Exploring Los Angeles County Early Learning Settings

描述（由申请人提供）：拟议的纵向研究将记录3- 5岁的低收入家庭的儿童在洛杉矶县，加利福尼亚州，在三种类型的综合性幼儿干预设置的经验，并评估这些干预措施对儿童的早期学习的影响，在认知，语言和社会情感领域。这项研究将探讨具体的教学实践和理念，情感气候，全球质量，和在这些干预环境中的儿童在学校困难的风险，由于低收入和/或英语学习者的地位。三种类型的干预设置是开端，私人非营利幼儿园和家庭日托网络，所有这些都是因为它们专注于为低收入家庭服务，并专注于改善儿童的认知和社会发展。在这三种环境中的个别儿童，以及从这些服务的等待名单中抽样的比较组，将在他们的干预环境中进行观察，并单独评估，以跟踪他们在认知，语言和社会情感领域的发展。分析将比较干预组和对照组儿童随时间的发展情况，并评估不同教学实践和干预特征在干预环境中和干预环境之间的具体影响。此外，还将进行成本分析，以评估与改善这些高危儿童发展的方法有关的成本。这项纵向研究将包括500名儿童及其父母，照顾者和教师，从3岁到幼儿园。另外100名儿童将被添加到样本时，儿童4岁，并通过幼儿园跟踪。干预组和对照组的儿童将随着时间的推移被跟踪到他们参加的任何早期学习环境。最终样本将包括400名接受三种类型干预的儿童，以及200名未接受综合幼儿干预的儿童。这项研究的目的是确定具体的教学实践和方法，有可能有意义地加强儿童入学前的发展，为成功过渡到幼儿园奠定基础，并减少这些风险儿童对正规教育准备不足的可能性。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed longitudinal study will document the experiences of 3-to 5-year-old children from low-income families in Los Angeles County, CA, in three types of integrative early childhood intervention settings, and assess the impacts of these interventions on children's early learning in cognitive, language, and social-emotional domains. The study will examine specific instructional practices and philosophies, emotional climate, global quality, and caregiver-child relationships in these intervention settings for children at-risk for school difficulties due to low-income and/or English-language-learner status. The three types of intervention settings are Head Start, private non-profit preschools, and family day care networks, all selected because of their focus on serving low-income families, and their focus on improving children's cognitive and social development. Individual children in these three settings, and in a comparison group sampled from waitlists for these services, will be observed in their intervention settings and assessed individually to track their development over time in cognitive, language, and social-emotional domains. Analyses will compare development over time for children in intervention and comparison groups, as well as assessing the specific impacts of different instructional practices and intervention features within and across intervention settings. In addition, a cost analysis will be conducted, to assess the costs associated with approaches to improving the development of these at-risk children. The longitudinal study will include 500 children and their parents, caregivers, and teachers, followed from age 3 into and through kindergarten. An additional 100 children will be added to the sample when the children are 4 years old and followed into and through kindergarten. Children in intervention and control groups will be followed over time into whatever early learning setting they attend. The final sample will include 400 children receiving intervention across the three types, and 200 children in the comparison group receiving no integrative early childhood intervention. The purpose of the study is to identify specific instructional practices and approaches that have the potential to meaningfully enhance children's development prior to school entry, setting the stage for a successful transition into kindergarten, and reducing the likelihood that these at-risk children will be under-prepared for formal schooling.