This article features Childgarden Child Development Center, located in the heart of St. Louis. It's a cheery, bright place with colorful self-portraits by pintsized Picassos hanging from every wall. More than 120 children aged six weeks to eight years old gather at Childgarden each day to learn all about themselves and the world around them. In…

This article offers an original review of research and reports about young Indigenous children's language development needs and approaches to meeting them. The review addresses not only children's acquisition of an Indigenous language but also their acquisition of other languages (e.g., English and French), because their progress in one linguistic…

This article examines the Kentucky Initiative for Social Skill and Emotional Development which provides annual training and technical assistance to build early childhood programs' capacity to deliver practices known to promote social and emotional competency. The initiative is based on the 3-tiered Positive Behavior Support model that teaches…

Despite a dark history marked by the eugenics movement, increasing numbers of people with disabilities are choosing to become parents. Recent research reveals that more than 4 million parents--6 percent of American mothers and fathers--are disabled. This number will unquestionably increase as more people with disabilities exercise a broader range…

Austin Independent School District used $16 million in federal funds to support 25 ARRA IDEA projects to reduce the student academic achievement gap, reduce disproportionality, reduce dropout, improve district processes, improve teacher quality, and evaluate programs.

This article summarizes state and community policy activities during the first six months of 2007 and provides updates of the progress to serve infants, toddlers, and their families. The following states are included in the report: (1) Arkansas; (2) California; (3) Indiana; (4) Iowa; (5) Michigan; (6) Minnesota; (7) New York; (8) Ohio; (9)…

Early intervention and early care providers reported frequently encountering families with multiple economic, social and mental health challenges. Providers endorsed needs for mentoring and training to understand specific problems, to gain knowledge of community resources, to be able to talk with families about challenges and to recognize and…

Assessment within the fields of early childhood education and early childhood intervention is guided by the "deductive-psychometric model", which is a framework for legitimizing constructs that arise from theories. An alternative approach, termed the "inductive-experimental model", places significantly more restrictions on what constitutes a…

Although the need for early intervention for mental health difficulties is widely acknowledged, few studies have attempted to explicitly increase actual help seeking behavior for mental health difficulties. Students in intervention classrooms received two one-hour, in-class workshops on distress and help seeking and were compared to students in…

The acquisition of social communication skills is a major challenge faced by children with autism. This pilot study investigated the effects of the Stronger Families Project, a social-pragmatic intervention, on the communication and symbolic abilities of 16 children aged 2-4 years with autism. Standardized measures of the child's communication and…

Although experimental analysis methodologies have been useful for identifying the function of a wide variety of target behaviors (e.g., Iwata, Dorsey, Slifer, Bauman, & Richman, 1982/1994), only recently have such procedures been applied to verbal operants (Lerman et al., 2005). In the current study, we conducted a systematic replication of the…

"Evaluation Science Briefs" summarize the findings and implications of a recent study evaluating the effects of an early childhood program or environment. This Brief evaluates the study, "Effects of Nurse Home-Visiting on Maternal and Child Functioning: Age-9 Follow-up of a Randomized Trial" (D. Olds, et al.). States are increasingly turning to…

The "National Dropout Prevention Newsletter" is published quarterly by the National Dropout Prevention Center/Network. This issue contains the following articles: (1) Reading Is Vital!; (2) The Significance of Early Literacy Efforts in Preventing Later Failure (Susan King Fullerton); (3) Middle School Intervention Strategies For At-Risk Youth…

One model that can help middle school educators provide an effective system of instruction and early intervention is response to intervention (RTI). RTI is a schoolwide process that integrates instruction, intervention, and assessment. The alignment of instruction, assessment, and interventions promotes a stronger, more cohesive program of…

Objectives: At 6 sites serving 21 communities, Alaska implemented Healthy Families Alaska, a home visitation program using paraprofessionals designed to decrease child abuse and neglect. The primary study objective was to compare changes over time in Child Protective Services outcomes by Healthy Families Alaska enrollment status. Methods:…