Exploring Los Angeles County Early Learning Settings

描述（由申请人提供）：提出的纵向研究将记录来自加利福尼亚州洛杉矶县低收入家庭的3至5岁儿童在三种类型的幼儿早期综合干预环境中的经历，并评估这些干预对儿童早期学习在认知，语言和社会情感领域的影响。该研究将检查在这些干预环境中，由于低收入和/或英语学习者身份而有学习困难风险的儿童的具体教学实践和哲学、情感氛围、全球质量和照顾者与儿童的关系。这三种类型的干预设置分别是Head Start、私立非营利性幼儿园和家庭日托网络，选择这三种类型的干预设置是因为它们的重点是服务于低收入家庭，并且它们的重点是改善儿童的认知和社会发展。在这三种环境中的儿童个体，以及从这些服务的候补名单中抽取的对照组，将在他们的干预环境中进行观察，并对他们进行单独评估，以跟踪他们在认知、语言和社会情感领域的长期发展。分析将比较干预组和对照组儿童随时间的发展情况，以及评估不同教学实践和干预特征在干预环境内和跨干预环境中的具体影响。此外，还将进行一项费用分析，以评估改善这些处境危险儿童发展的办法所涉费用。这项纵向研究将包括500名儿童及其父母、照顾者和老师，从3岁一直跟踪到幼儿园。当这些孩子4岁时，另外100个孩子将被加入到样本中，并跟随他们进入幼儿园。干预组和控制组的儿童将随时间进入他们所参加的任何早期学习环境。最后的样本将包括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对照组儿童。这项研究的目的是确定具体的教学实践和方法，这些实践和方法有可能在入学前有意义地促进儿童的发展，为成功过渡到幼儿园奠定基础，并减少这些有风险的儿童在接受正规学校教育方面准备不足的可能性。

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.