Linda's ECE World

Blog Week 5

Ed 6162

Issues and Trends in Early Childhood Education

This week I got to poke around in the Center for the Developing Child – Harvard University.  This is one of my favorite places to spend an afternoon reading research on ECE development and practice research. (Yeah I am a bit of a geek)  The pages I focused on this week were the Global Children’s Intuitive.  There were three topics that garnered my attention.  Three objectives were identified and three activity domains.

Objectives:

1)      Reframing the discourse around childhood health and development  - Foundation of life long health

2)      Supporting innovative, multi-disciplinary research and demonstration projects

3)      Building leadership capacity in child development research and policy.

The domains that were going to have activity built around them are.

a)      Child mental health

b)      Children in crisis and conflict.

c)      Early childhood development.

On the child mental health page the focus is on four mental health disorders that affect children and adolescents. 

1)      Anxiety and anxiety disorders

2)      Depression and depressive disorders

3)      ADHD and related problems

4)      Conduct problems ranging from early child disobedience to adolescent delinquency and violence.  

Link for the entire article is here:

http://developingchild.harvard.edu/activities/sar/child_mental_health/

The domain of children in crisis and conflict Harvard is sponsoring several studies. Theresa Betancourt notes that just keeping children alive in a crisis is not enough, (which is what NGO’s do) the effects of long term crisis and conflict that affect all areas of a child’s life for as long as they live.  “Regions rife with armed conflict and areas affected by HIV/AIDS represent the two major exceptions worldwide to recent gains in children’s health and development, notes Betancourt, which helps explain why the two research projects in sub-Saharan Africa have drawn her interest. For both projects, Betancourt says, the Center on the Developing Child contributed seed funding that enabled her to secure or fill gaps in larger federal grants.” 

The link to that page is here:

http://developingchild.harvard.edu/index.php/faculty_and_staff/faculty/faculty_spotlights/theresa_betancourt/

In the domain of child development a tool was created to study child development in a developing country in Sub-Sahara Africa in the country of Zambia.   This was a longitudinal study of 1,686 children who were born in 2004 and were then followed up in 2010 (the number in the cohort had dropped to 1,250) and then again in 2011.  The study found that comprehensive child assessments are feasible with in standard population based household surveys. 

Link to read the article.

http://developingchild.harvard.edu/activities/global_initiative/zambian_project/

Ok that was all really interesting.  Children all over the globe deserve to have a level playing field where health, welfare, safety and education are concerned.  I am supportive of that.

However I have one concern and that is those domains being addressed right here in the United States.  I have identified what I would consider a “new” kind of special needs child in early childhood education and I am concerned that teacher preparation programs are not preparing teachers to deal with it.  This child is impoverished (by US standards) is in danger because of high crime where he or she lives, and has the beginnings of mental health challenges due to living in a stress filled environment.  I have talked to more than one therapist who is seeing a three year old who have been kicked out of preschool/day care because they do not obey in class for whatever reason.  As a ECE teacher I want to make sure that children who are at risk in our own back yard are benefiting from research and funds for studies to help us as educators help them as children to succeed in learning and for life. 

I hope to explore any research on that vein in the future.

Thanks for dropping by