Lifespan Development. Tara L. Kuther

who attend Head Start programs have early educational experiences that improve cognitive and social skills and prepare them for kindergarten and elementary school.

      David Joles/Zuma/Corbis

      Additional evidence for the effectiveness of early childhood education interventions comes from the Carolina Abecedarian Project and the Perry Preschool Project, carried out in the 1960s and 1970s. Both of these programs enrolled children from families with incomes below the poverty line and emphasized the provision of stimulating preschool experiences to promote motor, language, and social skills as well as cognitive skills, including literacy and math. Special emphasis was placed on rich, responsive adult–child verbal communication as well as nutrition and health services. Children in these programs achieved higher reading and math scores in elementary school than their nonenrolled peers (Campbell & Ramey, 1994). As adolescents, they showed higher rates of high school graduation and college enrollment, as well as lower rates of substance abuse and pregnancy (Campbell, Ramey, Pungello, Sparling, & Miller-Johnson, 2002; Muennig et al., 2011). At ages 30 and 40, early intervention participants showed higher levels of education and income (Campbell et al., 2012; Schweinhart et al., 2005).

      Description

      Figure 7.7 Number of Children (in Thousands) Enrolled in Head Start and Early Head Start, and Children Enrolled as a Percentage of Children in Poverty, 2006–2014

      Source: Child Trends Databank (2015).

      The success of early education intervention programs has influenced a movement in the United States toward comprehensive prekindergarten (pre-K). Young children who participate in high-quality pre-K programs enter school with greater readiness to learn and score higher on reading and math tests than their peers (Gormley, Phillips, Adelstein, & Shaw, 2010). About one half of states offer some form of state-funded pre-K without income restrictions (Barnett, Carolan, Squires, Clarke Brown, & Horowitz, 2015). A few states, including Oklahoma, Georgia, and Florida, provide universal pre-K to all children, and many more states are moving in this direction (Williams, 2015). Beginning in the fall of 2017, New York City initiated a city-funded “3-K for all” program of free full-day preschool to all 3-year-olds (K. Taylor, 2017). Although some research suggests that half-day and more intense full-day programs do not differ in academic and social outcomes, full-day preschool incorporates the benefit of free child care to working parents that is likely of higher quality than they might have otherwise been able to afford (Leow & Wen, 2017). Funding public preschool programs is daunting, but the potential rewards are tremendous.

      Thinking in Context 7.6

      1 Why do you think the gains in cognitive and achievement scores shown by children in Head Start fade over time? From your perspective, what can be done to improve such outcomes?

      2 Consider early childhood interventions such as Head Start from the perspective of bioecological theory. Identify factors at the microsystem, mesosystem, and exosystem that programs may address to promote children’s development.

      Apply Your Knowledge

      Researchers who study deception in children must find unique ways of determining when young children are capable of lying. In one study (Saarni, 1984), children were given a desirable toy and promised that they would receive another. Instead, they received an undesirable gift that was not a toy. The child’s facial expressions, nonverbal behavior, and emotional displays were recorded. The researchers were interested in when children would begin to mask their feelings and lie about the desirability of the gift. In another study (Lewis, Stanger, & Sullivan, 1989), young children were left alone in a laboratory environment, told by the researcher not to peek at a toy in the researcher’s absence, and later questioned about whether they had peeked at the toy. Other studies (Polak & Harris, 1999) entailed the researcher telling children not to touch the toy and later questioning them about whether they had touched the toy in the researcher’s absence.

      1 How does cognitive development influence children’s ability to deceive?

      2 What emotional capacities does lying require?

      3 When would you expect young children to become capable of lying? Why?

      4 Do you think moral reasoning is related to lying?

      5 What are ethical issues entailed in research on deception in children? How might considerations of children’s feelings of guilt, shame, or frustration and their developing capacities for self-regulation inform this question?

      Descriptions of Images and Figures

      Back to Figure

      For each task, an original presentation of the task is presented, and then a transformation of the task is given.

       Task 1: Number

      Original presentation:

      The question reads, Are there the same number of pennies in each row?

      Accompanying the question is an image of two rows of pennies. Each row contains six pennies that are evenly spaced.

      Transformation:

      The new question reads, Now are there the same number of pennies in each row, or does one row have more?

      Accompanying the question is an image of two rows of pennies. Row 1 contains six pennies that are spaced the same as in the original image. Row 2 contains six pennies that are spaced much closer to one another.

       Task 2: Mass

      Original presentation:

      The question reads, Is there the same amount of clay in each ball?

      Accompanying the question is an image of two identical balls of clay.

      Transformation:

      The new question reads, Now does each piece have the same amount of clay, or does one have more?

      Accompanying the question is an image that shows one ball of clay from the original presentation and one thinner, longer roll of clay.

       Task 3: Liquid

      Original presentation:

      The question reads, Is there the same amount of water in each glass?

      Accompanying the question is an image of two identical glasses filled with equal amounts of water.

      Transformation:

      The new question reads, Now does each glass have the same amount of water, or does one have more?

      Accompanying the question is an image. Shown first is one of the glasses from the original presentation. Next to it is the same glass shown pouring its water into a bowl.

      Back to Figure

      The zone of proximal development as shown on an x-y graph. The x-axis is labeled level of competence. The y-axis is labeled level of challenge. Competence is defined as what the learning can achieve independently. Challenge is defined as what the learner will be able to achieve independently. The zone of proximal development is defined as what the learner can achieve with assistance.

      If level of competence increases but the level of challenge does not, boredom occurs. Conversely, if the challenge level increases but competency does not, anxiety occurs. Increasing both competence and level of challenge together keeps the learner in the zone of proximal development. In this zone, it is noted that scaffolding occurs through the support of the “more knowing other.”

      Back