This final report discusses the activities and outcomes of a 3-year project designed to replicate a uniquely successful training model for involving physicians in community early intervention systems. The Caring for Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities: New Roles for Physicians (CFIT) model includes three replicable components: state planning,…

This manual is intended for teachers who envision the value of teaching parenting/caring to elementary school children but have minimal time and little opportunity for training. The manual is the third of three units of the curriculum, "Education for Parenting." Each unit follows a different aged baby visiting the classroom and is…

Supportive relationships, especially those with primary caregivers, are crucial for both the physical survival and the healthy social-emotional development of infants and toddlers. This guide, the first in a series on infant mental health from the Center for Program Excellence, describes how supportive relationships promote the social-emotional…

"Zero to Three is a single focus bulletin of the National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families providing insight from multiple disciplines on the development of infants, toddlers, and their families. Noting the greater variety of families children are entering or in which children are growing up, this issue focuses on looking beyond…

This policy brief begins with a broad overview of what the science of early childhood development tells us about the first three years of life. It then outlines the actions that need to be taken during the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to increase the likelihood that policy decisions are guided by state…

This booklet from the Alaska Department of Education describes stages in babies' and young children's growth and development and suggests ways parents can support their children's development process. The information is divided into the following age ranges: (1) prenatal; (2) birth to 4 weeks; (3) 1 to 3 months; (4) 3 to 6 months; (5) 6 to 9…

Parent's Journal is a set of 16 videotapes for parents of prenatal, infant, and toddler-age children, created by the Alaska Native Home Base Video Project of the Tlingit and Haida Head Start Program. This series offers culturally relevant solutions to the challenges of parenting, drawing on the life stories and experiences of capable mothers and…

This collection of learning units introduces parents to the role of nutrition in their young child's cognitive development. Designed to be easy to read and useful for families with limited resources, the materials help parents teach their young children good eating habits by offering information, feeding tips, creative activities for parents and…

This Handbook provides an introduction to basic procedures and methods of data analysis. The authors provide a framework to guide program staff in their thinking about these procedures and methods and their relevant applications in MSHS (Migrant and Seasonal Head Start) settings. Accordingly, this Handbook was developed to support the work of…

Early intervention services provided to 68 toddler-age children with disabilities were analyzed. Data were collected across family, child, and service characteristics. Children received services distributed across special instruction, speech therapy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy delivered primarily at the childcare center. Individual…

Compared visual self-recognition in toddlers of depressed (DM) and nondepressed mothers (NDM). Found that DM toddlers showing self-recognition were more likely than NDM toddlers to display nonpositive affect. DM toddlers not showing self-recognition and who shifted affect in the postrouge condition were less securely attached to mothers with less…

Examined relationships of child care provider education, presence of children from economically strained homes, and program structure to providers' self-perception, nurturance, and caregiving conditions in 36 licensed family day care homes. Found that when provider self-perceptions were high, but day care clients experienced economic strain, the…

This study explored effects of training 25 mothers to administer focused intervention to teach specific target words to their toddlers with expressive vocabulary delays. Following treatment, mothers' language input was slower, less complex, and more focused. The children used more target words, more words during play, and had larger vocabularies…

This study assessed the relative merits of adult-like syntactic and limited scope formula accounts of children's early determiner use to evaluate the claim that children can be said to be operating with a syntactic determiner category early in development. The study focuses specifically on Valian's (1986) criteria for attributing the syntactic…

Analysis of communicative exchanges between 24 children (ages 2-3) with Down syndrome and their mothers found that the quality of children's responses was highly associated with the degree to which the mothers' requests were related to the child's current activity and matched or were below the child's current developmental level. (DB)