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The Next Generation
A policy report from the Early Years Commission, chaired by Dr Samantha Callaghan, Centre for Social Justice (September 2008)
Introduction
A compelling body of research indicates that children's
experiences in the earliest years of their lives strongly
influence their futures across a wide range of measures.
Policy is currently focused on dealing with the
consequences of early adversity (neglect, abuse and
dysfunction) which are strongly implicated in the
dramatic increases in young people's alcohol and drug use
andmental health problems and in youthful knife and gun
crime. The most effective intervention strategy therefore
requires helping parents to get it right at the antenatal,
postnatal and infant stages, long before such help is typically available. Such timely support for parents could
help them do an outstanding job in raising the next generation.
(Extracted from Executive Summary)
To download the complete report visit www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk
Twelve month olds communicate helpfully and appropriately for knowledgable and ignorant partnersUlf Liszkowskia, Malinda Carpenterb and Michael Tomasellob, Communication Before Language Group, Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics (September 2008)
In the current study we investigated whether 12-month-old infants gesture appropriately for knowledgeable versus ignorant partners, in order to provide them with needed information. In two experiments we found that in response to a searching adult, 12-month-olds pointed more often to an object whose location the adult did not know and thus needed information to find (she had not seen it fall down just previously) than to an object whose location she knew and thus did not need information to find (she had watched it fall down just previously). These results demonstrate that, in contrast to classic views of infant communication, infants’ early pointing at 12 months is already premised on an understanding of others’ knowledge and ignorance, along with a prosocial motive to help others by providing needed information.
Abstract: www.sciencedirect.com/science
Read the press review
The Effects of Background Television on the Toy Play Behaviour of Very Young Children, Marie Evans Schmidt, Tiffany A. Pempek, Heather L. Kirkorian, Anne Frankenfield Lund, Daniel R. Anderson, University of Massachusetts at Amherst (July 2008)
This experiment tests the hypothesis that background, adult television is a disruptive influence on very young children's behavior. Fifty 12-24 and 36-month-olds played with a variety of toys for 1 hr. For half of the hour, a game show played in the background on a monaural TV set. During the other half hour, the TV was off. The children looked at the TV for only a few seconds at a time and less than once per minute. Nevertheless, background TV significantly reduced toy play episode length as well as focused attention during play. Thus, background television disrupts very young children's play behavior even when they pay little overt attention to it. These findings have implications for subsequent cognitive development.
Abstract: www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120775712/abstract
Download the full report at www3.interscience.wiley.com
Read the press review
Can Television be good for Children? By Dr Kaoruko Kondo, University of Westminster Communication and Media Research Institute
(April 2007)
A review of research on the beneficial affects of television in children's lives was commissioned by Save Kids' TV. It looked at research which supports the view that TV, in some circumstances, can be a powerful educational tool, that it can inform and inspire and that it is culturally relevant to today's children. The review includes a section on Television and children's language acquisition which includes consideration of the impact on vocabulary acquisition, age-approriate programmes and adult involvement.
To download the review visit www.savekidstv.org.uk/news/
Nurse Family Partnership Programme - First Year Pilot Site Implementation in England: Pregnancy and the post Partum period Professor Jacqueline Barnes, Mog Ball, Pamela Meadows, Jenny McLeish, Professor Jay Belsky and the FNP Implementation Research Team,
Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Social Issues,
Birkbeck, University of London, (July 2008)
This research was undertaken to consider the feasibility of implementing the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) programme in England in ten test sites and its short-term impact on practitioners, the wider service community and children and families.
The research considered a range of areas and issues surrounding the programme. Communication and early language is considered in chapter 10 of the report Potential Impacts of NFP particularly when considering the mother-child relationship. According to the report, learning about baby cues - the way infants express themselves, was the second most mentioned aspect of the programme after feeding. Understanding their children's communication was highly valued and helped parents to bond with their children.
