Celebrating 50 Years of Child Development Research

Past, Present, and Future Perspectives

Barbara Wasik, Samuel L. Odom

• Publisher: Brookes Publishing
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781681252766
• eBook ISBN: 9781681252773
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Early Childhood Education

For more than fifty years, the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute has conducted groundbreaking research that revolutionized the field of early childhood care and education. Based on presentations made at FPG's 50th anniversary symposium, this essential reference looks back on the Institute's trailblazing history, analyzes contemporary issues in child development, and recommends critical new research directions. More than a dozen high-profile contributors thoroughly examine the three themes of the anniversary symposium: early care and education, diversity, and children with disabilities and their families. Readers will learn from in-depth chapters on:

• understanding the social, cultural, educational, and political forces that affect children's outcomes
• meeting the challenge of serving diverse populations as U.S. demographics shift
• preparing practitioners to work with young dual language learners
• improving connections between the knowledge base and professional practice
• strengthening the early childhood workforce through effective professional development
• analyzing decades of research and policy and examining ways to support continuous improvement

A celebration of progress and a compelling call to action for the next generation of professionals, this important volume is a must for researchers, policy makers, and faculty. Whether used as a textbook or a reference, this book will help shape the future of the early childhood field—and improve outcomes for tomorrow's young children and families.

III

Theme B: Early Care and Education

Research studies on early care and education caught the attention of many researchers and educators in the 1960s, setting the stage for 50 years of advances in early interventions. The initial work on early care and education reflects interest in the malleability of intelligence, as well as the potential for environmental changes to enhance the developmental and educational outcomes for children reared in poverty. Researchers designed early “compensatory” programs that would help prepare these young children for school. Based on outcomes from several early research studies, beliefs about the malleability of intelligence, and national concerns about children growing up in poverty, several significant events took place, including the initiation of Head Start and increased attention to environmental influences on children’s intellectual and developmental outcomes.

Building on the momentum in the 1960s, the Frank Porter Graham Institute initiated a child development program to examine the benefits for children who were growing up in poverty. In 1972, this early effort became the foundation for the Abecedarian Project, initiated by Craig Ramey and his colleagues. In Chapter 7, Ramey places in theoretical and historical context the Abecedarian Project—a study that was to become one of the most referenced early childhood intervention programs in the United States. Using the term Abecedarian Approach, he describes this term as encompassing concepts and procedures used in a series of experimental studies, including the Abecedarian Project, Project CARE, and the Infant Health and Developmental Program. A central feature of the Abecedarian Approach was a set of “learning games” that provided many opportunities for adult–child dyadic interactions. Positive educational, social, and economic outcomes are presented. The author concludes by addressing the relevance of the Abecedarian Approach to today’s U.S. population and circumstances.

Tackling one of the vexing issues in early care and education—namely, how do we best prepare personnel to work with young children—Marilou Hyson identifies major issues in professional development and practices in Chapter 8. Of critical importance is her observation that, despite a strong empirically established knowledge base about child development and learning, knowledge utilization practices often do not reflect this evidence base; practitioners often fail to use available insights from research and professional expertise. This theme of an existing and compelling knowledge base, with a disconnection between knowledge and practice, guides her chapter. She provides examples of low uptake of such knowledge and, even when uptake is evident, low sustainability of knowledge-informed practices. Although the professional field has recommended a skills-focused approach to teacher preparation, including such recommendations in accreditations standards, Hyson observes that this approach is infrequently implemented. To address the disconnection between knowledge and practice, both within and beyond higher education, she proposes that the field employ key concepts from implementation science to guide the field.

Policies related to children and their families also had considerable impact beginning in the 1960s, with significant legislation funding research centers, Head Start, and numerous social programs for children and adults. Ron Haskins, an expert on policy for more than four decades, takes the reader through a concise review of the political landscape influencing early childhood education from the 1960s to the present in Chapter 9. He identifies the change in public perceptions and policy since the 1960s toward sponsoring early childhood programs, based in part on empirical support and theory and, second, on the vast numbers of families that need child care as a result of working mothers. Making the distinction between early childhood programs designed to provide primarily child care for working parents and ones designed to enhance child development, he reviews the growth of these programs, especially Head Start, the State Pre-K Movement, the Child Care and Development Block Grant, and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. These major programs are supplemented by 50 additional programs eligible to support different forms of child care. Haskins contrasts this federal support with funding at the state level, noting the reliance of states on federal grants, but concluding that future funding may be more likely to come from state than from federal sources. He also identifies a significant cultural shift toward recognizing the importance of high-quality early childhood environments for children from low-income families.

