A New View of Child Development

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura E. Berk
Keyword(s):  
Child Care ◽  
Child Development ◽  
Boards Of Directors ◽  
First Grade ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Advisory Committees ◽  
University Courses ◽  
Problematic Situations ◽  
Children's Activities

In my three decades of teaching university courses in child development, I have come to know thousands of students, many of whom were parents or who became parents soon after completing my class. I also served on boards of directors and advisory committees for child-care centers, preschools, elementary schools, and parent organizations. And my research continually drew me into classrooms, where for countless hours I observed and recorded preschool and school-age children’s activities, social interactions, and solitary behaviors, in hopes of answering central questions about how they learn. As a byproduct of those experiences, parents repeatedly approached me with concerns about how to foster their child’s development in the early years. Their fervent questions, at times riddled with doubt and anxiety, revealed that creating optimum learning environments for young children at home—and ensuring their access to development-enhancing experiences in child care, preschool, and school—have become mounting parental challenges. Consider the following problematic situations that parents recently raised with me: • Bob and Sharon, parents of a 4-year-old: Our daughter, Lydia, could recite her ABCs and count from 1 to 20 by age 2 1/2. When we looked for a preschool, many programs appeared to do little more than let children play, so we chose one with lots of emphasis on academics. To me, Lydia’s preschool seems like great preparation for kindergarten and first grade, but each morning, Lydia hates to go. Why is Lydia, who’s always been an upbeat, curious child, so unhappy? • Angela, mother of a 4-year-old and 6-year-old: My husband and I have demanding careers and need to bring work home in the evenings. I’ve read that it’s the quality of time we spend with our children that’s important, not the quantity. We try hard to give Victor and Jeannine our undivided attention, but they’re often whiny, demanding, and quarrelsome. Many times we end up sending them to their rooms or letting them watch TV, just to get some peace after a long day. What’s the best way to create quality parent–child time? • Talia, mother of a 7-year-old: My son Anselmo, a first grader, constantly asks us to help him with his homework.

scholarly journals Does quality matter in determining child care prices? Evidence from private child care provision in Turkey

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Didem Pekkurnaz ◽  
Meltem A. Aran ◽  
Nazli Aktakke
Keyword(s):  
Child Care ◽  
Child Development ◽  
Human Resources ◽  
Care Provision ◽  
Information Asymmetries ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Level Data ◽  
High Information

AbstractChild care prices are expected to reflect the quality of provision. However, in contexts where there are high information asymmetries between the users of the services and providers, we may expect this link between quality and prices to be weaker. Turkey is selected for the study as it has a highly regulated child care sector where the costs of accreditation and initial setup are high. However, there is very little on-going supervision and no information provided to users on the quality or ranking of these services. This paper investigates the role of quality in determining private child care prices using a unique provider-level data set collected in five provinces of Turkey. Regression results show that prices are mainly driven by infrastructure quality while human resources and curriculum and materials quality scores that are more likely to have a strong bearing on child development do not have a significant impact on prices.

scholarly journals Institutional Pedagogical Intervention in Early Years of Life on the Path of Lifelong Learning / Institucionalna pedagoška intervencija u ranim godinama života na putu cjeloživotnog učenja

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nataša Cvijanović ◽  
Danica Mojić
Keyword(s):  
Child Development ◽  
Lifelong Learning ◽  
Preschool Education ◽  
First Grade ◽  
Early Learning ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Speech Communication ◽  
Pedagogical Intervention ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Relationship