To download the report visit www.dcsf.gov.uk/research
(See p.116 - 117 for more on the Mother-Child relationship)
Read more about the Family Nurse Partnership programme
The good, the bad and the pacifier - unsettling accounts of early years practice. Dr Judy Whitmarsh, University of Wolverhampton (June 2008)
Abstract: In this article, interviews with eight managers and questionnaires from 75 practitioners are analysed to explore their perceptions of the role of pacifiers (or dummies) within the nursery. Managers and practitioners source their knowledge from the media, family/friends, and short professional speech and language courses; however, their perceptions of pacifiers derive from mainly contested research that has filtered into the public domain. This creates tensions between perceived parental rights to offer a child a pacifier, current UK guidelines and participants' own, often ambivalent, views. The article engages with Foucauldian concepts to explore how authoritative knowledge filters into everyday practice and to deconstruct relations of power within the early years setting.
Abstract: http://ecr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/6/2/145
(Journal of Early Childhood Research, Vol. 6, No. 2, 145-162, 2008)
Dr Judy Whitmarsh, Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood Studies, School of Education, University of Wolverhampton, email: j.whitmarsh@wlv.ac.uk
Thursday's Child
by Sonia Sodha and Julia Margo, IPPR (May 2008)
This report considers educational reform in the context of a change in the political agenda. There has been a shift towards the need for schools to provide a wider role than just attainment and that education is about more than curriculum, assessment and accountability, as in the 1980s. Although the report does not focus on early years, the section on 'rethinking 5-7 learning' highlights the need to build on the work of Sure Start at this stage. It also focuses on the development of cognitive skills, including that of oral language and the importance of learning through play.
To download the report visit www.ippr.org/publicationsandreports
Helping new families: Support in the early years through universal health visiting (March 2008)
Rationale for the policy
It is widely accepted that the first steps in a child's development are crucial to the child's life chances.
There is also strong evidence to suggest that the provision of health visitors is a highly effective way of
helping parents to do the best for their children in the early stages of development.
But there is a serious shortage of health visitors today. The average time parents spend with a trained health
visitor in the first year is only four hours and six minutes. This lack of early years' child care support is
not acceptable.
The Government are planning to address this problem by continuing to run down the number of health
visitors whilst spending £200 million a year on creating a new cadre of Sure Start outreach workers. These
new outreach workers will lack the professional training of health visitors (and are therefore less likely –
according to the survey evidence – to command the confidence of parents).
(Extracted from Executive summary)
To download the whole report visit www.conservatives.com
For Love or Money:
Pay, progression and professionalisation in the 'early years' workforce (April 2008)
The first report from ippr's Working out of Poverty series highlighted the significant and growing problem of poverty among working people and their families (Cooke and Lawton 2008). We identified low wages and limited progression at work as important factors underpinning working poverty. The aim of this report is to investigate how these issues play out in one particular low wage sector – the early years –highlighting both challenges that are common across low wage sectors and those that are distinctive to the early years.
Early years services for young children are critical to delivering both economic prosperity and social justice for Britain. However, average pay is £6.80 an hour, only seven per cent of the workforce has a post secondary qualification and 98 per cent are women. We have chosen to focus on the early years sector because, as well as being a source of low wage employment in its own right, it has wider importance in enabling parents to work and giving children the best start in life. This raises the stakes for policymakers because a virtuous circle of high quality services and high value employment can help reduce working poverty (both directly and indirectly) today, as well as for generations to come. Equally, any negative impacts of low pay have implications beyond the early years workforce itself.
Our analysis reveals the human stories and struggles that lie behind the statistics on pay and poverty. Our findings highlight the challenges for policymakers and deliverers seeking to raise both quality and wages. Our proposals suggest how policy could better realise fairness, opportunity and aspiration at work, while orientating this crucial sector of the economy towards both higher wages for workers and higher quality for children.
(Extracted from Executive Summary, p.6)
To download the full report visit www.ippr.org/publicationsandreports/publication.asp?id=598
National Scientific Council on the Developing Child
The Council has produced five working papers on child development which provide information on the importance of early interaction. Below are abstracts of each paper. To download the complete papers visit www.developingchild.net/pubs/wp.html
1. Young Children Develop in an Environment of Relationships
New research shows the critical impact of a child's "environment of relationships" on developing brain architecture during the first months and years of life. We have long known that interactions with parents, caregivers, and other adults are important in a child's life, but new evidence shows that these relationships actually shape brain circuits and lay the foundation for later developmental outcomes, from academic performance to mental health and interpersonal skills. However, many of our nation's policies, such as parental leave, child care, welfare work requirements, and child protection services fail to take into account the crucial importance of this environment of relationships and its impact on child well-being. This report summarizes the most current and reliable scientific research on the impact of relationships on all aspects of a child's development, and identifies ways to strengthen policies that affect those relationships in the early childhood years.
