Head Start Research Articles

Promoting Motor Skill Development and Social-Emotional Learning among Preschoolers in Physical Education

The preschool years are essential for developing physically active lifestyles and social-emotional well-being. This article introduces the PASS (Physical Activity and Social Skills) physical education program, which identifies specific ways to develop fundamental motor skills, provide physical activity opportunities, and promote social-emotional learning among preschoolers. The program aims to meet the guidelines of SHAPE America’s Active Start (2020) and Head Start’s Program (i.e., perceptual, motor, and physical development and social and emotional development). Teachers must be intentional with the content they prioritize in their curriculum, and the PASS Program activities can be readily used to provide children with quality and meaningful learning opportunities.

The Relationship of Parent Support and Child Emotional Regulation to School Readiness.

Using data from the longitudinal Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project that were obtained when children were 14 through 60 months old, this study aims to explore the transactional effects between parent supportiveness and child emotion regulations skills. An autoregressive model with cross-lagged paths was utilized to examine the developmental trajectories of parent supportiveness and child emotion regulation, the directions of transactional relationships between them, and the transactional effects on the prediction of child cognitive school readiness. Significant autoregressive effects were found in both parent supportiveness and child emotion regulation trajectories. Significant concurrent and longitudinal transactional effects between these two processes were documented. The effects of child emotion regulation, parent supportiveness, and their transactional effects significantly predicted cognitive school readiness. This study exemplifies the use of archival longitudinal data to move beyond current unidirectional empirical understandings of child early psychosocial development toward more integrated perspectives. Equally important, the results provide critical insights for the timing of interventions as well as the involvement of parents in early intervention programs that early childhood educators and family services providers can benefit from.

Pre-K and Kindergarten Teacher Perception of School Readiness During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a mandatory shift from in-person instruction to online learning for many young children. Teachers needed to adjust to virtual teaching, children were isolated from their peers, and parents played a bigger role in learning during the pandemic. In 2021, the shift back to in-person learning occurred. Research has already shown the negative influence COVID-19 had on students' mental health; however, limited research has examined the impact of the pandemic on school readiness. In this study, using the Head Start domains of school readiness, 154 Kindergarten and Pre-K teachers compared current student school readiness to the readiness of their students prior to the pandemic. Results showed that nearly 80% of teachers felt that overall student functioning was Worse or Much Worse than before the pandemic; no teachers reported functioning was overall much better. Teachers most frequently identified the Ready to Learn and Social-Emotional Development domains as the areas of greatest struggle for their students; Physical Development was the least frequently reported. Chi-square tests were used to examine the association between teacher demographics and overall school readiness and domain of greatest struggle; no significant relationships were found. Future directions and limitations of these results are discussed.

Child Weight Status: The Role of Feeding Styles and Highly Motivated Eating in Children

Although parental feeding plays an important role in child eating and weight status, high food motivation among children may also be a factor shaping how feeding impacts child weight. This study explored whether individual differences in preschool children's food motivation interacted with mothers' feeding styles in predicting subsequent child weight status. Participants included 129 Hispanic Head Start mother/child dyads. Data were collected at ages 4-5 years (Time 1) and 7-9 (Time 3). Staff measured heights/weights and observed children in an eating in the absence of hunger task. Mothers reported on feeding styles/practices and children's eating behaviors. A principal components analysis derived a measure of highly motivated eating in children. Multiple regressions predicted Time 3 child BMI z-scores. Time 3 BMI z-scores were positively predicted by authoritative and indulgent feeding styles and negatively predicted by monitoring. Since feeding style interacted with highly motivated eating, separate regressions were run for high and low food motivation in children. Unexpectedly, results showed that authoritative feeding positively predicted Time 3 child BMI z-scores only for children showing low levels of food motivation. Characterizing differential parental feeding and child eating phenotypes may assist in tailoring childhood obesity prevention programs for the target populations.

