The past two decades have seen a rapid increase in neuroscientific evidence being used to characterize how contextual, structural, and societal factors shape cognition and school readiness. Measures of functional brain activity are increasingly viewed as markers of child development and biomarkers that could be employed to track the impact of…

National Surveys of Children's Health (NSCH, 2016-2018) data were analyzed to determine if conjoint monitoring and screening showed stronger associations with children under 5 identified with ASD compared to monitoring alone, screening alone or no monitoring or screening; and investigate relationships between monitoring and screening across…

In the past decade, American and Canadian pediatric societies have recommended that pediatric care clinicians follow a schedule of routine surveillance and screening for young children to detect conditions such as developmental delay, speech and language delays and disorders, and autism spectrum disorder. The goal of these recommendations is to…

Early Childhood Education (ECE) programs are an important investment in Ohio's youngest learners. Ohio has worked to increase the availability of high-quality early learning programs for preschool children by providing the Early Childhood Education grants. Funded programs deliver high-quality, comprehensive learning environments focused on healthy…

Health care reaches more children under age three in the United States than any other family-facing system and represents the most common entry point for developmental assessment of and services for children. In this article, Adam Schickedanz and Neal Halfon examine how well the child health care system promotes healthy child development early in…

The purpose of this article is to question the suitability of the phonics screening check in relation to models and theories of reading development. The article questions the appropriateness of the check by drawing on theoretical frameworks which underpin typical reading development. I examine the Simple View of Reading developed by Gough and…

The majority of students in Maryland spent at least a portion of the last school year learning virtually, from public prekindergarten through college. Throughout the year, jurisdictions made individual decisions to allow for a gradual return to in-person school in a variety of ways. Lessons learned from the earliest stages of the pandemic made it…

In 2014, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) distributed 250 grants across states and localities in the United States and its territories to establish Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships (EHS-CCPs) to expand access to high-quality child care. A cornerstone of Early Head Start (EHS) is the provision of comprehensive services.…

Social-emotional competence is a critical factor to target with universal preventive interventions that are conducted in schools because the construct (a) associates with social, behavioral, and academic outcomes that are important for healthy development; (b) predicts important life outcomes in adulthood; (c) can be improved with feasible and…

In Maryland, one way children's wellbeing is measured is by looking at the data from the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA). While the data can illustrate how children perform on various indicators across literacy, math, social-emotional development and physical well-being, it's really a reflection of the "readiness" of Maryland…

Developmental screening of young children is important in all populations, especially underserved communities with known health care disparities. The American Academy of Pediatrics created guidelines and a toolkit for pediatricians to conduct developmental surveillance and screening, yet these guidelines are not uniformly implemented within…

Early Head Start (EHS) is an evidence-based, federally funded, and community-based program with a two-generation approach to child development for children under age 3 and pregnant women in poverty. The mission of EHS is to support healthy prenatal outcomes; enhance the intellectual, social, and emotional development of infants and toddlers; and…

Over the past three years, the Boston Birth to Eight Collaborative has convened more than 200 individuals and organizations from across the early childhood field--center and family-based providers, pediatricians, public health researchers, hospitals, family engagement organizations, and parents--to ensure all children are ready for sustained…

Early intervention for children with behavioural difficulties can be effective in terms of outcomes for both the children and their families. Early intervention can save a child from long-term outcomes such as school failure, peer rejection and later offending. However, in terms of accurate assessment of young children's behavioural difficulties,…

In July 2013, the Early Childhood Data Collaborative (ECDC) surveyed 50 states and the District of Columbia to assess state early childhood data systems. The survey, completed by state education, health, and social services staff, focused on these three key aspects of state data systems, taken from ECDC's 10 Fundamentals: (1) Do states have the…