Abstract: www.developingchild.net/pubs/wp-abstracts/wp1.html
2. Children's Emotional Development is Built into the Architecture of their Brain
A growing body of scientific evidence demonstrates that emotional development begins early in life and is closely connected with the emergence of cognitive, language and social skills. Early emotional development lays the foundation for later academic performance, mental health, and the capacity to form successful relationships. Despite this knowledge, most policies related to early childhood focus exclusively on cognitive development as it relates to school readiness, neglecting the importance of such capacities as the ability to regulate one's own emotions and behavior and to manage successful interactions with other people. As a result, many of our nation's policies, such as those that regulate child care provider training, availability of early childhood mental health services, and early identification and treatment of behavioral disorders, overlook emotional development as a focus of evaluation and intervention. This report presents an overview of the scientific research on how a child's capacity to regulate emotions develops in a complex interaction with his or her environment and ongoing cognitive, motor, and social development. It then discusses the implications of this research for policies affecting young children, their caregivers, and service providers.
Abstract: www.developingchild.net/pubs/wp-abstracts/wp2.html
3. Excessive Stress Disrupts the Architecture of the Developing Brain
New research suggests that exceptionally stressful experiences early in life may have long-term consequences for a child's learning, behavior, and both physical and mental health. Some types of “positive stress” in a child's life—overcoming the challenges and frustrations of learning a new, difficult task, for instance—can be beneficial. Severe, uncontrollable, chronic adversity—what this report defines as "toxic stress"—on the other hand, can produce detrimental effects on developing brain architecture as well as on the chemical and physiological systems that help an individual adapt to stressful events. This has implications for many policy issues, including family and medical leave, child care quality and availability, mental health services, and family support programs. This report explains how significant adversity early in life can alter—in a lasting way—a child's capacity to learn and to adapt to stressful situations, how sensitive and responsive caregiving can buffer the effects of such stress, and how policies could be shaped to minimize the disruptive impacts of toxic stress on young children.
Abstract:www.developingchild.net/pubs/wp-abstracts/wp3.html
4. Early Exposure to Toxic Substances Damages Brain Architecture
New science shows that exposure to toxins prenatally or early in life can have a devastating and lifelong effect on the developing architecture of the brain. Exposures to many chemicals have much more severe consequences for embryos, fetuses, and young children, whose brains are still developing, than for adults. Substances that can have a truly poisonous effect on the brain—known as neurotoxins—can be found in environmental chemicals such as lead and mercury, in recreational drugs such as alcohol, nicotine, and cocaine, and in prescription medications, such as some acne treatments. Most neurotoxin exposure is preventable. This report summarizes the complex scientific research on which toxins present the greatest risk at various stages of brain development, addresses popular misconceptions about the relative risk and safety of some common substances, and suggests policies that can help reduce the enormous human and economic costs of exposure to toxins during development.
Abstract: www.developingchild.net/pubs/wp-abstracts/wp4.html
5. The Timing and Quality of Early Experiences Combine to Shape Brain Architecture
The foundations of brain architecture are established early in life through a continuous series of dynamic interactions in which environmental conditions and personal experiences have a significant impact on how genetic predispositions are expressed. Because specific experiences affect specific brain circuits during specific developmental stages—referred to as sensitive periods— it is vitally important to take advantage of these early opportunities in the developmental building process. The quality of a child’s early environment and the availability of appropriate experiences at the right stages of development are crucial in determining the strength or weakness of the brain’s architecture, which, in turn, determines how well he or she will be able to think and to regulate emotions. This report summarizes in clear language the most recent scientific advances in understanding the importance of sensitive periods on brain development, and the implications of those findings for policy.
Abstract: www.developingchild.net/pubs/wp-abstracts/wp5.html
Early years: Getting on well
Enjoying, achieving and contributing
Getting on well is the second national report on how early years and childcare providers are supporting Every Child Matters outcomes for children. It focuses on how the best providers are promoting children's enjoyment and achievement, and helping them to make a positive contribution.
