Healthy Development Of Young Children Research Articles

Opportunities in public policy to support infant and early childhood mental health: The role of psychologists and policymakers.

Infant and early childhood mental health practices can be supported by policies and professional standards of care that foster the healthy development of young children. Policies that support infants and toddlers include those that strengthen their families to provide a family environment that promotes mental wellness. Policy issues for infants, toddlers, and young children have come to the forefront of thinking as children need a "voice" to advocate for their support and care. This article (a) highlights several important policy areas that support the social-emotional development of very young children and (b) gives examples of current policy accomplishments and challenges. The article offers a policy agenda to promote the mental health of infants and young children and suggests ways that psychologists can engage with policymakers to promote policies that foster infant mental health, including contributing to the knowledge base that informs policy decisions, educating the public and policymakers about early childhood development and mental wellness, forming community partnerships to identify and address infant mental health risks, and participating in the development of policy recommendations that improve access to evidence-based practices in infant mental health.

Building a New Biodevelopmental Framework to Guide the Future of Early Childhood Policy

Four decades of early childhood policy and program development indicate that evidence-based interventions can improve life outcomes, and dramatic advances in the biological and behavioral sciences now provide an opportunity to augment those impacts. The challenge of reducing the gap between what we know and what we do to promote the healthy development of young children is to view current best practices as a starting point and to leverage scientific concepts to inspire fresh thinking. This article offers an integrated, biodevelopmental framework to promote greater understanding of the antecedents and causal pathways that lead to disparities in health, learning, and behavior in order to inform the development of enhanced theories of change to drive innovation in policies and programs.

Father absence due to migration and child illness in rural Mexico

Little research to date has assessed the importance of the presence of fathers in the household for protecting child health, particularly in developing country contexts. Although divorce and non-marital childbearing are low in many developing countries, migration is a potentially important source of father absence that has yet to be studied in relation to child health. This study utilizes prospective, longitudinal data from Mexico to assess whether father absence due to migration is associated with increased child illness in poor, rural communities. Rural Mexico provides a setting where child illness is related to more serious health problems, and where migration is an important source of father absence. Both state- and individual-level fixed effects regression analyses are used to estimate the relationship between father absence due to migration and child illness while controlling for unobserved contextual and individual characteristics. The state-level models illustrate that the odds of children being ill are 39% higher for any illness and 51% higher for diarrhea when fathers are absent compared with when fathers are present in the household. The individual-level fixed effects models support these findings, indicating that, in the context of rural Mexico, fathers may be important sources of support for ensuring the healthy development of young children.

Critical Connections for Children Who are Abused and Neglected

This article highlights strategies that link the child welfare, court, and Early Intervention systems to enhance the healthy development of young children in foster care. It spotlights the need for infants and young children in foster care to be referred to the Early Intervention Program (EIP) and outlines the importance of implementing the new Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act Part C referral provisions. It outlines the barriers to the EIP for maltreated children and identifies strategies to ensure referral and successful navigation of the EIP. The authors will describe several innovative, collaborative programs that link child protective services, health, mental health, and developmental services and provide cross-system training and funding to facilitate early intervention diagnosis and treatment for young children in foster care. Key words: CAPTA, child welfare, early intervention, IDEA Part C

Effects of quality early care on school readiness skills of children at risk

Brain research has strengthened our understanding of the first five years of a child’s life as a critical period. Quality early care is important to the healthy development of young children, and their later success in school. Concurrently, many families depend on childcare outside the home. Programs that have knowledgeable and skilled staff, offer a stimulating and supportive environment, provide individualized and developmentally appropriate activities for each child, reach out to parents to gain their involvement, collaborate with community resource partners and empower the family’s capacity to ensure optimal care for their children have shown much success. Many of these comprehensive programs have been particularly effective with children identified as having special needs, being economically disadvantaged or speaking a native language other than English. The Judith P. Hoyer Early Child Care and Family Education Centers (Judy Centers), implemented by the Maryland State Department of Education, is one such initiative. Through the Judy Centers, schools or childcare facilities provide quality and comprehensive early care and development services to children age birth to five and their families. Early indications are that the Judy Center services are significantly effective in ensuring children who have special needs, receive free or reduced meals, and qualify for English as a Second Language services are prepared for school and ready to learn.

