Understanding infants: characteristics of early childhood practitioners' interpretations of infants and their behaviours

This research explored the nature of early childhood practitioners' interpretations of infants in their programs on the basis that such interpretations guide practitioner–infant interactions and curriculum decision‐making processes. Twenty‐four infant practitioners were asked to describe a nominated infant in their program and to interpret video extracts of that infant's behaviour in the contexts of toy play and a nappy‐change routine. Constant comparison techniques were employed to develop a model representing the theoretical properties of the ideas and explanations contained within their interpretive statements, and to identify main areas of individual or contextual variation. The findings extend current understandings of the psychological context of early childhood infant programs and provide a foundation for future investigations of the implications of infant practitioner interpretations for their professional teaching and caregiving practices.     

Feeding Imprinting: The Extreme Test Case of Premature Infants Born With Very Low Birth Weight

Feeding imprinting, considered a survival‐enabling process, is not well understood. Infants born very preterm, who first feed passively, are an effective model for studying feeding imprinting. Retrospective analysis of neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) records of 255 infants (M_{gestational age} = 29.98 ± 1.64) enabled exploring the notion that direct breastfeeding (DBF) during NICU stay leads to consumption of more mother's milk and earlier NICU discharge. Results showed that DBF before the first bottle feeding is related to shorter transition into oral feeding, a younger age of full oral feeding accomplishment and earlier discharge. Furthermore, the number of DBF meals before first bottle feeding predicts more maternal milk consumption and improved NICU outcomes. Improved performance in response to initial exposure to DBF at the age of budding feeding abilities supports a feeding imprinting hypothesis.     

Sources of infant feeding information used by pregnant women

Selecting an infant feeding method is one of the most important decisions a mother-to-be makes. Little information is available to characterize women who plan to use both formula and breast milk. In this study, 89 pregnant women indicated their anticipated feeding method and the sources and initiator of infant feeding information. No differences were found in the type of resources used by women who planned to breastfeed, formula feed, or combination feed. Women in the study were four times more likely to initiate a conversation about infant feeding methods with a family member or friend than with a health care provider. Involving these key individuals in perinatal education classes and support programs is a simple, but powerful, strategy that childbirth educators can use to promote breastfeeding.     

幼儿创造力的培养

研究表明,人的创造能力的发展始于幼儿时代,创造能力是智力活动的一种表现,创造能力越高的人往往具有较好的个性品质和积极的情感体验,表现为自信、自立、兴趣广泛、喜欢探索、情感丰富等,从小培养幼儿创造力对孩子今后的生活、学习、工作将产生积极的影响。     

集聚本土优势资源 助推婴童产业发展——基于绵阳市婴童产品市场的调查

中国婴童产业自上世纪90年代开始,历经二十年发展,已初步呈现规模化、现代化、国际化趋势,但巨大的婴童产业市场掩盖不了中国婴童产业生产力水平不高、结构不够合理、整体竞争力不强等问题。绵阳作为西部发展潜力极大的新兴工业城市,婴童产业融合不够、品牌意识不强、产品层次低端、整体市场非常脆弱,必须立足本地特色产业发展基础,集聚整合科技、资源、市场、政策多种优势,科学规划,合理调整,完善组织,创新模式,推动绵阳婴童产业科学发展,促进区域经济水平快速全面提升。     

International work in early childhood education: a UNESCO perspective

After defining UNESCO's place in the United Nations system, the author outlines the new situation that has arisen in recent years for the world's children. Although infant mortality rates continue to give concern, the major problem that international organisations have now to face is not the question of children's survival but their development. Research shows that the vital age for developmental inputs is early childhood, without which the chances of later learning achievement are severely diminished. The proposed ECD Programming Model attempts to take into account present research on early child development as well as the socio‐economic context of developing countries, where governments are increasingly unable to provide basic services.     

幼儿教师玩教具制作现状审思

随着幼儿教育事业的发展,玩教具制作对教师及幼儿的价值依然未减。通过对目前幼儿教师玩教具制作现状的调查,总体上幼儿教师玩教具制作表现为：玩教具制作认识错位,功利色彩浓厚;玩教具制作中的＂虚假参与＂与类参与不足;玩教具开发与制作素养有待提升;玩教具制作缺乏良好外在支持环境。因而,今后我们需从内外两方面促使幼儿教师自主、自愿地投身于玩教具制作中。     

Infant educators’ beliefs about infant language development in long day care settings

This study examined infant educators’ beliefs about infant language development in the context of early childhood classrooms. Participants were 59 educators who were employed to work directly with under-two-year-old children. Educators were interviewed to determine their understandings of infant language development and Grounded Theory qualitative techniques were used to develop a conceptual model which illustrates their perceptions of the relationships between contextual, personal and teaching and learning components of their classroom contexts. The model provides a means of conceptualising ‘insider’ practitioner voices on how, as a dynamic system, contextual, individual and pedagogical components mutually interact to bring about the kinds of experiences and interactions that can shape language development. Findings have implications for understanding educators’ perspectives on infant room quality, suggesting that issues related to educator-infant ratios, staff consistency, qualifications and professional knowledge about language development processes may impact efforts to provide intentional language development support.     