The research presented in this paper focuses on establishing the relationship betweeninstitutional pedagogical interventions in early years of life, such as the programmebefore going to school, and early learning of children.This relationship is observed through established outcomes that definedevelopmental changes of a child in all aspects of his development: physical,emotional and cognitive, and development of speech, communication and creativity.The task of the research was to determine the correlation between attending thepreschool curriculum and the growth of certain developmental aspects in childrenas an indicator of early learning, while observing preschool education and educationas a fundamental process for developing lifelong learning competence.Evaluation of the aspects of child development is carried out with the use of theScale for determining developmental aspects of children, with the teachers whoperformed the evaluation of children starting the first grade also recording the dataon attending preschool institutions.1,439 children were monitored in 18 schools, which represents about 14% of thetotal population of children who attend the first grade in the Republic of Srpska,one of the entities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.The results of checking the relationship between involving children into thecurriculum before going to school and the developmental aspects of children showthat children who were involved in the curriculum have more expressed aspects ofdevelopment, which also reflects onto more developed abilities for lifelong learning.Key words: aspects of child development; lifelong learning; preschool curriculum.-Istraživanje predstavljeno u ovom radu fokusira se na uspostavljanje odnosaizmeđu institucionalnih pedagoških intervencija u ranim godinama života, poputpredškolskoga programa i ranoga učenja djece.Ovaj odnos promatran je kroz uspostavljene ishode koji definiraju promjene djetetau svim aspektima razvoja: fizičkom, socioemocionalnom i kognitivnom aspektu terazvoju govora, komunikacije i kreativnosti.Cilj istraživanja bio je ispitati vezu između uključenosti u predškolski kurikul ipoboljšanja određenih razvojnih aspekata djece kao indikatora ranoga učenja,prilikom promatranja predškolskoga obrazovanja i obrazovanja kao temeljnogaprocesa za razvoj kompetencije cjeloživotnoga učenja.Evaluacija aspekata dječjega razvoja provedena je upotrebom Skale za utvrđivanjerazvojnih aspekata djece, a provodili su je učitelji koji su procjenjivali djecu napočetku prvog razreda, također bilježeći podatke o pohađanju predškolskihinstitucija.U istraživanje je bilo uključeno 1439 djece iz 18 škola, što predstavlja oko 14 %ukupne populacije djece koja pohađaju prvi razred u Republici Srpskoj, jednomod entiteta u Bosni i Hercegovini.Rezultati istraživanja odnosa uključivanja djece u predškolski kurikul i njihovihrazvojnih aspekata pokazuju da djeca koja su pohađala vrtić imaju izraženijerazvojne aspekte, što se također odražava na razvijenije sposobnosti cjeloživotnogaučenja.Ključne riječi: aspekti dječjega razvoja; cjeloživotno učenje; predškolski kurikul.

Market Child Care Versus Care by Relatives

1996 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 561-578 ◽  
Author(s):  
KAREN KUHLTHAU ◽  
KAREN OPPENHEIM MASON
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Quality Of Care ◽  
Child Care ◽  
Child Development ◽  
Public Policies ◽  
Parental Satisfaction ◽  
Employed Mothers ◽  
Preschool Aged Children

We study the determinants of whether mothers of preschool-aged children use market child care versus care by relatives to assess the importance of economics versus preferences. The evidence suggests that employed mothers turn to relatives for child care partly out of preference, not just because relatives are inexpensive. Public policies that encourage the use of relatives for child care might therefore increase parental satisfaction and quality of care. The analysis finds substantially similar results for African American and other women, but the results for employed mothers differ from those for nonemployed women, who appear to use child care primarily to enhance child development.

International Perspectives on Child Care Policies and Programs

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 91 (1) ◽  
pp. 248-252
Author(s):  
Sheila B. Kamerman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Child Care ◽  
Child Development ◽  
Day Care ◽  
The United States ◽  
Care Services ◽  
National Differences ◽  
Different Ages ◽  
Child Care Services

Child development research is more extensive and more sophisticated in the United States than in any other country in the world. US policy makers have access to more and better information about the factors known to enhance or impede good child development than those in almost any other country. Nonetheless, the United States lags far behind almost all the major advanced industrialized countries with regard to supply, quality, and affordability of out-of-home child care services for children under the age at which compulsory school begins (5, 6, or 7 years). This paper provides a brief overview of child care internationally, primarily in northern and western Europe, the leaders in this field. The objective is to document the availability and quality of child care services and related policies in these countries. The paper begins by defining the terms that will be used in discussing child care internationally. The major focus is on identifying and describing the policy choices that the advanced, industrialized, western countries have made regarding child care for young children of different ages (preschoolers and infants). DEFINING THE TERMS The child care programs I will describe include preschools (kindergartens, prekindergartens, compensatory early-education programs, nursery schools); day-care centers (nurseries, creches); and family-day-care-homes (both regulated and unregulated). Relative care, occasional baby-sitting, and care provided within a child's own home are not included in this discussion, nor are programs for children with special needs (handicapped children). Nor, because of space limitations, are before- and after-school programs covered. The major cross-national differences have to do with the financing of services and the extent of the role of the public sector; the predominance of the education, health, or social welfare system in delivering the services; the proportion of children of different ages served by these programs; whether services are limited to the children of working mothers; and the quality of the care provided.

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