Lives Of Young Children Research Articles

Reconceptualising Play and Learning in the Lives of Young Children

A DECADE AGO I WROTE an article entitled Technology as play in which I called for early childhood educators to rethink the way in which they regard play. This involved not only incorporating the notion of playing with new technologies but also critiqued the essence of what constituted play and the link with learning that was viewed uncritically. Here, I review and update this discussion, revisit the literature about how play is conceptualised and suggest that, while play is an essential component of exemplary early childhood experiences, it needs to be related to new technologies and pedagogical practices that are designed to support learning in diverse ways, rather than being regarded as the only catalyst for learning that occurs automatically in all types of play contexts.

Rasch validation of the early childhood oral health impact scale

The early childhood oral health impact scale (ECOHIS), a proxy measure to assess the impact of oral health problems and on the quality of life of preschool children and their families, has been translated into Chinese and validated employing the classical test theory. However, some invariable problems are related to this theory. The objective of this study was to assess the metric properties of the ECOHIS by applying the item response theory. A random sample of 1296 Chinese preschool children in Hong Kong participated in the study and were subjected to an oral examination for their caries status. Their parents were asked to respond to the ECOHIS and an extra set of questions concerning their socio-demographic backgrounds. The collected data were analysed using Rasch model. The obtained results support the interpretation of adequate total fit of persons and items, because the mean infit MNSQ (1.08) and outfit MNSQ (0.94) for persons, and the mean infit MNSQ (0.99) and outfit MNSQ (0.94) for items, are within the acceptable ranges (0.6-1.4). The difficulty spread of the items was between -0.81 and 1.96 logits, and the levels of respondents spanned from -5.56 to 6.72 logits on the person-item map. The spread of respondents was skewed and mistargeting, between the items and respondents, was confirmed. Combination of responses of 'often' and 'very often' was suggested because of their flat probability showing on the characteristic curves. Rasch model has been shown to be a feasible and practicable way of assessing the metric properties of the ECOHIS. The results allow the use of ECOHIS to be recommended for clinical research in oral health-related quality of life in young children with minor modifications.

“I Smile With My Mind”: Reconceptualizing Artistic Practice in Early Childhood

This study addresses the role of artistic practice as it exists in the lives of young children. Viewing children as unified learners (Dewey, 1902; Franklin, 1994), the role of artistic practice is reconceptualized as a tool which children employ fluidly throughout their daily experiences, rather than as belonging to a discreet subject. The artistic practices of a group of 30 children aged 2 to 5 are documented through their narratives in the day-to-day activities of a preschool classroom. The close examination of these narratives illustrates the complex, nuanced ways in which young children employ artistic practice in order to navigate and shape the constructs of their daily lives.

One born every minute

The arrival of a baby brother or sister can be a signifi cant change in a young child's life. Practitioners can support children as their family takes on a new shape, using activities across a number of learning areas.

Exploring views on satisfaction with life in young children with chronic illness: An innovative approach to the collection of self-report data from children under 11

The objective of this study was to explore young children's views on the impact of chronic illness on their life in order to inform future development of a patient-based self-report health outcome measure. We describe an approach to facilitating self-report views from young children with chronic illness. A board game was designed in order to obtain qualitative data from 39 children with a range of chronic illness conditions and 38 healthy controls ranging in age from 3 to 11 years. The format was effective in engaging young children in a self-report process of determining satisfaction with life and identified nine domains. The board game enabled children aged 5-11 years with chronic illness to describe the effects of living with illness on home, family, friends, school and life in general. It generated direct, non-interpreted material from children who, because of their age, may have been considered unable or limited their ability to discuss and describe how they feel. Obtaining this information for children aged 4 and under continues to be a challenge.

Taking a Stand: The Role of the Early Childhood Teacher in Educating Against HomophobiaTaking a Stand: The Role of the Early Childhood Teacher in Educating Against Homophobia

This article focuses on early childhood educators’ readiness to address controversial issues in the classroom related to gender and sexual identity in young children, with a special focus on homosexuality and homophobia. The terms gender, sexual identity, sexual orientation, homosexuality, and homophobia are defined in relation to the part they play in the lives of young children and their families. The role of early childhood teachers and consequently the roles played by individuals who train teachers (teacher trainers) are also presented for discussion.

