European Early Childhood Education

The site I decided to learn more about, provide by Walden University EDUC 6163, Building Research Competency was European Early Childhood Education. I f you join their organization it seems to have a wealth of knowledge for anyone in the early childhood development field. The purpose of the EECERA is to collect papers that address development of new research methodology, give up to date current knowledge and present developments, applications and policy implications. I found this information under the special issues tab. They have a team of contributors providing papers that includes a variety of countries. The EECERA provides educational research for anyone who wants to become members of their website.

Concerned Aunt

   I have a niece and a nephew that was diagnosed with autism when they were approximately five years old. They are currently seventeen and twenty-four. My husband and I were watching TV one night about fifteen years ago and we heard on the news about how pig secretion can help with Autism. Back then, I researched the information and I found this study that was conducted by the National Institute of Health and Human Development, it was titled, The use of Pig Secretion to Treat Autism, http://www.nichd.nih.gov/news/releases/secretin.cfm, retrieved on November 14, 2012. What they reported was that three children with autism spectrum disorders who under went upper gastrointestinal endoscopy and intravenous administration of secretin to stimulate pancreaticobiliary secretion. All three children increased pancreaticobiliary secretory response when compared with nonautistic patients. Within five weeks after the intravenous administration of the secretin, they show dramatic improvement in behavior, eye contact, alertness, and expansive expressive language. The clinical observations suggested an association between gastrointestinal and brain function in subjects that had autistic behavior.

   I did tell my sister-in-law about this study, but she never looked into it. I thought it was very interesting and I was in hope that she would keep an open mind. I never brought this topic up again because it is somewhat personal and their family’s business as to what they want to do or not want to do when it comes to their children. I just thought I would pass this on for “food for thought’. I also have included other websites I found interesting about this topic.

The Informed Parent

http://www.informedparent.com/legacy/article-transitional.html?secretinuseinautism

Secretin Trials: A drug that might help, or hurt, autism children is widely prescribed but is just now being tested.

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/19475/title/Secretin-Trials--A-drug-that-might-help--or-hurt--autistic-children-is-widely-prescribed-but-is-just-now-being-tested/ 

My Topic

   The career path I have chosen is education. What I mean by this is not only to learn, but to teach. I have been working with students of all ages for about eight years to date. All of my students have different challenges in their lives such as culture, drugs, pregnancy, children, homeless and many more, this list goes on and on. I have already earned Maters in Adult Education and know I want to further my knowledge by obtaining an early childhood development degree. By doing this I will be able to further understand my students and help them with their individual needs. My ultimate goal is to gain the understanding of why so many kids “fall through the cracks”, and help prevent this from happening. I came to the realization that it starts from an early age, even before birth, and I wanted to learn all about how to help prevent any child from becoming an “at risk youth”.

   All kids have the capacity to succeed in school and in life. Yet far too many children fail to meet their true potential. Many students, especially those from poor and minority families, are placed at risk by school practices that sort some students into high-quality programs and other students into low-quality education the purpose of this research is to find out ways I can help kids before they reach this point. 

Topic

The “Nocebo Effect”

Subtopics

1. Is there a link between the numbers of stressful events experienced during pregnancy and does this lead to increased, risk behavioral problems in children?
2. Do birth complications contribute to violent behavior and potentially lead to violence?
3. Can good nutrition and a loving environment help the fetus to develop their brain in a positive way?

   I have much to learn in the research process and this class has already helped me to understand the process, now all I have to do is apply it. I am open to any suggestions anyone has to offer me, thanks Tammy.

Healthy Children

 

   Physical activity of children seems to be the hot topic of conversation of everyone around the world. We need to care for our health early on and continue throughout life. We know from research that physical activity of infants and young children support healthy brain development and helps children become successful learners. We can do this by engaging children in healthy habits such as what we eat and how often we exercise.

   However accessing a child to find out if they are healthy or not depends on how often they have access to health clinics or doctors. Yes there are required times in school age children to have physicals and blood work before entrance into certain grades, but, how often they are seen in between is also very important for access their overall health. Health care is an issue for many different countries, as well as the United States.