Reflect, ‘refract’ or reveal: sociocultural explorations of the place of teacher subjectivity in infant care

Research indicates that adult sensitivity to psychological states (both the adult’s and the infant’s) will affect the security of attachment yet the teacher’s internal state has received little attention in infant care. ‘Perezhivanie’ is a sociocultural concept that presents affect and intellect as a unit rather than separate elements. ‘Refraction’, a related concept, positions teacher subjectivity as the reference point for understanding caregiving behaviour as all thinking and behaviour is ‘refracted’ through the emotional prism of the person’s feeling state. This article discusses an emerging finding from a qualitative case study investigating early childhood teachers’ subjective and affective experiences of infant care. Early findings suggest teachers have difficulty expressing the personal and emotional nature of their work which appears at odds with studies confirming the significance of adult affect in adult–infant relationships. Theoretical and methodological explanations for the teachers’ silence are explored and implications discussed. ‘Refraction’ is presented as a supplementary theoretical tool to increase understanding of the personal and emotional nature of infant care.     

Parental Perceptions of the Use of Internal Sources of Information About Children's Development

This exploratory study examined parental perceptions of the information sources parents use when wanting or needing information about their three-year-old child's motor, social, and cognitive development. Specifically, this study compared parental perceptions of the use of internal information sources (i.e., parents' own intuitions about development, religious beliefs/teachings, and childhood experiences) to perceptions of the use of external information sources (i.e., books, magazines, counselors, etc.). Further, this study examined differences in parental perceptions of use of internal information sources by parent and child gender, and by developmental domain (i.e., information about a child's motor, social, and cognitive development). Sixty mothers and 60 fathers of a three-year-old child completed an information use structured interview. Findings revealed that almost half of the parents reported referring to their own intuitions, religious beliefs/teachings, and/or childhood experiences as sources of information about their child's development. Parents perceived the internal information sources as being used significantly more frequently and as significantly more useful for information about their child's social development than for information about their child's motor and cognitive development.     

Developmental Pathways Between Infant Gestures and Symbolic Actions,and Children’s Communicative Skills at Age 5: Findings From the All Our Families Pregnancy Cohort

Using data from the All Our Families study, a longitudinal study of 1992 mother-child dyads in Canada (47.7% female; 81.9% White), we examined the developmental pathways between infant gestures and symbolic actions and communicative skills at age 5. Communicative gestures at age 12 months (e.g., pointing, nodding head “yes”), obtained via parental report, predicted stronger general communicative skills at age 5 years. Moreover, greater use of symbolic actions (e.g., “feeding” a stuffed animal with a bottle) indirectly predicted increased communicative skills at age 5 via increased productive vocabulary at 24 months. These pathways support the hypothesis that children’s communicative skills during the transition to kindergarten emerge from a chain of developmental abilities starting with gestures and symbolic actions during infancy.     

Conceptualising Childhood: Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses

The paper discusses the construct of childhood in Robert Louis Stevenson's collection of poems, 'A Child's Garden of Verses', by employing notions of child development drawn from Piaget and Vygotsky. From a literary perspective Stevenson's collection is located on the boundaries of Romanticism and Modernism.     

Australian Early Childhood Teacher Education: Developments and Concerns

The history of early childhood teacher education in Australia dates back to 1897 with the establishment of the Kindergarten Union Teachers' Training College in Sydney. Since the 1970's, small, specialized, private teachers' colleges in each state have emerged to become part of the national government system of Colleges of Advanced Education (CAE's). These institutions had as a primary goal to teach rather than to conduct research about teaching. CAE's have historically been primarily responsible for vocationally-oriented professional courses of study such as nursing, teaching, social welfare, media and communications, fine arts and health studies. It was in this CAE's system where students were prepared to be early childhood, elementary, and secondary teachers. These programs lead to a three-year Diploma of Teaching or a four-year Bachelor of Education. This approach was based on the Australian pattern of specialized teacher training which was generally provided immediately upon graduation from high school. Universities provided training in early childhood-related areas such as psychology, psychiatry, social work and medicine but did not include specialized early childhood teacher preparation per se (although they do provide secondary teacher preparation).     

New Resources for Childbirth Educators and Parents

In this column, reviewers offer perspectives and comments on a variety of new media resources for childbirth educators and for expectant and new parents. The topics of DVDs and books reviewed here include fatherhood, labor-support techniques, optimal labor positions, infant massage, breastfeeding, healthy nutrition during the childbearing year, understanding a newborn''s cues, personal viewpoints on cesarean birth, and postpartum massage.     