Getting on well uses evidence from Ofsted's inspections and surveys during the year April 2006 to March 2007 to show to what extent children in registered settings are enjoying their learning, feel valued and have good relationships with other children and adults. It includes examples of improvements made in response to issues raised at inspection.
Visit www.ofsted.gov.uk/
(Ofsted website)
Visual Language Discrimination in InfancyWhitney M. Weikum, Athena Vouloumanos, Jordi Navarra, Salvador Soto-Faraco, Núria Sebastián-Gallés, Janet F. Werker
This study shows that 4- and 6-month-old infants can discriminate languages (English from French) just from viewing silently presented articulations. By the age of 8 months, only bilingual (French-English) infants succeed at this task. These findings reveal a surprisingly early preparedness for visual language discrimination and highlight infants' selectivity for retaining only necessary perceptual sensitivities.
Abstract: www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/316/5828/1159
The Economic Promise of Investing
in High-Quality Preschool
Using Early Education to Improve Economic Growth and the Fiscal
Sustainability of States and the Nation by the Committee for
Economic Development (2006)
This report from the Committee for Economic Development (CED)
concludes that implementing preschool programs for all can
be expected to generate $2 to $4 for every dollar invested
and provide a boost to long-term economic growth. The report
recommends, among other things, that governing bodies make
access to publicly funded, high-quality prekindergarten an
economic and educational priority, that preschool education
programs meet quality standards necessary to deliver potential
benefits, and that the broad economic benefits of preschool
should be considered when allocating resources in the face
of competing uses and demands for funding.
The report can be downloaded from http://nieer.org/docs/index.
Development in the early
years: its importance for school performance and adult outcomes
(2006) Leon Feinstein and Kathryn Duckworth
Wider Benefits of Learning Research Report No.20
Early development of children’s intellectual, social
and physical abilities has the potential to affect their long
term achievement, beyond the initial introduction to the classroom,
through their school lives and into adulthood. A greater understanding
of the processes at work in these early years and their role
in later success is therefore important to ensure that resources
are appropriately targeted.
Past research has shown that early cognitive attainment is
strongly related to later academic success. But we are also
interested in the benefit that children gain from arriving
at school with particular personal characteristics and the
relationship which these may have to cognitive development.
We also seek to explore the role of development (as opposed
to innate capability) in the pre-school years. Data from the
1970 British Cohort Study is used to examine the importance
of early measures of children’s cognitive ability and
behavioural development for their subsequent school and labour
market achievement.
Our results suggest that, of the various measures used in
this study, the most powerful predictor of later academic
and labour market success is the ability of children to copy
basic designs. However, we do not ignore the influence of
behavioural factors and highlight the particular importance
of skills related to attention with respect to these outcomes.
The results clearly show that early development of both cognitive
and behavioural skills have a role in subsequent achievement.
In this respect, we believe that the findings in this report
add to the debate on the appropriate balance between cognitive
and non-cognitive skills at different ages and for different
groups of children. In particular, failure to place sufficient
emphasis on cognitive development may run counter to the interests
of children from low SES groups. We believe that pedagogy
should continue to address ways in which cognitive and non-cognitive
abilities can support one another and how the interactions
between these different groups of skills can best be harnessed
for different groups of children.
The full report is available at http://www.learningbenefits.net/Publications.htm
Kenneth Ginsburg and
the Committee on Communications and Committee on Psychosocial
Aspects of Child and Family Health. The Importance of Play
in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong
Parent-Child Bonds, American Academy of Pediatrics, 9 October
2006.
Play is essential to development as it contributes to the
cognitive, physical, social and emotional wellbeing of children
and youth. Play also offers an ideal opportunity for parents
to engage fully with their children. Despite the benefits
derived from play for both children and parents, time for
free play has been markedly reduced for some children. This
report addresses a variety of factors that have reduced play,
including a hurried lifestyle, changes in family structure,
and increased attention to academics and enrichment activities
at the expense of recess or free child-centered play. This
report offers guidelines on how pediatricians can advocate
for children by helping families, school systems, and communities
consider how best to ensure play is protected as they seek
the balance in children's lives to create the optimal developmental
milieu.
The report can be downloaded from www.aap.org/pressroom/playFINAL.pdf
Tom Morris
and Gerard Leavey (2006). Promoting phonological awareness
in nursery-aged children through a Sure Start Early Listening
programme, International Journal of Early Years Education
14(2): 155-168.
