Child Development Center for Learning & Research

CDCLR Round-Up

INTERGENERATIONAL RESEARCH

IG (Intergenerational Program, also known as "The Neighbors Program") activities focus on providing opportunities for regular, positive intergenerational contact and intergenerational staff training and development. Facilitators document the structured and informal opportunities with standard planning/evaluation/reflection forms, photography, and artifact documentation.

Ongoing research continues to examine staff members’ sense of community, experiences of children and elders during the activities, and family members' attitudes towards the intergenerational program.  A second research program, focused on developing outcome measures, has been piloting an intergenerational observational scale that assesses different domains of potential benefit to IG participants. 

Results of IG data reveal that IG programming supports a range of benefits for children and elders alike, including motor skill, social, and cognitive benefits. Staff and family members find the intergenerational programming a unique, beneficial element of the CDCLR and Adult Day Services.  Staff members’ attitudes towards intergenerational exchange have been found to improve significantly as a result of intergenerational cross-training, especially among those staff regularly involved with intergenerational program facilitation.  

Jarrott, S. E., Smith, C. L., & Weintraub, A. P. C. (2007, November).
Observing persons with dementia: Process, procedures, and outcomes.
Paper presented at the annual meetings of the Gerontological Society of
America, San Francisco, CA.

Jarrott, S. E., Smith, C. S., & Weintraub, A. P. C. (under review).
Development of a standardized tool for intergenerational programming:
The Intergenerational Observation Scale. Journal of Intergenerational
Relationships.

Kate Milne, Shelley Stewart, Cindy Smith, Shannon Jarrott & Isabel Bradburn also presented IG research at the biennial meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) in Boston, March-April 2007.  Findings included:

Children who volunteered more often to participate in IG tended to be:

  1. Girls
  2. Active
  3. Show positive anticipation to many activities, by parent report
  4. Children who had more experience with older adults outside of CDCLR
  5. Less likely to be behaviorally inhibited

For more information on the IG research program, contact Dr. Shannon Jarrott (sjarrott@vt.edu) or visit www.intergenerational.clahs.vt.edu/neighbors.html

EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

Isabel Bradburn is the Principal Investigator for a Virginia Department of Education/VT study investigating preschools across the Commonwealth as part of Governor Kaine's Start Strong Initiative (www.governor.virginia.gov/Initiatives/ StartStrong/).  Ten localities in Virginia are participating in a pilot program to determine the feasibility of expanding state-funded preschool (the Virginia Preschool Initiative program, or VPI) to include private -- both for- and non-profit child education and care-- as well as public, schools.   Kate Milne is conducting preschool observations for the project.  The interim report is available on the General Assembly Web site, report document RD305 (2007).  The study is scheduled to end in September, 2008.

As part of a Developmental Science (www.psyc.vt/dsi) collaboration, Isabel Bradburn and Kirby Deater-Deckard (Professor of Psychology), are evaluating another state preschool initiative, based in Roanoke.  This program aims to make enrollment and placement in a variety of publicly-funded preschool programs more efficient.   The study will be concluded in October, 2008.

For more information, contact Dr. Isabel Bradburn (isbrad@vt.edu)

ACTION RESEARCH

CDCLR faculty and staff presented papers at the annual National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) conference in Chicago in November, 2007.   Kate Milne, Alexa Fraley, Trisha Wilburn and Kate Meyer gave a talk entitled, "Teaching with intentionality:  The classroom art of tact, mindfulness and thoughtfulness."   Victoria Fu led a panel of early childhood educators, including Ashley Surett Heffron and Lynn Ann Wolf, in a symposium entitled, "Teacher stories of inquiry: Documentation to inform learning and teaching."

For more information, contact Dr. Victoria Fu (vfu@vt.edu).

DEVELOPMENTAL RESEARCH

Several studies of social development were concluded in 2007. 

Temperament and Social Development Project 
Principal Investigator: Isabel Bradburn (Human Development)

This program of research addresses relations between sensory processing, other aspects of temperament, and children’s functioning in preschool.  The main goal is to better understand and delineate the construct of sensory sensitivity, to enhance its usefulness for developmental research with young children.  By "sensitivity," we mean the degree to which children notice more subtle changes in or aspects of their environments, or are bothered by discrete stimuli (such as bright lights, sound) that most peers do not find aversive.  Clinical studies have shown that children who have trouble modulating their reactions to sensations tend to have more dysregulated arousal systems and to have greater behavioral regulation difficulties as well.  However, little work has been done on typically-developing children.  Moreover, adult studies of sensory sensitivity suggest advantages of this temperament trait, including heightened aesthetic appreciation and empathy.