集聚本土优势资源 助推婴童产业发展——基于绵阳市婴童产品市场的调查

中国婴童产业自上世纪90年代开始,历经二十年发展,已初步呈现规模化、现代化、国际化趋势,但巨大的婴童产业市场掩盖不了中国婴童产业生产力水平不高、结构不够合理、整体竞争力不强等问题。绵阳作为西部发展潜力极大的新兴工业城市,婴童产业融合不够、品牌意识不强、产品层次低端、整体市场非常脆弱,必须立足本地特色产业发展基础,集聚整合科技、资源、市场、政策多种优势,科学规划,合理调整,完善组织,创新模式,推动绵阳婴童产业科学发展,促进区域经济水平快速全面提升。     

Shared reading as a practice for fostering early learning in an Early Childhood Education and Care centre: a naturalistic,comparative study of one infant's experiences with two educators

Early childhood educators are encouraged to read with infants, yet little is known about the educator–infant book‐focused interactions that occur in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) centres. This study provides a systematic linguistic analysis of the naturally occurring interactions between one focal child Charlie (aged 21 months and 13 days) and two of his educators, as they each engaged in shared reading with Charlie and one or more of his peers during a typical day in his infant room. While both educators engaged in shared reading for pedagogical purposes, the meanings realised in their talk differed in subtle ways, providing Charlie and his peers with tacit and sometimes contradictory messages about how to make meaning from words and pictures. One educator's proportionally greater use of mental processes and polar questions construed shared reading primarily as an interpretive activity, while the other educator's proportionally greater use of WH questions and directives construed shared reading primarily as an instructional activity. Differences were also observed in Charlie's verbal participation during the two shared readings. The findings reveal how educators, through their own talk, create particular contexts in which infants may or may not participate during shared reading experiences.     

Problematic placement: pathways pre-service teachers’ perspectives on their infant/toddler placement

The inclusion of an infant/toddler placement in a ‘pathways’ early childhood teaching degree, where students already have qualifications and experience in working with young children, can be problematic. This pilot study investigated student teachers’ views on their infant/toddler (birth-to-two-years) placement. Sixty-six students completing their early childhood education degree at an Australian university responded to a survey seeking their perspectives on the effectiveness of the placement in developing teacher confidence, knowledge and skills, and the quality of the supervision they received. The participants had entered their degree with a two-year Diploma of Children’s Services. Responses indicated significant dissatisfaction with the quality of supervision, the absence of teacher-mentors, and the lack of opportunities to practise new approaches. Participants commented that they ‘already knew’ how to work with this age group, and that they aspired to work with older children. The results align with other findings on factors associated with positive placements, and raise questions about the effectiveness of the infant/toddler placement in its current form.     

How Drawing is Taught in Chinese Infant Schools

The benefits of drawing for children are wide‐ranging but are likely to be mediated by the art curriculum and other governmental guidance to teachers relevant to drawing/art. Furthermore, such statutory regulations vary between cultures, and therefore curricula represent an important influence on the cultural differences found in children's drawings. Previous articles on the teaching of drawing in Chinese schools have commented upon the emphasis placed on children copying from adult drawing models. However, a new art curriculum was implemented in Chinese infant schools (3–6‐year‐olds) in 2002, still in operation today, which instead places an emphasis on the children's enjoyment of drawing through making creative and expressive pictures from their imagination. This article describes the key objectives stated in the Chinese art curricula for infant schools. We also present an interview with a Chinese infant school teacher in which she provided in detail how the curriculum is typically applied to the teaching of drawing. The interview also provided some background context to why the curriculum was changed and to its delivery. The article comments on the pedagogical practices adopted, and comparisons are made with Western art education and, in particular, to the teaching of drawing/art in England for the same age group. Finally, we consider what implications the Chinese approach has for the ‘non‐interventionist’ approach to young children's drawing/art that is frequently found in Western art education.     

Meeting basic needs: Health and safety practices in feeding and diapering infants

Summary Diapering and feeding are two vitally important routines in meeting basic needs of infants. Such routine times provide opportunities for enhancing infants' development through interaction with others. Feeding and diapering times are ideal for one-to-one interaction with infants. Caregivers are encouraged to speak directly with children, asking questions and responding to infant vocalizations with verbal and nonverbal (e.g., smile, head nod) communications. Adults can also label infant body parts as well as the items used in the process of feeding and diapering. Singing simple songs and reciting rhymes can also be incorporated into routine times. Early childhood professionals educating and caring for infants are encouraged to review the procedures used in diapering and feeding. Assessing whether procedures assure safe and healthy conditions for infants is an important component of quality care.