Overview
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), and the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) within the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), and the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services (OSERS) of the U.S. Department of Education, awarded eight research grants to develop rigorous scientific studies of the effectiveness of integrative early childhood interventions and programs across a variety of early childhood settings in promoting school readiness for children, from birth through age five, who are at risk of later school difficulties. The interventions are implemented in public settings including Head Start, state Pre-Kindergarten and child care programs.
The projects were selected based on their approach to systematic, programmatic, multidisciplinary research to determine the most effective early childhood interventions in promoting children's school readiness. Specifically, the research is designed to increase understanding of the types of integrative programs and their components (individually and in combination) that promote child learning and development across multiple domains of early childhood competence, including language and communication, emergent and early literacy, early mathematics, early science, self-regulation of behavior, emotion and attention, social competency, and motivation to learn, as well as those that address teacher, caregiver, or parent behaviors to promote children's development in these areas. In addition, projects are working to identify causal connections between specific program elements (alone or in combination) and specific child competencies, and include process evaluations that lead to understanding how the intervention was implemented and contributed to observed effects.
The project period is 08/1/2003-07/31/2008. The point of contact at OPRE is Rachel Chazan Cohen. Ask a Question.
The points of contact for the interagency partners are:
James A. Griffin
Child Development & Behavior Branch
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Colleen Rathgeb
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Celia Rosenquist
National Center for Special Education Research
U.S. Department of Education - Institute of Education Sciences
Jennifer Tschantz
Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services
U.S. Department of Education