Health and Well-Being of Children in Foster Care Placement

1. Sandra H. Jee, MD, MPH 1. Department of Pediatrics University of Rochester Rochester, NY 1. Mark D. Simms, MD, MPH 1. Department of Pediatrics Medical College of Wisconsin Milwaukee, Wisc Improving the Odds for the Healthy Development of Young Children in Foster Care . Dicker S, Gordon E, Knitzer J. National Center for Children in Poverty: Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Promoting the Emotional Well-Being of Children and Families (Policy Paper No. 2). January 2002;1–28 Children and Family Services Reviews, Part V: Most States Fail to Meet the Mental Health Needs for Foster Children . Huber J, Grimm B. Youth Law News . 2004;Oct-Dec:1–36 CWLA Standards for Health Care Services for Children in Out-of-Home Care . Washington, DC: Child Welfare League of America; 1988. Educational Experiences of Children in Out-of-Home Care . Smithgall C, Gladden RM, Howard E, Goerge R, Courtney M. Chicago, Ill: Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago; 2004:1–77 Fostering Health: Health Care for Children and Adolescents in Foster Care . 2nd ed. Task Force on Health Care for Children in Foster Care, American Academy of Pediatrics, District II, New York State. Elk Grove Village, Ill: American Academy of Pediatrics: 2005 Healthy Foster Care America . www.aap.org/advocacy/HFCA/ On any given day, more than 500,000 children are living in state-supported foster home care. In the course of a year, more than 800,000 children experience placement in a foster home. Many of these children return home quickly, but for some, placement may extend for years and may involve care in multiple foster homes. Most of the children have experienced serious family dysfunction prior to placement, including exposure to domestic violence and to their parents’ mental health disorders, addiction, or criminal activity. Serious neglect and abuse are the most frequently stated reasons for removing children from their parents’ care. Children entering foster homes have extremely high rates of physical and mental health problems, developmental delays, and educational underachievement. As a group, children in foster care …

Improving the Odds for the Healthy Development of Young Children in Foster Care: Executive Summary

Improving the Odds for the Healthy Development of Young Children in Foster Care: Executive Summary

Do You Believe In Magic?: What We Can Expect From Early Childhood Intervention Programs

Do You Believe In Magic?: What We Can Expect From Early Childhood Intervention Programs

From neurons to neighborhoods: old and new challenges for developmental and behavioral pediatrics.

Rapidly advancing research in neurobiology and the behavioral and social sciences, coupled with dramatic changes in the social and economic circumstances under which families are raising young children, has created a highly dynamic context for early childhood policy, service delivery, and child rearing in the United States. A recent report from the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine, presents a critical analysis of that complex knowledge base and a set of recommendations designed to close the gap between what we know and what we do to promote the healthy development of young children. This article examines the report through the lens of developmental and behavioral pediatrics and highlights both exciting opportunities and sobering challenges.

Relationships at Risk

This article examines the policy environment as a context for infant development by drawing on the perspectives of Urie Bronfenbrenner, Arnold Sameroff, Desmond Runyan, Robert Hill, Alfred Kamerman, Sheila Kahn, and Eugene Steuerle and his colleagues. The author suggests that in the United States of America today, one of the greatest risks to the healthy development of young children may be the risk of the loss or disruption of important caregiving relationships. The concepts of social forces, social policies, and policy change are used as a framework to consider how the development of individual infants, within their caregiving relationships, may be shaped by the policy environment.

Assessing health system provision of well-child care: The Promoting Healthy Development Survey.