Online Grocery Shopping and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Electronic Benefit Transfer Card (EBT): Perceptions of Head Start Caregivers

ABSTRACT The objective of this study was to explore perceptions of online grocery shopping and the online United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Electronic Benefit Transfer card (EBT) program among Head Start caregivers. Three focus groups were conducted between December 2019 and January 2020. Most participants hadn’t tried online grocery shopping. Concerns included others choosing perishables, receiving wrong items, and inappropriate substitutes. Perceived benefits included saving time, preventing impulse buys, and eating healthier. Results have broad applicability in the current COVID-19 pandemic where online grocery shopping and the online SNAP EBT program have rapidly expanded across the United States.

LC-MS/MS-Based Proteomics Approach for the Identification of Candidate Serum Biomarkers in Patients with Narcolepsy Type 1.

Narcolepsy type 1 (NT1) is the most common type of narcolepsy known to be caused by the loss of specific neurons responsible for producing peptide neurotransmitters (orexins/hypocretins), resulting in a sleep-wake cycle disorder. It is characterized by its association with cataplexy and abnormalities in rapid eye movement. To date, no cure has been established for this life-threatening condition. Misdiagnosis of NT1 is also quite common, although it is not exceedingly rare. Therefore, successfully identifying candidate serum biomarkers for NT1 would be a head start for accurate diagnosis and development of therapeutics for this disorder. This study aims to identify such potential serum biomarkers. A depletion protocol was employed for 27 human serum samples (16 NT1 and 11 healthy controls), followed by applying LC-MS/MS bottom-up proteomics analysis, then LC-PRM-MS for validation. The comparison of the proteome profiles of the low-abundant proteins in the samples was then investigated based on age, sex, sample groups, and the presence of the Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) DQB1*0602 allele. The results were tracked to gene expression studies as well as system biology to identify key proteins and understand their relationship in the pathogenesis of NT1. Our results revealed 36 proteins significantly and differentially expressed. Among the impaired pathways and bioprocesses, the complement activation pathway is impaired by six of the differentially expressed proteins (DEPs). They are coded by the genes C2, CFB, C5, C1R, C1S, and MASP1, while 11 DEPs are involved in Acute Phase Response Signaling (APRS), which are coded by the genes FN1, AMBP, APOH, CFB, CP, ITIH2, C5, C2, F2, C1, and ITIH4. The combined AUCs of the downregulated and upregulated DEPs are 0.95 and 0.76, respectively. Overall, this study reveals potential serum-protein biomarkers of NT1 and explains the possible correlation between the biomarkers and pathophysiological effects, as well as important biochemical pathways involved in NT1.

The effects of a two-generation English as a second language (ESL) intervention on immigrant parents and children in Head Start

We present results of a randomized control trial of a two-generation English as a Second Language (ESL) program in which all families participated in Head Start while treatment parents also enrolled in a high dosage, family-focused ESL curriculum with supportive services. Examining 197 parent-child dyads among Spanish- (89%) and Zomi-speaking (11%) immigrant families, we found improvements in participant parents’ English reading skills and engagement with their child’s teacher after one year. Parents with low levels of English proficiency (57%) at program start reported more positive parenting skills and lower levels of psychological distress whereas parents with more advanced English proficiency (43%) reported more parenting stress and higher levels of psychological distress. We did not find main effects on children’s language and cognitive skills. We conclude by discussing policy implications of a two-generation approach for immigrant families.

A Study on the Impact of Media on Gender Neutrality and Domestic Violence and the Legal Awareness

This paper is an attempt to understand the status and perception of domestic violence with regards to the steep increase in the number of complaints received by the National Commission for Women (NCW) from 2019 which was the head start of lockdown. Latest report shows a drastic increase in the number of domestic violence in general especially during complete lockdown. This paper attempts to uncover the perception of people on the idea of what is domestic violence and gender equality and the legal awareness on the same. In India, with its diverse population, the lack of awareness, social pressure, indifference in ideas, and insufficient knowledge about gender equality–attitude–related to help-seeking lead to underreporting and negligence of domestic violence, which can propagate the cycle during the on-going crisis. This paper also substantiates the role of media exposure on awareness in the attitude of people towards identifying gender based domestic violence, and the literacy on legal consciousness through qualitative and quantitative methods such as a wide array survey and structured interviews.

