices by African American child care directors caring for children of color

This paper presents a qualitative analysis concerning child care practices by six African American directors of subsidized child care centers located in a low-income, racial ethnic minority area of Los Angeles, California. These programs are traditionally African American programs that experienced an influx of Latino immigrant enrollment. Using the integrative framework for children of color proposed by Garcia Coll et al. [Garcia Coll, C., Crinic, K., Lamberty, G., Wasik, B., Jenkins, R., Garcia Vazquez, H., et al. (1996). An integrative model for the study of developmental competencies in minority children. Child Development, 67, 1891–1914], which places racial ethnicity in the center, we examined how these directors integrated professional standards of practice (developmentally appropriate practice) with community understandings of the role of preschool/child care in this community; the function of social stratification on their articulated practices; and their understanding as to how they include the Latino immigrant families. We discovered patterns that reflect a community-interpreted understanding of developmentally appropriate practice.