This Research-to-Impact brief is the fifth in a series by Chapin Hall's Voices of Youth Count on understanding and addressing youth homelessness. The brief estimates that nearly 4.2 million youth and young adults in America experienced some form of homelessness during a 12-month period. It highlights research related to the specific experiences of…

This study examines the influence of a parent workshop intervention on vocabulary acquisition of at-risk preschool children during parent-child shared storybook reading. Sixty-nine parents were randomly assigned to either treatment or control group. In the treatment condition, parents were taught to implement elaborated vocabulary instruction…

The purpose of this study was to conduct a pilot randomized controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy of an intervention for enhancing the language development of young children enrolled in home visiting programs. The participants were 59 children (18-30 months old) enrolled in one of three types of home visiting programs. Children's language…

Child-directed speech (CDS), which can help children learn new words, has been rigorously studied among infants and parents in home settings. Yet, far less is known about the CDS that teachers use in classrooms with toddlers and children's responses, an important question because many toddlers, particularly in high-need communities, attend…

Guided by the social cognitive theory, this randomized controlled trial tested the "Make a Move," a provider-led intervention for Head Start parents aimed to produce changes in the outcomes of knowledge, attitude, and behavior of physical activity and healthy eating. Participants were parents of children ages 3-5 years enrolled in a Head…

Objective: To identify barriers and motivators for reducing secondhand smoke exposure (SHSe) for families of African-American, low-income, urban children. Method: Audiotaped intervention sessions of 52 African-American caregivers of Head Start children who reported being a smoker and/or had at least one smoker in the home were randomly sampled…

Strength-based assessment of behaviors in preschool children provides evidence of emotional and behavioral skills in children, rather than focusing primarily on weaknesses identified by deficit-based assessments. The Preschool Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scales (PreBERS) is a normative assessment of emotional and behavioral strengths in…

Use of multivariate analysis (e.g., multivariate analysis of variance) is common when normally distributed outcomes are collected in intervention research. However, when mixed responses--a set of normal and binary outcomes--are collected, standard multivariate analyses are no longer suitable. While mixed responses are often obtained in…

There is a national need for effective interventions to improve school readiness and subsequent achievement in mathematics for students from low-income families. The purpose of this study was to implement and evaluate a 2-year preschool math intervention that began at preschool entry when children were 3 years of age and continued through the end…

The purpose of this study was to describe the physical activity levels of urban inner city preschoolers while attending Head Start, the federally funded preschool program for children from low-income families. Participants were 158 African American children. Their physical activity during Head Start days was measured using programmed RT-3…

Background: Preschool children who are at risk have been shown to demonstrate developmental delays in their fundamental motor skills. The body of research on motor skill development of children indicates that these children, when provided with motor skill instruction, significantly improved their locomotor and object control (OC) skill…

Evidence shows that the Matthew effect is a persistent problem among early education interventions. The current study examined the degree to which the "ExCELL" ("Ex"ceptional "C"oaching for "E"arly "L"anguage and "L"iteracy) language and literacy professional development intervention for…

Between 65 and 70 percent of youth in the juvenile justice system have mental health disorders, with some studies estimating that at least 20 percent of these youth have severe disorders that significantly impair functioning. Many of these youth are entitled to adequate and responsive mental health services through federal programs like Medicaid's…

Narrative skills that are important for preschoolers include retelling stories, telling personal stories, and answering questions about stories. Narrative abilities form the foundation of reading comprehension. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of an individually delivered language intervention on the narrative skills of…

This study describes the results of an evaluation of the Individualized Learning Intervention (ILI), a mentoring program for early childhood educators that is built upon adult self-directed learning experiences and the collaborative support of others. Sixteen Mentor and 16 Protege teachers in Head Start classrooms were selected for participation…