Exploring the predictors of enrollment and kindergarten entry skills of Spanish-speaking dual language learners in a mixed-delivery system of public preschool

Dual language learners (DLLs) – young children learning and developing in multiple languages – make up nearly-one-third of the population of public preschool attendees in the U.S. Yet despite the large number of DLLs attending the nation’s largest public preschool programs – Head Start and state-funded public pre-k – little is known about DLL families’ patterns of selection into each program, nor about the relative benefits of each program for DLLs’ early learning. The present study uses contemporary data from a mixed-delivery system of public preschool in Tulsa, Oklahoma to examine predictors of attending Head Start or Tulsa Public Schools (TPS) pre-k, as well as whether program type is associated with differences in DLLs’ kindergarten entry skills. Among DLLs from economically-disadvantaged families, we find some limited differences between DLLs who selected into TPS public pre-k versus Head Start: TPS public pre-k attenders were more likely to have married mothers, parents who chose a preschool program based on logistical opportunities/constraints rather than programmatic preferences, and greater attention/impulse control skills at the start of preschool than were Head Start attenders. We then examined the association between program type and children’s academic and self-regulation skills at kindergarten entry. Controlling for predictors of differential enrollment and children’s earlier skills, we find no differences in kindergarten skills across students who attended Head Start and TPS public pre-k, suggesting both programs prepare DLLs equally well for school success.

COLLTS: A Promising Interactive Read-Aloud Intervention for Three-Year-Old Dual-Language Learners

AbstractThe goal of this pilot study was to test a bilingual interactive read-aloud intervention designed to develop the oral language proficiency of three-year-old dual language learners (DLLs). The eight-week intervention—Cultivating Oral Language and Literacy Talent in Students (COLLTS)—was aligned with the Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework and consisted of evidence-based instructional methods; resources for teachers and students that supported teachers in enacting these methods; professional development related to the methods and resources; and family literacy activities. Control teachers were given the same books as the treatment teachers to read to their students but were not provided with all of the professional development and any of the other COLLTS resources. The study was implemented in 22 classrooms in seven Head Start centers in a large city in the southern United States. Data were collected to assess students’ language outcomes, teacher fidelity, and family participation. Findings indicated gains on a short receptive measure of instructed vocabulary, but no significant differences between treatment and control DLLs on that measure. Findings also indicated significantly greater gains for treatment DLLs compared with control DLLs in semantic knowledge measured by oral narrative retellings coded using language sample analysis; high levels of parent involvement and family satisfaction; and significantly greater gains in student’s vocabulary knowledge for more engaged treatment families.

Incorporating Technology into Instruction in Early Childhood Classrooms: a Systematic Review.

The purpose of this review is to describe the variety and effectiveness of instructional technologies used in the early childhood setting. A systematic review of three databases was completed, and studies were reviewed by two independent coders to determine if they met inclusion criteria. Studies were excluded from this review if (a) the technology was used to train teachers and was not directly used with early childhood students, (b) participants were all enrolled in 2nd grade or higher, (c) the setting was not an early childhood education setting, or (d) studies were descriptive in nature or utilized a survey methodology. Data were extracted from each article related to participant characteristics, setting characteristics, research design, technology type, and dependent variables. Thirty-five studies met criteria were included in this review. A wide range of technologies were used to provide or facilitate instruction on (a) academics, (b) social and communication skills, and (c) cognitive skills. Academic outcomes targeted in Head Start preschools were the most common across studies. The results ranged from no effect to highly effective. The findings from the included studies varied widely in their outcomes from reporting no difference between traditional instruction and technology-aided instruction to reporting significant difference between groups or reporting a functional relation between the technology-based intervention and the target behavior or skill. Studies that included students identified with neurodevelopmental disorders demonstrated a positive impact in the outcomes of students who experience an intervention that included technology-aided instruction. Future research is needed to identify critical components of effective technology-based interventions in early childhood educational settings.

Interdisciplinary feeding clinic during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic: Implementing telehealth and social determinants of health screening.

Interdisciplinary feeding clinic during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic: Implementing telehealth and social determinants of health screening.

