From Neurons to Neighborhoods The Science of Early Childhood Development (2000) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 20-39
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From page 20... ...
This growing excitement has fueled a proliferation of media campaigns and policy activities focused on infants and toddlers, as well as a host of entrepreneurial efforts to capitalize on the demand for materials and experiences to enhance early competence. At the same time, skeptics have stepped forward to question this intense interest in very young children, to point out the limits of contemporary neuroscience, and to underscore the evidence of continuing brain development far beyond the infant-toddler period (Bruer, 1999; Kagan, 1998a)
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From page 21... ...
This is a familiar task for developmental scientists, albeit one that is fraught with difficulties (National Research Council, 1978, 1982; Shonkoff, 2000~. Indeed, one of the most distinctive features of the science of early childhood development is the extent to which it evolves under the anxious and eager eyes of millions of parents, policy makers, and professional service providers who seek authoritative guidance as they address the challenges of promoting the health and well-being of young children.
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From page 22... ...
Taken together, these diverse sources of knowledge advance understanding of the process of child development and enhance the capacity to promote competence, prevent disorders, and correct maladaptive patterns. A set of core concepts frames our understanding of the nature of human development during the earliest years of life and lays a foundation for addressing the following questions: · Is early development highly programmed, so that certain events must
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From page 23... ...
The influence of nurture consists of the multiple nested contexts in which children are reared, which include their home, extended family, child care settings, community, and society, each of which is embedded in the values, beliefs, and practices of a given culture. The influence of
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From page 24... ...
characterized as the transactional nature of the developmental process and what Bronfenbrenner (1979) described as the ecology of human development (also see Horowitz, 1999~.
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Given the magnitude of its influence on the daily experiences of children, the relative disregard for cultural influences in traditional child development research is striking. The literature on typical development is based overwhelmingly on studies of middle-class children of European-American ancestry, often involving samples drawn from university communities.
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From page 26... ...
may result in significant maladaptation or disorder. Individual differences in regulatory capacities are rooted in both biological endowment and life experience.
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From page 27... ...
specified aspects of this developmental thrust and proposed that they act as key ingredients for behavioral interventions throughout the life span. In this regard, all forms of early childhood intervention are most effective when they counteract obstacles to growth and promote the expression of a child's natural drive toward mastery.
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From page 28... ...
6. The broad range of individual differences among young children often makes it difficult to distinguish normal variations and maturational delays from transient disorders and persistent impairments.
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In part, these difficulties are related to the limitations of existing developmental measures. To a large extent, however, diagnostic dilemmas are inherent in the complex and unpredictable nature of early childhood development (Boyce, 1996)
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8. Human development is shaped by the ongoing interplay among sources of vulnerability and sources of resilience.
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From page 31... ...
Human adaptation derives from both the rapid consolidation of essential capacities and lifelong flexibility to adjust to changing circumstances (see Chapter 8~. Efforts to understand which aspects of development become set early on and which remain open to change have been shaped by notions of critical and sensitive periods, as well as by a growing research literature on the malleability or plasticity of the human organism.
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From page 32... ...
Individual goals are determined in terms of each child's and family's baseline status in conjunction with an assessment of the extent to which relevant risk and protective factors are susceptible to change. In the final analysis, early childhood intervention is viewed most appropriately as an individualized strategy designed to increase the probability of a desired outcome, and not as a developmental panacea for all children under all circumstances.
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From page 33... ...
To select the issues on which it would focus, the committee conducted a series of interviews with practitioners and policy makers to assess their views of the most pressing issues facing contemporary early childhood practice and policy, as well as with scientific colleagues in fields ranging from basic neuroscience to anthropology and sociology. The committee also reviewed a broad range of previous reports produced by the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine and, with few exceptions (e.g., child care, prenatal alcohol exposure)
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From page 34... ...
The overlapping emergence of child development as a focus within the field of psychology, pediatrics as a specialization within the practice of medicine, and child welfare as a defined domain within the purview of both the judicial system and the world of social work provides just a few examples of the extent to which the distinctive needs of children began to appear more clearly on the social and political agenda (National Research Council, 1981, 1982~. In 1912, Congress established the Children's Bureau in the Department of Labor, which proceeded to conduct studies in such diverse areas as infant mortality, day care, institutional care, and mental retardation (Lesser, 1985~.
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From page 35... ...
And yet, despite two high-profile White House conferences on child care and early childhood development and significant increases in public funding for early child care and education at both the federal and state levels, there is still widespread and well-entrenched resistance to the formulation and enforcement of more rigorous standards for child care providers and the settings in which they work. And despite the creation and expansion of Early Head Start for infants and toddlers, services for 3- and 4-year-olds are still available to less than half of the eligible children in the United States, more than 30 years after the opening of the first Head Start center in 1965 (Meisels and Shonkoff, 2000~.
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conflicting views about the role of government and the balance between public and personal responsibility for the health and well-being of children. The release of this report also comes at a somewhat sensitive time in the politics of early childhood intervention in the United States.
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, the influence of child care (Chapter 11) , and the role of the community in which the child lives (Chapter 12~.
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38 FR OM NE UR ONS TO NEIGHB ORHO ODS ment as it unfolds naturally over time with a view based on efforts to alter its course. The committee's charge to draw out the implications of its research review is addressed in the final chapter (Chapter 14)
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From page 39... ...
The dynamic interplay between gene action and environmental processes continues throughout life. Although their influences are so often distinguished in ancient philosophy and modern science, the inseparability of nature and nurture has profound implications for how we study and understand human aevelopment.1 in this chapter, we trace these implications drawing first on the literature on developmental behavioral genetics, then undertaking a discussion of molecular genetics.
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