These are just some interesting things I found as I researched this topic:

Prevalence of Obesity Among Children and Adolescents: United States, Trends 1963-1965 Through 2007-2008

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity_child_07_08/obesity_child_07_08.htm

 Summary Health Statistics for U.S. Children: National Health Interview Survey, 2010

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_10/sr10_250.pdf

Why Do School Aged Children Need Health Insurance?

http://familiesusa2.org/assets/pdfs/school-kids-need-insurance.pdf

Zero to Three

   Zero to Three (http://www.zerotothree.org/) is an excellent source and a wealth of knowledge; I go on this site every week to find out what is new and the current news, September 2010. This week I went directly to the “Down load of the week” tab. This is current information and the pamphlet is titled, Expanding Access to Early Head Start: State Initiatives for Infants and Toddlers at Risk (http://www.zerotothree.org/public-policy/pdf/expanding-access-to-ehs-paper.pdf). This is always an ongoing issue with early childhood education. This pamphlet tells about how research shows that young children growing up in poverty experience poorer health, developmental delays, learning disabilities, hunger, and are reported in more cases of neglect than their peers. This can result in becoming non-successful in school and less likely to become productive adults.

   Despite the difficult economical times 23 states have at least one initiative that builds on federally Early Head Start funded programs. Out of these states nine have initiatives that have extended the day or year of services, nineteen have expanded the number children and pregnant women served, and two states provide assistance and resources to child daycare providers. This is definitely taking steps in the right direction and a start in providing the assistance and programs needed for the growing demand for this progress.    As proven by these states currently implementing these (EHS) initiatives, hopefully more states will follow in the efforts of making this program available to more infants, toddlers and families. However I am very sad to say Kentucky is not one of these states listed in the initiative progress.

Resource

Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families
http://www.zerotothree.org/. Retrieved on October 12, 2012.

Economic return on early childhood investment

While surfing the internet this week I found a very interesting and knowledgeable person, James Heckman. James Heckman is a Nobel Memorial prize winner in Economics, and is an expert in the economics of human development. Heckman has proven that investing in early childhood development has great economic gains. In this video I found on youtube http://www.heckmanequation.org/about-professor-heckman, he articulately expresses the importance of early childhood investment. He states that early childcare is not only a social issue, but also an economic issue and education is at the heart of the economy. We need to invest in childhood development to gain skills for workforce development, and in turn, we will have less high school dropouts, and crime. He states a proportion of ages 18-25 are going on to college and others are dropping out of society. This creates a top half and a bottom half in which the bottom half is not working or contributing to society, creating a drain. This man sparked my interest and I decided to find his website, which has a vast amount of knowledge and videos to watch. I would highly recommend anyone interested, to visit his website http://www.heckmanequation.org/about-professor-heckman.

Resource

http://www.heckmanequation.org/about-professor-heckman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO2oFtY7tZA&feature=fvwrel

Our Future

   The resources of this week in the Walden University EDU-6162-1, Issues and Trends in Early Childhood Development class, reminded me how important education is not matter what age we are. I also have a Masters in Adult Education and I am very passionate about learners of all ages. Long standing educational gaps and low high school graduation rates was the issue that stood out the most for me because this issue will effect the growth of all economies and lead to not enough qualified workers to run the countries. This is why high-quality, early education is important for children birth to five years of age. On the United States Department of Labor website it stated that the future of unskilled workers depends largely on the education system and the government to provide supplementation to help low-skilled workers and their families http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/herman/reports/futurework/conference/trends/trendsVII.htm.  

   Qualified teachers are an essential component to all preschool programs. Children who are educated by teachers with higher educations in related fields of child development are more sociable, exhibit better language, and perform at a higher level on cognitive tasks than children who are not (Bowman, Donovan, & Burns, 2001). Quality education not only takes qualified teachers, it also takes much needed funds to support the programs.

   Another good resource I found was The National Early Childhood Accountability Task Force brings together leading experts in child development, early education, and state police to help states develop tools to measure, assess and set standards to help improve early education (PEW Charitable Trusts Programs http://www.pewtrusts.org/news). The benefits to the Task Force’s recommendations’ are that any state can use this to guide them to create an effective accountability and improvement system. The Task Force aims to help the states overcome the challenges they might face and effectively confront the issues. Some of the issues that might be a challenge are developing new approaches to assess children and programs and improve early childhood services because of structural, conceptual and technical challenges (National Early Childhood Accountability Task Force, 2007).

     There are many resources available to the people that want to learn and research how important education is and how we go about using the knowledge to help others. I feel the common denominator is we all seek to help children, learn, grow in all ways, live healthy, physically and mentally, and most important become productive members of our society. To do this, we as educators need all the help available to obtain this ambition.

Resources

Bowman, Barbara T.; Donovan, M. Suzanne; & Burns, M. Susan (Eds.). (2001). Eager to learn: Educating our preschoolers. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. ED 447 963

Programs at a glance: The National Early Childhood Accountability Task Force, PEW Charitable Trusts. Retrieved on June 18, 2012,  http://www.pewtrusts.org/news_room_detail.aspx?id=23460