Improving Early Childhood Caries for American Indian 3- to 5-Year-Old Children Through Interprofessional Outreach: 2018-2022.

We sought to determine the effectiveness of an interprofessional health team in improving access to oral health care among American Indian children enrolled in Head Start. Our team provided preventive treatments and case management during 11 visits from 2018 to 2022. Case management reduced the time between referral and dental treatment from a median of 166 days to 58.3 days over four years. An interprofessional team is an effective way to improve access to oral health care among rural American Indian Head Start children. (Am J Public Health. 2023;113(4):368-371. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2022.307205).

Creating Joyful Experiences for Enhancing Meaningful Learning and Integrating 21st Century Skills

As the twentieth century gives way to the twenty-first, the world is undergoing a profound transformation that may be described as a paradigm shift on a global scale. The way we view student learning has evolved. As a result of this shift in perspective, many countries have revised their curricula to become more learner-centered, incorporating elements of formal, non-formal, and informal instruction. Teaching and learning strategies that emphasize the three types of skills—learning skills, literacy skills, and life skills—are the most effective way to give students a head start on the 21st-century abilities they’ll need to succeed in school and in the workplace. Meaningful learning will result when learners engage in knowledge construction conversation, articulation, collaboration, and reflection. The students learn meaningfully when they are will-fully engaged in a joyful task. Joyful Learning enables the learners to improve their 21stcentury skills as it helps students feel like they’re making progress as they’re studying, which is reassuring for a child. In the present research, the investigator has engaged learners (primary class students) in ‘Classroom shows’ related to subject-oriented presentations. Teacher instructor created a joyful learning environment for the learners to perform in a plethora of activities in the form of role plays, stories, songs, dance, recitation, games, puzzles etc. The Performance of learners was based on the assigned task integrating-communication, collaboration, critical-thinking and creativity skills. All the approaches be it Activity oriented, Experiential learning, Art Integrated learning were showcased. In the process, a student acquires the skills necessary for success in the real world through learning or some other method. The joyful experience leads to better understanding and engagement of learners. The intrinsic force is the joy which makes learning a joyful experience.

Introduction

With the publication of this issue, 23-1, we are deeply honored to become the fifth editorial team for Global Environmental Politics. We are excited to keep building on the strong foundation laid by previous editors, including most recently Steven Bernstein, Matthew Hoffmann, and Erika Weinthal. As a result of the enduring commitments of all previous editorial teams—together with the high-quality research and writing by all authors published in these pages, and the often unseen but necessary and much appreciated work by countless reviewers over the past two decades—the journal’s impact factor reached 4.145 for 2021. A truly collective effort, Global Environmental Politics continues to be the premier academic home for research on issues related to global environmental politics and governance.Our many years of experience as associate editors of Global Environmental Politics have given us a head start on our new roles, but we are grateful that we have been able to rely on the support of Erika, Matt, and Steven, alongside the invaluable work by Susan Altman as managing editor, to smooth the transition. Joanna Lewis kindly agreed to stay on as an associate editor, and we are happy to have brought in Mark Axelrod, Kate Neville, and Yixian Sun as new associate editors. We also want to thank Beth DeSombre, who has given much time and service to the journal as the book review editor. Last but certainly not least, we greatly value the service and guidance of the GEP Editorial Board.Scholarship on global environmental politics has always benefited from the application of interdisciplinary perspectives using a multitude of methodological approaches, but the value of diversity, equity, and inclusion is increasingly recognized by researchers as well as policymakers, stakeholders, and activists. As editors, we will seek to further enhance the pluralism of articles published in Global Environmental Politics along multiple dimensions—including issue areas, geographical scope, methodologies, and theoretical frameworks—while maintaining a core focus on advancing theory through rigorous empirical work. This includes keeping up with new approaches to collecting and analyzing qualitative data as well as rapidly advancing trends in network analysis, statistics, and quantitative content analysis. To this end, we will continue to publish research notes, as instituted by Erika, Matt, and Steven. Alongside the research articles and forum articles, research notes bring new methods and datasets to the attention of readers and help broaden methodological horizons.Diversifying our pool of authors and readers remains a critical, albeit sometimes challenging, task for all of us who are involved in the editorial work. Important progress was made by our predecessors, but we believe that there is still room to continue to improve representation among our authors, our readership, and our editorial board. We are planning a number of activities to expand the geographical and disciplinary scope of the journal, including reaching out to scholars from all over the world to find out what they want from us. We will then use their feedback to develop programs intended to expand access and inclusion. This may involve a greater use of online tools and virtual events that can foster community building across long distances, as well as working with MIT Press with the goal of having more open-access articles.As quickly as scholarship is evolving, the world is changing faster. We are living in times that can be both exhilarating and frightening. Global Environmental Politics is deeply rooted in rigorous academic traditions, but there is room to foster new thinking and ideas. This is why we are also committed to mentoring junior scholars as well as scholars from under-represented groups, to ensure that they can successfully add their voices to our collective conversation by publishing in the journal. It is also why we value our many thoughtful and supportive reviewers for shepherding the work of early-career scholars through to publication and providing feedback that will help these scholars succeed with future submissions. It is a supportive scholarly community that allows Global Environmental Politics to thrive, and we are committed to maintaining that spirit of cooperation along with our standards of excellence for the journal.Finally, we would like to thank everyone for their tireless work in writing and reviewing during the worst of the global pandemic. We are committed to resuming outreach by the journal and working actively on diversity, equity, and inclusion. We remain open to new ways of working to the betterment of our community.