Postcards

Postcards Michelle Gonzalez, Jeffrey Brewster, Tanja Nathanael, Tilka Jamnik, Anuradha Sharma, Toin Duijx, and Ines Galling Translated by Claudia Söffner Mario Ramos Le Code de la Route Paris, France: L'école des loisirs, 2010 33 pages, ISBN: 9782211200042 (wordless picture book, 4-10) Well-known Belgian author and illustrator Mario Ramos entertains both children and adults with Le Code de la Route. This wordless picture book is a creative and humorous rendition of "Little Red Riding Hood." A modern-day Red Riding Hood--with red coat, matching hair band, and boots-sets off on her red scooter to granny's house. As she follows the path through the woods, she comes across some unusual traffic signs. The red triangles with black outlines take up an entire page and have images such as three pigs or a wolf. One can pause to imagine what the signs warn of. With the turn of the page, however, the reader is surprised with delightfully colorful and fast-paced scenes. The Three Pigs zoom by on skateboards or the Big Bad Wolf clumsily passes by on roller skates. Red Riding Hood stays focused, diligently yielding at each road sign, to reach grandmother's home safe and sound. Readers will have great fun commenting on familiar characters in a new setting as well as creating dialogue of their own. Michelle Gonzalez [End Page 8] Ningeokuluk Teevee Alego Illustrated by the author Toronto: Groundwood Books, 2009 Unpaged ISBN: 9780888999436 (picture book, 4-8) Ningeokuluk Teevee, one of the most well-known of the Kinngait, Nunavut (Cape Dorset) artists working in the tradition of Inuit art, has written and illustrated a simple, yet elegant book. This story of a young Inuit child's daily life with her Grandmother is autobiographical and tells of the clam digging adventure offered by a low tide. The graphite and colored pencil illustrations beautifully capture the atmosphere of the beach and the marine life introduced. The bilingual text, in Inukititui and English, is a fine introduction to a script that is not Roman. The book includes an illustrated glossary of sea creatures, as well as a pictorial map of Baffin Island. This unique title may be used to expand children's thinking about how people live and work both in a family and in the world. Jeffrey Brewster [End Page 40] Kou Yaginuma Futatsu no Supika [Twin Spica] Vol. 1 Translator: Maya Rosewood First published in Tokyo, Japan: Media Factory, Inc., 2002 English translation published in New York, NY: Vertical, Inc., 2010 188pp. ISBN: 978-1-934287-84-2 (Manga, Science Fiction, 13+) With recent media attention on Naoko Yamazaki, Japan's first female astronaut to join the crew of the international space station, this classic manga is experiencing are surgence in popularity. Now that it is published for the first time in English, Western readers may join 14-year-old Asumi Kamogawa as she realizes her life's ambition to train as an astronaut at the Tokyo Space School. Set in the near future after a tragic rocket accident claims her mother's life, the story follows Asumi as she greets each new challenge with warmth and enthusiasm. Yaginuma's illustrations are a charming complement to his heartfelt and deftly-told story. By turns optimistic and poignant, Twin Spica is a delightful tale for anyone who has ever dreamed of going into space. Tanja Nathanael Janja Vidmar Pink Radovljica, Slovenia: Didakta, 2008. 139 pp. ISBN: 978-961-261-069-2 (novel, 14 +) Pink is the most autobiographical, and therefore unique, novel to date in the literary work of Janja Vidmar, one of the most popular Slovene authors. Despite the third-person narrator, we are drawn to this conclusion by the name of the main character, the precision of the places described in the book, and the recognizable, almost cult-like, details from 1970s Maribor. This unrestrained realism is also experienced in the level of language which the author handles skilfully and boldly. The manifold linguistic registers-from formal literary language to dialect and slang in humorous and always convincing dialogue-give the novel its powerful tone and also serve to emphasize the authenticity of the period, an element that the author...

Early Care, Education, and Child Development

Children growing up in the United States today typically spend a substantial portion of their early childhood years in early care and education (ECE) settings. These settings are thus an essential element of any effort to understand the ecology of early development. Research aimed at identifying the short- and long-term impacts of ECE experiences has a long history, the results of which now point to three key conclusions. (a) Although parents are the most important influence on children's development, ECE experiences have both short- and long-term impacts on a wide range of developmental outcomes that are best understood in interaction with family effects. (b) The quality of adult-child interactions in ECE settings is the most potent source of variation in child outcomes, although the amount of exposure to these settings also plays a role, perhaps especially with regard to social-emotional development. (c) Some children, notably those growing up in poverty, appear to be more vulnerable to variation in the quality of ECE settings than do other children. The frontiers of ECE research are addressing individual differences in children's responses to child care and approaching these settings both as sites for intervention research and as part of a wider web of important settings in young children's lives.

