Services For Young Children Research Articles

Computed tomographic brain scanning in four neuropsychiatric disorders of childhood.

CAT scans were performed in 66 patients with neuropsychiatric disorders of childhood (infantile autism, attention deficit disorder, Tourette's disorder, and language disorder) and a control group of 20 medical patients. Ventricular volume and brain density were determined by quantitative, computer-based methods by researchers blind to the patients' diagnoses. There were no significant differences among diagnostic groups or between neuropsychiatric patients and medical control patients in total ventricular volume, right-left ventricular volume ratio, ventricular asymmetries, ventricle-brain ratios, or brain density.

Child-Rearing Practices in Kingston, Jamaica

Child-rearing practices influence patterns of child development, so before planning educational and social services for young children, it is important to take into account normal cultural patterns. Little information is available on child-rearing practices in Jamaica, particularly in relation to very young children. In her now classic work, Clarke (1972) described the social background and family structure of rural Jamaica in the 1940s but made only fleeting reference to young children, stressing the important role played by grandmothers in child-rearing and the relatively small involvement of fathers. Kerr (1963) paid more attention to the older child and suggested a somewhat deprived environment: children being described as having no toys, no opportunities to manipulate materials nor to develop creativity. They were reported as doing heavy household chores at an early age and being subjected to authoritarian discipline. However, in both studies, the data concerning child-rearing were far from comprehensive and did not include Kingston, the largest city in Jamaica. During the course of two separate studies the same questionnaire, designed to document child-rearing habits and attitudes, was administered to mothers in low-income suburban areas of Kingston. In this report, we have combined information from both sources to obtain a more comprehensive picture of child-rearing in Kingston. It should be emphasized that this study was planned to be purely descriptive and not evaluative.

Now You See It, Now You Don't: The Restructuring of Commonwealth Government Child Care Policy, 1972-1982

An examination of the development and decline of Commonwealth government involvement in the provision of child care services over the past decade, focuses on services for young children whose parents are workforce participants. The growth of groups requiring child care, the level and types of service provision, and the consequences of inadequate supply of such services are discussed. The emergence of child care policies over the decade 1972-82 is considered in relation to the political and economic context, in particular the shift from moderately progressive social reform policies in a period of economic growth and full employment to contractionist monetary policies in a period of little or no growth and high levels of unemployment. The paper concludes with a discussion of some of the implications of a restructured child care policy.

Alternative Administrative Strategies for Young Handicapped Children: A Policy Analysis

One of the major and puzzling omissions from the legislative blizzard for the handicapped in the 1960's and 1970's has been the preschool handicapped child, aged 0-3. The present policy analysis explores the preferences of three groups of interested persons in 10 program options that would provide services for young children. A group of educators, mental retardation specialists, and advocates all chose public education as the preferred agency to administer services for young handicapped children. Public education was identified as long standing and public funded and more likely to provide continued program support.

Differential Access to Preventive Services for Young Children in Low-Income Urban Areas

This study, based on a community health survey of populations in five low-income urban areas, examines the use of selected preventive services of preschool children. It is postulated that there are social differences in access to varying health-care facilities. Consequently, the level of preventive services utilized varies from group to group. Multivariate statistical analyses were performedfor the 2,063 children to determine the relative influence of social and access factors on the use of the two types of preventive services. The results show that regular source of care was significant in explaining variation in immunizations and in physical examinations. Those who had no regular source of care were least likely to use preventive services. Regular users of neighborhood health centers and public health clinics had received the same number of immunizations and were as likely to have had a physical checkup in the previous year as users of private physicians. These findings indicate that having a regular source of care is a significant access factor in preventive-services utilization. In many ways the effects of social status and access factors on the two types of preventive care were similar. However, marked differences were foundfor demographic variables, which had a stronger influence on number of immunizations but had a negligible effect on physical examinations.

Early childhood services: A programme for co-ordinating the educational, health and social services for young children and their families

Early childhood services: A programme for co-ordinating the educational, health and social services for young children and their families

The Objectives and Organisation of Educational and Day Care Services for Young Children

families-and outside the workhouse-began in the nineteenth century. The reasons were demographic, economic and ideological. They were consequences of the growing urbanisation of industrial countries and the destruction of traditional ways of life which migration and occupational changes entailed, the changing role of women and children in the labour force with the associated harshness and cruelty of factory work, domestic service and other employment, changes in fertility and in mortality, the vast increase in wealth (despite the misery which accompanied it) that made compulsory education both possible and economically desirable, and the growth of new attitudes towards children as developing creatures who had rights and towards whom society had responsibilities. The establishment of compulsory education in the last quarter of the nineteenth century led to the formation of powerful departments of education both nationally and locally. These were, and still are, concerned largely with schooling; what happened to children outside school hours and during school holidays was no business of theirs. Even today, both at national and at local authority level, social services departments are responsible for day and residential care, for play groups and child minders; education departments are responsible for nursery schools, infant schools and classes which form part of the educational system. Provision for children of school age, before and after school hours and in school holidays, has been left very much to local initiative and voluntary effort, and though it varies greatly from area to area it is everywhere grossly inadequate.

Utilization of prenatal and other preventive health care service by mothers on welfare

Abstract This survey of mothers on welfare in New York City found that Puerto Ricans and Negroes make more use of preventive care services than do Caucasians. Regardless of ethnic group, women with more education, organizational participation, and media exposure were more likely to utilize such services, as were mothers who believed in the necessity of preventive care services for young children. Among Puerto Rican and Negro clients, the use of prenatal care was found to be associated with the frequent utilization of other preventive care services; this was apparently not the case among Caucasians. Caucasian clients were more likely than Puerto Ricans and Negroes to have received prenatal care during their initial trimester of pregnancy. It was also found that delay in receiving prenatal care appeared to be related not so much to the age of the mothers but to the number of preschool children they had to care for at home.

Family Casework Services for Young Children

Family Casework Services for Young Children

The Social Studies

A REVIEW of educational research involves an attempt to establish criteria of selection by means of which research studies may be identified. Establishment of such criteria, difficult in any area, is especially difficult in the field of citizenship education. Englehart (32) in presenting suggestions with respect to experimentation under school conditions offers the usual concept of research dealing largely with statistical interpretation, single variables, and controlled conditions. Judged in the light of this concept research in the teaching of citizenship is almost nonexistent. There is need for careful statistical research in citizenship education. Yet the quest for social wisdom necessarily involves insights derived from philosophical considerations which inevitably must be value judgments concerning relationships among human beings. The social sciences are radically different from the natural sciences in that social causation and analysis are radically different. Every social fact must be analyzed in a body of meaning and interpreted in terms of our own social philosophy. That philosophic consideration of human values is basic in citizenship education is revealed in such publications as Education in a Free Society, Education for All American Youth, and Educational Services for Young Children.