Cognitive Development.

Cognitive development in children begins with brain development. Early life exposures may both positively and negatively influence cognitive development in children. Infants, toddlers, and children learn best in secure, nurturing environments and when attachment to a consistent caregiver is present. Pediatricians can screen for both social determinants of health and developmental milestones at office visits to address barriers to care and promote positive cognitive and learning outcomes. Pediatricians may model developmental stimulation during office visits to talk with an infant/child, asking questions of a child, singing and pointing to pictures in books, and modeling responsive listening. Pediatricians may support caregivers to talk with their children, read to their children, and avoid/reduce screen time. Pediatricians can help point caregivers to resources for parent training, Head Start, and quality preschool programs. School readiness has both pre-academic and socioemotional components and can have long-term effects on a child's school success, health, and quality of life. School readiness depends on both the child and the caregiver being ready for school, taking into account caregiver and child health and mental health and child cognitive development.

Report of Indoor Mold Exposure and Rhinitis in Preschool Children Attending Head Start Centers in New York City

Although fungal exposure is known to cause rhinitis symptoms, few studies have focused on rhinitis among preschool children living in lower-income, urban neighborhoods. We hypothesized that mold exposure would be associated with rhinitis symptoms independent of pest exposure and that this risk would be modified by asthma symptoms.

High-carb diet gives migrating locusts a head start

Some feats of migration are truly astounding. Arctic terns journey pole to pole each year, the great-great-great-grandchildren of the monarch butterflies that embarked initially in autumn return to their northern homes after their ∼5000 km odyssey and some desert locusts have even crossed the Atlantic, reaching the Caribbean and South America from North Africa. Stav Talal and colleagues from Arizona State University (ASU) explain that most creatures fuel these epic voyages with carbohydrate and energy-rich lipids, often obtained directly from an animal's diet. However, locusts, which tend to feast on vegetation, have to supply their own lipid fuels created from the carbohydrates in their diet and little was known about the impact that a locust's diet might have on its ability to sustain a long flight. In 2017, Arianne Cease, Jon Harrison and ASU colleagues discovered that Mongolian locusts (Oedaleus asiaticus) raised on a high-carb diet flew longer than locusts fed a low-carb diet. But how well would the true champions of the locust world, the migratory locust (Locusta migratoria), fly when they too were provided with a high-carb diet?‘We reared the locusts in crowded cages from hatchlings, sometimes with more than 1000 locusts in one cage, to produce the migratory form of the insects’, says Talal, who, with Geoffrey Osgood (ASU), fed the locusts one of three separate diets – a high-carb, low-protein diet; a medium-carb, medium-protein diet; and a low-carb, high-protein diet – before building locust-sized flight tunnels to measure the insects’ flight endurance. Filming more than 100 locusts, the team recorded that the locusts on the high-carb diet had the most stamina, while the locusts that had been reared on the low-carb diet were much weaker. ‘Six out of 34 locusts fed the high-carb diet flew continuously for 12 h, whereas only one locust out of 35 from the medium-carb diet flew for 12 h’ says Shivam Parmar (ASU), adding that none of the locusts on the low-carb diet managed to fly for the full 12 h. But how had the diets affected the locusts’ body composition and how did that change after their epic flights?Sure enough, when Parmar and Talal compared the locusts, the insects that had dined on the high-carb food were carrying the most lipid, accounting for up to 37% of their body mass, before embarking on their day-long flights. But by the time they had completed their marathons, all of the insects, regardless of diet, had used up a significant proportion of their lipid stores. However, even though the low-carb diet locusts were still carrying 75 mg of lipid – which is sufficient to keep a locust