Children in formal child care have better language skills

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Fewer children who attend regular formal centre- and family-based child care at 1.5 years and 3 years of age were late talkers compared with children who are looked after at home by a parent, child-carer or in an outdoor nursery. This is shown in a new study by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health of nearly 20,000 children.
The study found no relation between the type of child care at the age of 1 year and subsequent language competence, which may indicate that the positive effect of centre-based child care first occurs between the ages of 1 to 1.5 years.

Furthermore, there were fewer children who were late talkers among those who attended full-time centre-based child care compared with part-time attendance at 3 years of age.

The findings support most of the previous research showing that children who have been in formal child care have better language skills than children who have had more informal care.

The study, “Does universally accessible child care protect children from late talking? Results from a Norwegian population-based prospective study,” is published by Ratib Lekhal and co-authors in the journal Early Child Development and Care.

The publication is based on information about 19,919 children collected by the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) and the Medical Birth Registry of Norway at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. This is a correlation study, meaning that one can comment on the relationship between centre-based child care and language development, but not directly about the cause. However, a number of other possible factors such as income, parental education, mother tongue and parental age are accounted for. The child's health at birth and social communication before the child started in formal child care was accounted for.

The incidence of delayed language development

Studies show that about 12 per cent of three year old children have either delayed language or show other deviations from normal language development. The prevalence varies according to the definition of language problems.

For about half of the children, difficulties in learning language are transient. For other children, the difficulties persist throughout school years and could have implications for how the child is able to adapt socially and function in school, work and society.

For many of the children, language difficulties disappear in the transition between pre-school and school, but appear in the form of reading and writing difficulties during the early school years.

Language and Learning Study

The publication is part of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health's Language and Learning study. This project will provide new knowledge about children's language development, the development trajectory in children with language difficulties and how they cope in school. The study will also reveal whether the organisation of learning activities in formal child care affects children's academic and social development through their school years. Knowledge from studies of different development trajectories will eventually be used to better target treatment measures for children with language difficulties.

The project uses information from MoBa and hopes to conduct a clinical study of children with language difficulties at the age of 5.

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School-based interventions for obesity

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Thanks to the Let's Move initiative, society is becoming more aware of alarming statistics like 1 in 4 children are obese and childhood obesity has nearly doubled over the past two decades! With this platform, nutrition education and physical activity in the classroom have taken the forefront against this growing epidemic. A study in the January/February 2011 issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior explores twenty-six school-based nutrition interventions in the United States.

Investigators performed a content analysis of Kindergarten-12th grade school-based nutrition interventions which fit into the study's ten components proposed for developing future effective school-based nutrition interventions. Findings from this study reveal that classroom nutrition education (85%) followed by parental involvement at home (62%) were the two intervention components used most often. Less frequent components included establishment of foodservice guidelines (15%), community involvement (15%), inclusion of ethnic/cultural groups (15%), inclusion of incentives for schools (12%), and involvement of parents at school (8%).

This study documents that although many components of nutrition education have been successfully included in our children's school-based interventions, there are still some missing links. "Schools continue to be an important location for childhood obesity prevention interventions. However, it is imperative that school-based interventions be developed and implemented to achieve maximum results. A periodic review of research on school-based nutrition interventions provides the opportunity to examine previous research and identify successful strategies and tactics for future studies that will lead to improved health outcomes in children," says lead author Dr. Mary Roseman, who conducted this work while at the University of Kentucky and The University of Mississippi.

Unfortunately, there is limited research about the effectiveness of nutrition education interventions. Now, more than ever, this is an area of research that has to be investigated to ensure that we educate our children how to be healthy, productive adults. The researchers, which also included Dr. Martha Riddell, Registered Dietitian and Professor of Public Health at University of Kentucky, and Jessica Niblock, Registered Dietitian with the Cincinnati Health Department, agree. "With increased awareness, urgency, and funding to support nutrition interventions and research focusing on reversing the rising trend of overweight and obese children in the US, synthesizing findings from previous studies to inform research and program development, and identifying potentially high-impact strategies and tactics are warranted. The 10 recommendations evaluated in this study may be a functional guide for both educators implementing nutrition programs and researchers designing school-based nutrition interventions."

The article emphasizes the importance of providing funding support so that more researchers can access the effectiveness of nutrition education in the classroom along with other links like cafeterias, homes, and communities.

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Year-End Report Shows PA Pre-K Counts Helps Young Children Learn to Succeed

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The commonwealth’s continuing investment in early childhood education is providing a strong foundation for young children to start school ready to learn and boosting the academic success of at-risk children, according to the Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts year-end report.

Issued by the Office of Child Development and Early Learning, the report highlights the accomplishments of the 153 grantees and 165 partners who provide early learning services through Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts funding.

In 2009-10, an investment of $86.4 million to Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts early learning programs provided high-quality pre-kindergarten services to nearly 12,000 at-risk 3- and 4-year-olds through school districts, Head Start providers, child care centers and nursery schools.

According to the report:

Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts is serving our most vulnerable children. In 2009-10, the program served children in 62 counties and 402 school districts. Approximately 5.3 percent of 3- and 4-year-olds in the rural/rural-mix counties were served and 3.7 percent of the 3- and 4-year-olds in the urban/urban-mix counties were served in Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts.

Enrollment for Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts targets children affected by risk factors that can harm their development and chance for school success. Participating children lived in families earning up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level, and about half (49.9 percent) of children enrolled were also impacted by at least one other risk factor, such as learning English as a second language, having special needs, or living with a parent or guardian with less than a high school education, making them more likely to struggle in school.

Children have made excellent progress in Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts and are entering kindergarten ready to learn. Nearly every child (more than 98 percent) showed age-appropriate or emerging age-appropriate proficiency in literacy, numeracy, and social skills after attending a Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts early learning program in 2009-1010. Schools report that graduates of Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts continue to perform on par with or better than their peers in kindergarten and first grade.

Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts teachers and classrooms are high quality. Approximately 84 percent of teachers have bachelor’s degrees and two-thirds have obtained Early Childhood Education (ECE) teacher certification. Approximately 25 percent more teachers are ECE-certified this year than in 2008-2009. Well-qualified teachers keep parents engaged, promote positive development, address concerns, and work with parents to create learning experiences both in school and at home.

In addition to high-quality certified teachers, Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts classrooms offer small class sizes, curriculum aligned with Pennsylvania Early Learning standards, regular assessment progress and performance reports. These high expectations ensure that the children receive a high-quality early learning experience.

Parents are highly satisfied with Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts. In a recent survey, 95 percent of about 3,200 parents with children enrolled in Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts reported that teachers provided them with new ideas on how to support their child’s development at home, and that information on their child’s performance motivated them to change how they taught their child at home.

Thousands of parents are demanding quality early education for their children. At the end of the 2009-10 school year, approximately 4,500 children were already on waiting lists to participate in Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts for 2010-11.

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