These three themes of early care and education are brought together by Steve Barnett in the detailed synthesis in Chapter 10, which is used as a foundation to make recommendations for future work. Building on his expertise in evaluating the outcomes of early intervention studies, Barnett reviews the outcomes of both smaller classic studies as well as large-scale public programs, noting the frequent finding that large-scale programs have smaller impacts. He identifies several significant cultural factors in attempting to compare current large-scale studies with those conducted several decades ago. In particular, he observes that health and educational benefits are stronger for low-income families than they were 30 to 40 years ago. Furthermore, the characteristics of children enrolled in preschool programs have changed significantly, with more dual-language learners, more children with developmental disabilities, and more children who are being reared in single-parent households—all factors that likely contribute to smaller impacts. Barnett calls for major shifts in practice if significant change is to come about. In particular, he calls on the field to shift from the paradigm of seeing research as continuous improvement to one of teamwork among researchers, policy makers, and practitioners, who must work together to accomplish meaningful outcomes.

The authors in this section have challenged the reader to go well beyond current thinking about issues in early care and education to reconceptualizing how researchers, practitioners, and policy makers help bring about significant and lasting changes in the outcomes for young children and their families. Their calls for change have the potential to significantly alter the early care and education of low-income and minority children and potentially raise the base for all early education and care experiences.

7

The Abecedarian Approach to Full Development in Early Childhood

Craig T. Ramey

Some questions about human existence are so basic as to require scientific address, if possible. The question of human malleability is one such question. Can the course of human development be altered by intentional and directed acts? If so, through what systematic means and by how much? To what ends should systematic efforts be focused?

The question of human malleability has a long and controversial history in the United States. It began with racial and social class assumptions that predate the founding of the republic and that became cornerstones of public polices concerning education, housing, health care, employment, and marriage. Scientists have contributed to the controversies, with some individuals taking strongly predetermined and genetic views, such as Galton (1883), Jensen (1969), and Herrnstein and Murray (1994). Conversely, others have favored an experiential and/or environmental viewpoint (e.g., Bijou & Baer, 1961; Hunt, 1961), particularly with respect to cognitive performance.

What became clear to me was that this basic controversy needed an experimental approach (see Lazar et al., 1982). This controversy could not be adequately addressed via correlational analyses of naturalistic observations. The most basic question became whether individuals from highly vulnerable populations would benefit significantly if given access to more adequate resources. Chief among these resources were high-quality early care and education, as well as health care, nutrition, and family-oriented social services. These are factors that we attempted to control experimentally in the work I describe in this chapter. This work followed on the vision of the early founders of the Frank Porter Graham (FPG) Institute, Hal and Nancy Robinson, who believed in the potential of early care and education to change the trajectory of children from vulnerable populations.

This chapter deals with some of the experimental work that my colleagues and I began at FPG almost five decades ago. I realize there are practice, policy, and ethical implications to these basic questions; however, this chapter is primarily about the research that we have been privileged to carry out on human malleability.

THE ABECEDARIAN APPROACH TO EARLY CHILDHOOD

This chapter provides an overview of the Abecedarian Approach developed and used in the Abecedarian Project (e.g., Ramey et al., 1976) and its replications, Project Carolina Approach to Responsive Education (CARE; e.g., Ramey, Bryant, Sparling, & Wasik, 1985; Wasik, Ramey, Bryant, & Sparling, 1990) and the Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP; e.g., Infant Health and Development Program, 1990; Ramey et al., 1992). The word “approach” is used to indicate the main Abecedarian concepts and procedures that have been used as tools in a series of experimental studies. The procedures are what behavioral scientists often call the “experimental treatment.” In that sense, the Abecedarian Approach (summarized in the sidebar) is a set of standards, curriculum resources, and practices that were used in the interventions conducted for the Abecedarian Project, Project CARE, and the IHDP.

Major Features of the Abecedarian Approach

•An education program that began in early infancy

•A structured curriculum grounded in developmental theory and research findings (Sparling & Lewis, 1979, 1984, 2008)

•A highly trained and actively monitored teaching staff committed to implementing the curriculum and documenting each child’s progress with biweekly summaries

•Provision of high-quality health and safety practices, including active health/safety monitoring of all children within an environment that emphasized nutritious food, lots of exercise and play, and health promotion (good hygiene, appropriate rest)

•Low adult-to-child ratios (1:3 until babies were walking, 1:4 for toddlers and age 2 years; 1:6 for ages 3 and 4 years)

•Ongoing professional development from the child development center director and other learning specialists, with weekly meetings and frequent monitoring and inclassroom supports for teachers; active instruction and supervision for all teachers to implement the curriculum daily and to document each child’s engagement in specific games that were part of the educational program

•Individualization of pace in the curriculum and attention to special needs of the child and family, including provision of social work services in a timely manner with follow-up supports

•Provision of transportation to children as needed from their homes to center and back

•Full-day, full-week, year-round program (center open from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., operating 5 days a week, 50 weeks per year) with major emphasis on full attendance by all children

•Parent engagement component, including group meetings and special topic sessions, as well as teacher meetings with parents about their own children’s progress

•Stable and stimulating adult–child interactions, with a central commitment to ensuring that each child engaged daily in many rich...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• Dedication
• I: Historical Overview and Contemporary Issues
• II: THEME A: Race, Ethnicity, Linguistic, Cultural, and Socioeconomic Diversity
• III: THEME B: Early Care and Education
• IV: THEME C: Children With Disabilities and Their Families
• V: Fifty Years of Progress and Future Directions
• Index