airborne for a full 12 h – they stopped flying after just 5.5 h. So why were they giving up so soon?The team suspects that several factors could be responsible for the low-carb locusts giving up early. They suggest that the locusts may simply be guarding their carbohydrate reserves, terminating a flight when their carb levels fall too low, or a high-carb diet might somehow protect flying insects from the damaging effects of oxygen that they use to power their flight. Another possibility is that the locusts fed a low-carb diet dry out faster when flying, or their muscle composition might be subtly different, limiting their endurance.Whatever the reason, it is clear that a high-carb diet is essential for locusts intent on a high endurance flight, unless they get some tailwind assistance, which probably accounts for the intrepid transatlantic voyage of the locusts that made it all the way to South America.

Symbolic and deictic gestures as a tool to promote parent-child communication in the context of hearing loss: A systematic review.

Language and communication outcomes in children with congenital sensorineural hearing loss (cSNHL) are highly variable, and some of this variance can be attributed to the quantity and quality of language input. In this paper, we build from the evidence that human language is inherently multimodal and positive scaffolding of children's linguistic, cognitive, and social-relational development can be supported by Parent Centered Early Interventions (PCEI), to suggest that the use of gestures in these interventions could be a beneficial approach, yet scarcely explored. This systematic review aimed to examine the literature on PCEI focused on gestures (symbolic and deictic) used to enhance the caregiver-child relationship and infant's language development, in both typically and atypically developing populations. The systematic review was conducted following the PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews and meta-analyses. From 246 identified studies, 8 met PICO inclusion criteria and were eligible for inclusion. Two reviewers screened papers before completing data extraction and risk of bias assessment using the RoB2 Cochrane scale. Included studies measured the effect of implementing symbolic or deictic gestures in daily communication on the relational aspects of mother/parent-child interaction or on language skills in infants. The studies indicate that gesture-oriented PCEI may benefit deprived populations such as atypically developing children, children from low-income families, and children who, for individual reasons, lag behind their peers in communication. Although gesture-oriented PCEI appear to be beneficial in the early intervention for atypically developing populations, this approach has been so far scarcely explored directly in the context of hearing loss. Yet, symbolic gestures being a natural part of early vocabulary acquisition that emerges spontaneously regardless of hearing status, this approach could represent a promising line of intervention in infants with cSNHL, especially those with a worse head start.

Linking early head start children's social-emotional functioning with profiles of family functioning and stress.

This study examined profiles of family functioning, stress, psychological well-being, and social support in families participating in early head start; family characteristics that relate to profile membership; and the relationship of profiles to child social-emotional functioning. Because families' levels of functioning and well-being vary widely within low-income samples, we used a person-centered approach to understand how variations among families are linked with children's social-emotional skills. Our latent profile analysis of a sample of 246 families identified three profiles of family functioning and well-being: low stress, high family functioning (63%); moderate family stress, low family functioning (25%); and high psychological distress and parenting stress (12%). Children's social-emotional functioning, both social competence and problem behavior, related to profile membership. Children in the low stress, high family functioning profile displayed the most optimal social-emotional skills. These results highlight the importance of supporting family functioning and decreasing family stress to influence young children's positive behaviors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).