Research Topic

I was recently exploring the ZERO TO THREE website for resources on infant and toddler development and the latest research that is being done to support the work done in that age group.  Social and emotional development is of great interest to me since, in my opinion, it is lays the foundation for successful, healthy children and adults.  Under the "Behavior and Development" tab there is a section on Early Childhood Mental Health.  On that page there is a video clip of an experiment done to show the effects of a responsive caregiver and a non-responsive caregiver.  The reaction of the child is fascinating and it truly shows how important our reactions to children are.  The research and work done in the area of mental health has direct implications on our field.  We all know that the demand for quality early childhood programs is increasing and with the information that is provided by this kind of research, we can begin to understand our role in training and sharing the knowledge with those in the field that are interacting daily with young children.

Here are more details about the video I referenced:

"The Still Face paradigm, designed by Edward Tronick, is an experimental procedure for studying infant social and emotional development. During the experiment, an infant and a parent interact playfully before the parent suddenly stops responding and looks away. After a short period, the parent reengages with the infant. The infant’s reaction to a suddenly unresponsive parent and his or her behavior when the parent resumes interaction, have been used to study many aspects of early social and emotional development."

"This video clip is excerpted from ZERO TO THREE's Helping Babies From the Bench: Using the Science of Early Childhood Development in Court."

References:

http://www.zerotothree.org/child-development/early-childhood-mental-health/

My Personal Research Journey

In this newest course "Building Research Competencies", we've been asked to choose a topic in early childhood that is of interest to us.  I have chosen to study attachment theory and its relationship to healthy social and emotional development in young children.  Recently, I have observed an increase in the number of families that are adopting children from foreign countries and I am interested in learning about the ways those children develop attachments to their new parents and how they adapt to the environment.  I am also very interested in how language development plays a part in that process, particularly if the child is an English language learner.

In evaluating resources and information on the internet, I realize that I need to carefully evaluate each piece for quality and validity.  The discussion this week encouraged us to look for sources that were both valid and non-valid and decide why they should be considered so.  This will help in my search for information on attachment theory and language development and my colleagues have shared many great sites to search.

Social and emotional development is often overlooked in early childhood.  With growing pressures for young children to perform academically, we must keep their emotional health in focus and understand that it is crucial for other areas of development.  I think it is interesting that there is so much in the news these days about bullying in elementary and secondary institutions.  The truth is it begins in early childhood, if you watch very carefully.  And as educators I believe that we MUST partner with parents to ensure that children are acquiring the abilities to empathize and recognize emotion in others and themselves.  In addition to the pressure to ensure academic success for children, teachers and administrators are now looking at having the primary responsibility of monitoring the emotional social treatment of others.  I realize this is a side sub-topic that could be a research simulation in and of itself, but I think there are some similarities.

Do any of you (my colleagues) have experience with working with families that have adopted children, either from the area or from abroad?  I would be interested to hear what services you know of that are available to them and how you think the process of language development affects healthy attachments.  I am looking forward to studying this subtopic and learning from you all about yours as well!

Katherine