The life of young children and the teacher’s teaching from multicultural families at annexed kindergartens in rural areas‐-focused on kindergartens with a large number of multicultural family children-

The life of young children and the teacher’s teaching from multicultural families at annexed kindergartens in rural areas‐-focused on kindergartens with a large number of multicultural family children-

Less is more: How manipulative features affect children's learning from picture books

Picture books are ubiquitous in young children's lives and are assumed to support children's acquisition of information about the world. Given their importance, relatively little research has directly examined children's learning from picture books. We report two studies examining children's acquisition of labels and facts from picture books that vary on two dimensions: iconicity of the pictures and presence of manipulative features (or “pop-ups”). In Study 1, 20-month-old children generalized novel labels less well when taught from a book with manipulative features than from standard picture books without such elements. In Study 2, 30- and 36-month-old children learned fewer facts when taught from a manipulative picture book with drawings than from a standard picture book with realistic images and no manipulative features. The results of the two studies indicate that children's learning from picture books is facilitated by realistic illustrations, but impeded by manipulative features.

A prospective, longitudinal study of growth, nutrition and sedentary behaviour in young children with cerebral palsy

BackgroundCerebral palsy is the most common cause of physical disability in childhood, occurring in one in 500 children. It is caused by a static brain lesion in the neonatal period leading to a range of activity limitations. Oral motor and swallowing dysfunction, poor nutritional status and poor growth are reported frequently in young children with cerebral palsy and may impact detrimentally on physical and cognitive development, health care utilisation, participation and quality of life in later childhood. The impact of modifiable factors (dietary intake and physical activity) on growth, nutritional status, and body composition (taking into account motor severity) in this population is poorly understood. This study aims to investigate the relationship between a range of factors - linear growth, body composition, oral motor and feeding dysfunction, dietary intake, and time spent sedentary (adjusting for motor severity) - and health outcomes, health care utilisation, participation and quality of life in young children with cerebral palsy (from corrected age of 18 months to 5 years).Design/MethodsThis prospective, longitudinal, population-based study aims to recruit a total of 240 young children with cerebral palsy born in Queensland, Australia between 1st September 2006 and 31st December 2009 (80 from each birth year). Data collection will occur at three time points for each child: 17 - 25 months corrected age, 36 ± 1 months and 60 ± 1 months. Outcomes to be assessed include linear growth, body weight, body composition, dietary intake, oral motor function and feeding ability, time spent sedentary, participation, medical resource use and quality of life.DiscussionThis protocol describes a study that will provide the first longitudinal description of the relationship between functional attainment and modifiable lifestyle factors (dietary intake and habitual time spent sedentary) and their impact on the growth, body composition and nutritional status of young children with cerebral palsy across all levels of functional ability.

Improving outcomes for young children: can we narrow the gap?

This article explores the considerable developments in both early years policy and in the provision of services for young children in England since 1997, noting the role that such services have had in informing the broader Every child matters agenda. Many challenges remain, however, not least the numbers of children and families who still live in poverty and the continuing gap between those children who do well and those who do not. In examining how this gap can be narrowed, through intervention and support during the early years, the work of the Narrowing the Gap project is described, a project that continues with the Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children’s Services (C4EO). Whilst high‐quality early years services provide a very positive start in life for young children, reducing inequality remains the key priority.

What Do We Want Them To Be When They Grow Up?

Abstract Learning to listen and speak are well-established preludes for reading, writing, and succeeding in mainstream educational settings. Intangibles beyond the ubiquitous test scores that typically serve as markers for progress in children with hearing loss are embedded in descriptions of the educational and social development of four young women. All were diagnosed with severe-to-profound or profound hearing loss as toddlers, and all were fitted with hearing aids and given listening and spoken language therapy. Compiling stories across the life span provides insights into what we can be doing in the lives of young children with hearing loss.

Early Childhood Care and Education in Ireland and the Challenge to Educational Disadvantage

Acknowledging the common assumption locating the impact of education in its role to act as a mediator between origins and destinations, this paper examines Early Childhood Care and Education [ECCE], particularly the role state provided, compensatory education plays in challenging educational disadvantage. Initially operationalisation is made of the key concepts of ECCE, equality of opportunity and educational disadvantage. I then move to briefly describe the historical development of ECCE and compensatory education. Three state provided compensatory education programmes are identified: Rutland Street Project, Breaking the Cycle and Early Start. I conclude by outlining the significant impact early interventions can have in a young child's life and endorse the notion that targeting towards more disadvantaged children and their families is an initial prerequisite in the challenge to educational disadvantage.

Early childhood family structure and mother–child interactions: Variation by race and ethnicity.