Thus, a major thrust of this research program is aimed at learning more about the normal course of sensory sensitivity across development; ways it is and is not related to other aspects of temperament, and to social behavior.  Information could be used by preschool teachers to design activities and better understand individual children’s play/learning preferences.  Data came from parent reports of children's temperament, and student researcher and teacher standardized observations of children's behavior in preschool.  Data from two child education and care sites (CDCLR and one other) indicate that:

  1. A higher-than-expected proportion of 3-5 year old children in these community settings manifest heightened sensory sensitivity.  The most common was tactile (23%), followed by auditory/visual (18%) and then vestibular, or sensitivity to movement (5.9%).   If these samples are representative of preschool children in general, sensory sensitivity is not uncommon at this age.
  2. Boys and girls at this age showed similar patterns of sensitivity.
  3. Sensory channel may matter.  Children who were more sensitive to tactile stimulation (being touched or bumped against) had a harder time calming down at home, by parents report, but contrary to expectations, were no more likely to show discomfort with proximity at school.  Children with auditory/visual sensitivity moved more in structured and unstructured school settings, showed somewhat less self-control in the classroom by teacher report, and were more likely to have an intense temperament by parent report.  Results from a smaller pilot study, showing that children who were sensitive to movement (vestibular sensitivity) were less assertive and "wiggled" substantially less than their peers in structured settings, were not replicated in the larger study.  However, parents saw these children as more shy and teachers saw them as less self-assertive.
  4. Sensitive children appeared as empathic, but not more so, than peers, by teacher report.
  5. Sensitive children were no more likely than their peers to show good or poor coordination or balance, or to be inhibited in their movements on the playground.

Portions of this study were presented at the March 2007 meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development:   Bradburn, I.S, Surett, A.M., Hinman, E., Doyle, A.J., & Majewski, J.(2007, March).  Sensory sensitivity, temperament and children’s social behavior in preschool.   Poster presented at the biennial Meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development, Boston, MA.

For more information, contact Dr. Isabel Bradburn (isbrad@vt.edu)

Children's Prosocial Behavior Project  
Principal Investigator:  Julie Dunsmore (Psychology)

This research program investigates children's social competence, including their prosocial behaviors, in relation to family and peer developmental contexts.  Two studies at the CDCLR have been conducted.  The first piloted and refined a behavioral observation measure developed by Dr. Dunsmore.  This system was then applied to a larger study comparing Kindergarteners' and third-graders' prosocial behavior at school.  The second study was conceived of and led by VT- Prep scholar Sheena Horsford, and supervised by Dr. Dunsmore.  They investigated children's prosocial behavior, during free play and lunch time, in relation to parental beliefs about parenting and emotion expression in the family.  

Intriguingly, results of this study showed that children of mothers and fathers who expressed more negative emotions used manners more often in preschool.  Because no parent in this study expressed high amounts of negative emotion, this is consistent with previous work showing that parents’ mild to moderate expression of negative emotions can be beneficial for children.  Furthermore, when mothers and fathers were more similar about negative emotions, children were higher in prosocial behavior.   Results suggest that showing judicious amounts of anger or sadness may help children learn to pay attention to others’ feelings, especially when parents’ styles of showing negative emotions match.

Her, P., Baggarly, K., Bowman, J., McCabe, A., & Dunsmore, J.C.  (2007, March).  Associations of parents' reminiscing style with prosocial socialization and preschool children's prosocial behavior.  In C.A. Cervantes (Chair), Parent-child conversations: Multi-method investigations of their role in children's social and emotional development.  Symposium presented at the biennial meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development, Boston, MA.

Horsford, S.J., Dunsmore, J.C., Lai, L., Sirola, M., & Bradburn, I.S.  (2007, March).  Linkages among parents' emotional expressiveness, parenting beliefs, marital satisfaction, and children's prosocial behaviors.  In J.L. Zeman (Chair), Parental and peer influences on children's positive emotion and socio-emotional outcomes. Poster symposium presented at the biennial meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development, Boston, MA.

Dunsmore, J.C., Her, P., Horsford, S., Omar, S.H., & Perez-Rivera, M.B.  (2007, January).  Influence of person-focused, process-focused and no attributional feedback on children's prosocial behavior.  Poster presented at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology,Memphis, TN.

For more information, contact Dr. Julie C. Dunsmore (jdunsmor@vt.edu)

Undergraduate course projects:    CDCLR student teachers conducted two course research projects at CDCLR.  Vy Nguyen examined patterns of bi-lingual play in two families, and Andre Sparks investigated teacher perceptions of male preschool educators.   Education major Rachael Stimpson studied Blue Room teachers’ caregiving beliefs and behaviors.