There is a growing recognition of the importance of pre-literacy
skills among pre-school children. Evidence that children from
relatively deprived backgrounds face poorer outcomes in speech
and language development and educational achievement has led
to an assertive attempt to lessen social inequalities at the
earliest opportunity.
The UK government-funded Sure Start initiative aims to provide
services to promote play and learning opportunities for such
children under the age of four. This paper describes the background
and method of setting up an Early Listening programme in a
deprived, multicultural and multilingual area of North London.
We also present findings on the effect of the programme on
children's phonological awareness. The results indicated improvement
in rhyme awareness following direct input, with more tentative
signs of positive trends in phonemic awareness and visual
memory. We suggest that this programme may have considerable
value in a wider local educational context. The information
gathered from this pilot work will assist the development
of more definitive research.
Abstract: www.tandf.co.uk
Feinstein, L., Duckworth,
K. (2006). Are there effects of mothers' post-16 education
on the next generation? Effects on children's development
and mothers' parenting. The Centre for Research on the Wider
Benefits of Learning, Report No 19.
There is an extensive body of research which shows that the
children of parents with longer participation in education
do better in standard tests of school attainment than those
whose parents have had less education. One of the mechanisms
put forward for explaining the intergenerational transmission
of educational success is parenting.
This report adds to a growing body of research from the Centre
for Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning on the inter-generational
transmission of educational success and issues of parenting
skills, behaviours and attitudes. The report seeks to establish
whether the strong correlation between mothers' participation
in education and both her child's development and her parenting
results from a primarily causal relationship, or from selection
effects.
Using longitudinal data spanning three generations, we find
that while mothers' participation in post-compulsory education
has some small positive causal effects, much of the apparent
relationship between a mother's post-16 educational participation
and measures of her children's cognitive ability and her parenting
skills is driven by the selection bias - it is largely other
factors, such as her aspirations, motivation and prior achievement,
which determine her child's attainment and affect her decision
to stay on in education.
Much of the developmental literature tends towards a causal
interpretation of the relationship between parents' education
and the development and ability of their children. However,
the results of this report suggest that such assumptions should
be made with considerable caution.
Our findings suggest that simply extending the length of
time that women spend in education may do little to directly
affect the educational attainment of their children. Rather,
it is the ability and aspirations of women which inform their
participation in post-16 education, their parenting ability
and the attainment of their children. It may be through inter-generational
continuities in factors such as these that inequalities in
educational success are transmitted through the generations.
This suggests that supporting children in learning through
early and continued investment in quality education and developmental
opportunities is more important in addressing social immobility
than simply extending the average length of participation,
important though that may be.
The full report is available at www.learningbenefits.net/publications/researchreports.htm
Goubet, N., Rochat, P., Marie-Leblond, C.,
Poss, S. (2006). Learning from others in 9 to 18-month-old
infants, Infant and Child Development 15(2): 161-177.
The use of an adult as a resource for help and instruction
in a problem solving situation was examined in 9, 14 and 18-month-old
infants. Infants were placed in various situations ranging
from a simple means-end task where a toy was placed beyond
infants' prehensile space on a mat, to instances where an
attractive toy was placed inside closed transparent boxes
that were more or less difficult for the child to open. The
experimenter gave hints and modelled the solution each time
the infant made a request (pointing, reaching, or showing
a box to the experimenter), or if the infant was unable to
solve the problem. Infants' success on the problems, sensitivity
to the experimenter's modelling, and communicative gestures
(requests, co-occurrence of looking behaviour and requests)
were analysed.
Results show that older infants had better success in solving
problems although they exhibited difficulties in solving the
simple means-end task compared to the younger infants. Moreover,
14 and 18-month-olds were sensitive to the experimenter's
modelling and used her demonstration cues to solve problems.
By contrast, 9-month-olds did not show such sensitivity. Finally,
9-month-old infants displayed significantly fewer communicative
gestures toward the adult compared to the other age groups,
although in general, all infants tended to increase their
frequency of requests as a function of problem difficulty.
These observations support the idea that during the first
half of the second year infants develop a new collaborative
stance toward others. The stance is interpreted as foundational
to teaching and instruction, two mechanisms of social learning
that are sometime considered as specifically human.
Abstract: www3.interscience.wiley.com
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