Supporting optimal child development through Early Head Start and Head Start programs: Reflections on secondary data analyses of FACES and EHSREP

We are delighted to reflect on the 10 papers highlighted in this important special issue of Early Childhood Research Quarterly devoted to recent secondary data analyses of the FACES and EHSREP datasets. First, we provide some background on Head Start research and give an overview of the large-scale Head Start and Early Head Start datasets that are available for researchers to analyze. Then, we comment on the papers in this special issue from a methodological and statistical standpoint. Finally, we reflect on themes that stood out across the various papers. Throughout, we make recommendations for future large-scale data collection efforts and future research on Head Start and Early Head Start programs.     

Guided Play: Where Curricular Goals Meet a Playful Pedagogy

Decades of research demonstrate that a strong curricular approach to preschool education is important for later developmental outcomes. Although these findings have often been used to support the implementation of educational programs based on direct instruction, we argue that guided play approaches can be equally effective at delivering content and are more developmentally appropriate in their focus on child‐centered exploration. Guided play lies midway between direct instruction and free play, presenting a learning goal, and scaffolding the environment while allowing children to maintain a large degree of control over their learning. The evidence suggests that such approaches often outperform direct‐instruction approaches in encouraging a variety of positive academic outcomes. We argue that guided play approaches are effective because they create learning situations that encourage children to become active and engaged partners in the learning process.     

Making Generic Tutorials Content Specific: Recycling Evidence-based Practice (EBP) Tutorials for Two Disciplines

Librarians at the Boston University Medical Center constructed two interactive online tutorials, “Introduction to EBM” and “Formulating a Clinical Question (PICO),” for a Family Medicine Clerkship and then quickly repurposed the existing tutorials to support an Evidence-based Dentistry course. Adobe's ColdFusion software was used to populate the tutorials with course-specific content based on the URL used to enter each tutorial, and a MySQL database was used to collect student input. Student responses were viewable immediately by course faculty on a password-protected Web site. The tutorials ensured that all students received the same baseline training and allowed librarians to tailor a subsequent library skills workshop to student tutorial answers. The tutorials were well-received by the medical and dental schools and have been added to mandatory first-year Evidence-based Medicine (EBM) and Evidence-based Dentistry (EBD) courses, meaning that every medical and dental student at BUMC will be expected to complete these tutorials.     

Why Startups Need Libraries (and Librarians)

Academic libraries must play a direct role in supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs to get their start. The primary way to do this is through the development of library space to support innovation. Additionally, entrepreneurial library and information science (LIS) students should look for work beyond the library. The knowledge and skills that they acquire in the classroom are exactly those that startup companies need and want in new hires. If academic libraries embrace the need to break from the old and try something new, they can become hubs of innovation on increasingly entrepreneurial college campuses. And if entrepreneurial LIS students embrace the learning objectives of their programs, they can become the ideal new hire for any number of emerging innovative startup companies.     

Assessment and Accountability for Programs Serving Young Children with Disabilities

States currently are in the process of developing child and family outcome measurement systems for young children with disabilities to meet federal data reporting requirements for the Part C (Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities) and Part B Preschool Grants program supported through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. This article reviews issues related to the use of assessments in providing outcome data, discusses challenges raised in conducting valid assessments with young children for accountability purposes, and outlines decisions states must make related to assessment as they design and implement outcome measurement approaches. Considerations related to the standardized or curriculum-based measures are discussed along with other choices related to the use of assessment for accountability.     

Promoting collaboration: the role of relational multiplexity in an interorganizational health justice network

Organizations need to collaborate to achieve complex goals. Although interorganizational relations often take the form of multiplex ties, our understanding of how multiplexity itself may facilitate interorganizational collaboration is limited. We use dynamic network analysis (SIENA) to test the role of relational multiplexity – specifically, relationships involving communication outside of coalition meetings and expertise-seeking – in promoting collaboration in a health justice coalition over three years. The results offer strong support for the role of multiplexity in the formation of interorganizational collaboration, indicating that having multiple ties between organizations facilitates collaboration, and that certain types of ties (i.e. communication relationships outside of coalition meetings) are more influential than others. We conclude that coalitions hoping to support successful interorganizational collaboration will benefit from offering opportunities for member organizations to communicate outside of group meetings, because such small acts of dyadic interaction can build into deeper levels of engagement. Additionally, our study demonstrates how network analysis can help organizational coalitions to track and suggest potential partnerships between member organizations.     

Is tobacco use a problem among deaf college students?

College students' tobacco use poses a significant public health problem. Effective intervention requires understanding of this behavior among race/ethnic, cultural, and linguistic collegiate subgroups, including deaf and hard of hearing collegians. Findings from a first-ever tobacco-related survey among this understudied population are reported. The authors used written questionnaires and the Interactive Video Questionnaire, a multimedia computer technology developed for use with the deaf and hard of hearing, to interview 241 volunteers on seven California college campuses. They found lower self-reported current smoking prevalence (14.5%) relative to collegians in the general population, but considerable ever smoking (65.1%) and multiple types of tobacco use (37.3%). The authors report on factors associated with tobacco use and on students' exposure to cigarette marketing, gaps experienced in receipt of antitobacco messages and services, and students' antitobacco intervention recommendations. Limitations of the research are described, including possible underreporting of participants' tobacco use.     

Elucidating early mechanisms of developmental psychopathology: the case of prenatal smoking and disruptive behavior

There is a robust association between prenatal smoking and disruptive behavior disorders, but little is known about the emergence of such behaviors in early development. The association of prenatal smoking and hypothesized behavioral precursors to disruptive behavior in toddlers (N=93) was tested. Exposed toddlers demonstrated atypical behavioral patterns, including (1) escalating externalizing problems from 18 to 24 months and (2) observed difficulty modulating behavior in response to social cues. Specification of exposure-related behaviors is a first step toward generating testable hypotheses about putative mechanisms of effect. While it remains unclear whether prenatal exposure plays an etiologic role in the emergence of disruptive behavior, atypical exposure-related behavioral patterns are evident in the first years of life and demonstrate developmental coherence.