With data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (n = 6,449), a nationally representative sample of births in 2001, we used hierarchical linear modeling to analyze differences in observed interactions between married, cohabiting, never-married, and divorced mothers and their children. In contrast to previous studies, we concentrated on early childhood, a developmentally critical period that has been understudied in the family structure literature, and relied on objective observational measures of mother-child interactions, which are unlikely to be biased by maternal perceptions of interactions with children. Nonmarital family structures were common in the lives of young children, as 32% lived outside of a married, biological parent home. Initial results indicated that married families were consistently associated with higher quality interactions. Moreover, though it was hypothesized that the presence of a biological father might be associated with higher quality interactions than single-parent households, this hypothesis was not confirmed. Additional models suggest that race and ethnicity moderated the effect of family structure, as non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic White participants showed little significant variation between married and unmarried families. Among Hispanics, mothers living in cohabiting, divorced, or single families, when compared to married mothers, exhibited more negative and more intrusive behaviors; cohabiting mothers also scored lower on the measure of cognitive stimulation. Results suggest that marriage may not be uniformly associated with higher levels of mother-child interactions and that cohabitation, particularly for Hispanics, may be associated with adverse outcomes.

Ten Ways to Restrict Children's Freedom to Play: The Problem of Surplus Safety

Play and playgrounds provide essential experiences for young children's growth, development and enjoyment of life. However, such play experiences are now limited for many children due to excessive fear of risk, or ‘surplus safety’. In this article, the authors examine the pervasiveness of surplus safety in the lives of young children. They argue that restrictions now imposed on children's play to promote safety may, paradoxically, expose children to more serious short and longer term threats of illness and limit children's life opportunities. By comparing experiences from Australia and Norway, the authors demonstrate that surplus safety is not a necessary outcome of living in a modern Western society.

Conflicting Discourses of Private Nursery Entrepreneurs in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

The South African government has adopted a poverty-targeted approach to provisioning in early care and education. This approach prioritises public funding for vulnerable and disadvantaged children. Given the need to address past imbalances and the context of limited financial resources, the private sector has been given an increased role in financing and delivering early care and education. To date, little attention has been paid to how private providers configure their services. This article seeks to address the gap. Through the analysis of the discourses of private entrepreneurs and their staff in two early childhood centres in urban KwaZulu-Natal, it is argued that the business approach in early care and education, with the focus on parents as customers, is narrow and limiting. It marginalises access for young children from disadvantaged groups and downplays the diversity that characterises young children's lives in South Africa.

Cut-offs, norms and patterns of problem behaviours in children with developmental disabilities on the Baby and Infant Screen for Children with aUtIsm Traits (BISCUIT-Part 3)

Purpose: Challenging behaviours present major impediments to a young child's life. Being able to properly assess these behaviours can lead to early intervention and remediation.Method: In the present study, the problem behaviours of 644 children 17–37 months of age who were at risk for developmental disabilities were studied using the BISCUIT-Part 3. In study one, norms and cut-off scores were established for this new scale using this sample. In study 2, the frequency and patterns of various challenging behaviours were evaluated.Results: The majority of developmentally delayed children who had severe challenging behaviours engaged in aggressive/destructive acts. However, severe problem behaviours were in the minority of occurrence.Conclusions: Outcomes suggest that these behaviours can be identified at an early age using a validated instrument tool. Implications are that pinpointing emerging problematic behaviours allows for a more accurate assessment of the delayed child's overall functioning. Being able to pinpoint behaviour problems allows for earlier and more effective treatment.

The Impact of Fathers’ Clubs on Child Health in Rural Haiti

In recognition of the important role that fathers play in the lives of young children in Haiti, a public health organization instituted fathers' clubs in 1994 as a strategy to improve the health outcomes of children. Fathers' clubs focus on child and family health education. To evaluate the effectiveness of fathers' clubs, we examined the health of children born in Haitian villages with and without active fathers' clubs and compared results for the two groups. The presence of a fathers' club in a child's birth village had a positive effect on vaccination status, growth monitoring, and vitamin A supplementation after we controlled for socioeconomic status, time, and the quality of the village health agent. Child weights and mortality were not affected by the fathers' clubs.

Maternal Perspectives on Lifestyle Habits That Put Children of Mexican Descent at Risk for Obesity

This article presents the views that mothers of Mexican descent have related to lifestyle habits that put children at risk for obesity. A qualitative, naturalistic design using ethnographic interviews was selected for this study. Informational redundancy was reached with 9 mothers of Mexican descent. Spradley's Developmental Research Sequence guided data collection and analysis. Participants held views that were congruent with the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendations. Findings provide nurses with knowledge on how mothers of Mexican descent view appropriate nutrition, discipline in feeding, and the place of physical activity and television in young preschool children's lives.