Preventive care guidelines for children include parent education and counseling, developmental assessment, and screening for psychosocial and safety risks. Health care providers are in a unique position to identify and follow up on potential problems and to influence parenting knowledge, attitudes, and behavior to ensure the healthy development of young children. Few quality measures are available to assess health care system performance in this important area. To develop a feasible, valid, and reliable methodology for evaluating health care system performance in providing family-centered anticipatory guidance and child and family assessment services on behalf of children from birth through 48 months old. Methods. The Promoting Healthy Development Survey (PHDS) was developed and tested with a diverse group of families in 3 managed care organizations (n = 1478). A standard mail administration protocol was used, including an informed consent with a waiver of documentation, 2 mailings, a postcard reminder, and telephone reminders. The 36-item parent survey assesses whether health care providers(1) talk with parents about topics recommended in Bright Futures and the American Academy of Pediatrics Guidelines for Health Supervision,(2) provide follow-up for children who may be at risk for developmental problems,(3) and address psychosocial well-being and safety within the family. The PHDS also assesses the degree to which parent's interactions with providers are family-centered, helpful, and facilitate parental confidence. Psychometric, bivariate, and multivariate analyses were conducted to assess the reliability, validity, and patterns of variation in the seven quality measures derived from the PHDS. Psychometric analyses demonstrated that the PHDS quality measure scales have strong construct validity (mean factor loading: 0.69) and internal consistency (mean Cronbach's alpha: 0.80). Parents reporting positive parenting behaviors had significantly higher scores on the anticipatory guidance quality measure compared with parents not reporting positive behaviors. Parents who reported that their questions on specific anticipatory guidance topics were answered were more likely to report higher confidence in related parenting activities (odds ratio [OR]: 5.9, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 3.4-10.2; OR: 8.3, 95% CI: 5-13.8)and were less likely to report concerns about their child's development in related areas compared with parents who reported they wished they had talked more with their child's doctor about these topics (OR: 0.46, 95% CI: 0.29-0.72; OR: 0.58, 95% CI: 0.37-0.89). The 7 PHDS quality measure scores for health plans ranged from 17 to 67 (on a 0-100 scale; where 100 is the best score possible) and varied significantly across health plans. Performance was highest for provision of anticipatory guidance information from health plans and lowest for family psychosocial assessment. Scores for families with Medicaid coverage were significantly higher on 2 of the PHDS measures and significantly lower for 3 measures compared with scores for families with commercial insurance. Age of child, whether child is first- born, parental marital status, education, income, and race were significant predictors for 1 or more of the PHDS quality measures (average R(2) = 0.05). The PHDS provides a comprehensive, psychometrically valid and reliable assessment of how well health plans and the health care providers working within these plans promote the healthy development of young children. The PHDS seems to differentiate among health care plans and among the different aspects of preventive care provided within a health plan. For the population studied here, there is significant room for improvement in ensuring families and children receive appropriate and family-centered care to promote the healthy development of children between 3 and 48 months old. Because the PHDS is conceptually based on national recommendations for child health supervision, improved performance on the PHDS would indicate greater adherence to these national recommendations and progress toward the achievement of Healthy People 2010 goals. The generalizability of the findings presented in this report are being examined using data collected in 5 statewide Medicaid samples (N = 11 696) and data from the National Survey of Early Childhood Health, which has incorporated most of the PHDS items.

Characteristics of attendants in day-care centres and nurseries in Nigeria

A study of the characteristics of 28 supervisors and 79 assistants in 30 day-care centres and nurseries in Ibadan was carried out. The findings indicate that the supervisors were mostly married women with moderately large families and that about half of them had previously been engaged in economic activities outside their homes. The study further shows that a large proportion of the supervisors and all the assistants had no training in the management of pre-school groups whilst the assistants were also found to be of poor educational background. The possible ill-effects on the physical, emotional and social development of children reared in nurseries staffed by poorly educated and untrained staff are stressed. In order to ensure proper care and healthy development of young children placed in day-care centres and nurseries, it is suggested that more nursery nurses and teachers be trained and to this end, training schools must be established locally to meet the needs of the children.