Testimony
Statement by
G. REID LYON, PH.D.
CHIEF, CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND BEHAVIOR BRANCH
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF CHILD HEALTH AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
on
HEADSTART before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON LABOR, HHS, EDUCATION AND RELATED AGENCIES
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
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March 25, 2004
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
I am Reid Lyon and I serve as the Chief of the Child Development and
Behavior Branch (CDBB) within the National Institute of Child Health and
Human Development (NICHD) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
It is an honor to speak to you today about our current efforts in understanding
child development, particularly with respect to early childhood development
and the development of the cognitive, social, emotional, language, early
literacy and early numeracy abilities critical for school readiness and
long- term success in school.
The mission of the NICHD is to “ensure that every person is born
healthy and wanted, that women suffer no harmful effects from the reproductive
process, and that children have the chance to fulfill their potential
for a healthy and productive life, free of disease or disability”.
Today, I am pleased to discuss with you the research supported by the
NICHD that bears directly on fostering the development of children from
birth to school entry to ensure that they are physically robust, emotionally
healthy, socially competent, and cognitively ready to learn.
We believe that our NICHD supported research in early childhood development
is critical for several reasons. First, we have learned that the quality
of our children’s early development has a significant impact on
their entire lives.
Second, and more specifically, the more that parents, child and health
care professionals and teachers (preschool through high school) know and
implement about what children should learn during early childhood and
the factors and conditions that support cognitive, social, and emotional
development during this period, the greater the probability that children
will succeed in growing up healthy and in formal schooling.
Third, we have learned that without the benefits of informed, evidence-based,
and coordinated comprehensive early childhood programs to help develop
language, social, emotional, emergent literacy and math abilities during
the preschool years, many children, particularly from impoverished backgrounds,
are not only likely to experience difficulties in school, but the emotional,
social, and occupational deprivation that follows on the heels of school
failure.
Fourth, we have learned that if we do not ensure that ALL our children
are ready for school, the damage to their futures not only reflects an
educational problem, but a public health problem as well. For example,
children who do not develop a strong language and literacy foundation
during the preschool years frequently have difficulties comprehending
and using oral language and developing strong reading and writing skills.
As Secretary Thompson pointed out at the 2001 White House Summit on Early
Childhood Cognitive Development, “without reading skills, you can’t
read a prescription, a warning label, or stay abreast of medical news
that could benefit your and your family’s health.”
Fifth, we have learned that we must work closely and collaboratively with
our colleagues at the Department of Health and Human Services and the
Department of Education and particularly the Institute of Educational
Sciences (IES) to continue to build a science of early childhood development
that informs policy makers, families, and teachers as we move forward
to develop and implement early childhood programs that are effective in
optimizing physical, social, and emotional development and school readiness
for ALL of our nation’s children.
A SUMMARY OF SELECTED RESEARCH PROGRAMS IN
EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT AND SCHOOL READINESS
AT THE NICHD
The NICHD currently supports extensive research on the biological, cognitive,
educational, behavioral, socioemotional, cultural, and familial factors
that influence early childhood development. For the purposes of this testimony
and because of space limitations, I will summarize selected research efforts
that bear most directly on the issue of early childhood development as
it relates to school readiness. Because the Child Development and Behavior
Branch (CDBB) within the Center for Research for Mothers and Children
(CRMC) is responsible for many of the research programs relevant to this
area, I will briefly summarize the mission and scope of each of our seven
Branch programs and then focus on recently inaugurated initiatives in
early childhood and school readiness, the development of English language
and reading abilities in children whose first language is Spanish, and
mathematics development and disabilities.
The Research Program in Cognitive, Social and Affective Development;
Child Maltreatment and Violence
This program, the largest in the CDBB, develops scientific initiatives
and supports research and research training relevant to normative cognitive,
social, affective, and personality development from the newborn period
through adolescence and on the impact of specific aspects of physical
and social environments on the health and psychological development of
infants, children, and adolescents. Of interest are studies of child development
processes in high-risk settings (e.g., families experiencing stressors
such as poverty, unemployment, parental depression as well as violent
and/or abusive environments).
| The Research Program in Developmental Psychobiology and Cognitive Neuroscience
This program develops research initiatives and supports research and research
training to study linkages among human behavior, genetics, and the developing
brain. Of particular interest are studies that develop knowledge about
growth patterns of brain and behavior and that shed light on normal developmental
processes at the molecular, genetic, cellular, and neural network levels.
For example, a major multi-site and multidisciplinary study is now underway
to identify normal brain structural development patterns through the use
of non-invasive neuroimaging methods. This information will be critical
to both researchers and clinicians in order to determine atypical brain
development.
The Research Program in Behavioral Pediatrics and Health Promotion Research
This program initiates and supports research and research training in
behavioral and developmental pediatrics and focuses on the role of behavior
in relation to health, growth and development from conception through
young adulthood. Emphasis is placed on the identification of risks in
childhood and adolescence which are linked to childhood injuries, illness,
eating disorders, chronic disease, and early sexual debut.
The Research Program in Human Learning and Learning Disabilities
This program develops research initiatives and supports research and research
training programs to increase knowledge relevant to normal and atypical
development of reading and written language abilities from kindergarten
through elementary school. This is the Branch’s oldest research
program which now supports a reading research network comprised of 44
research sites with over 45,000 children currently participating in the
studies. This program has supported research to not only understand how
children learn to read and to determine why some children have reading
difficulties, but also has supported the development of reading assessment
and diagnostic instruments and conducted 12 clinical trials to identify
effective reading instructional programs. Converging evidence from this
research program has served as the foundation for the growing emphasis
on evidence-based reading instruction.
The Research Program in Language, Bilingual and Biliteracy Development
and Disorders; Adolescent, Adult, and Family Literacy
This relatively new (initiated in 1998) research program initiates and
supports research to better understand language development and disorders,
and reading and written language development and disorders in bilingual/multilingual
children. The bilingual research program has been focusing on the development
of English and Spanish reading abilities among 5,400 children whose first
language is Spanish and the identification of instructional factors that
are most beneficial in fostering English reading abilities. Within this
network of research sites in eight States (California, Illinois, Massachusetts,
Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Utah) as well as Washington,
DC and Puerto Rico, research teams at Harvard University, Utah State University,
and Pennsylvania State University are focusing on the development of critical
emergent English and Spanish reading abilities among preschoolers whose
first language is Spanish.
The Research Program in Early Learning and School Readiness
This new research program initiated in 2002 develops and supports research
to specify the interactions and experiences children need from birth to
age eight to prepare them to learn, read, and succeed in school. Projects
supported to date focus on early interactions with adults and peers and
the development of early education programs to develop language, literacy,
social and emotional capabilities in a comprehensive and integrated fashion.
With respect to the latter, the research program supports a research network
of developmental scientists at Pennsylvania State University, the University
of Pennsylvania, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Indiana University, the University of
Virginia, the University of Chicago, and the University of Nebraska. These
teams are studying interventions to prepare at-risk children for success
in school across the range of settings that serve young children. This
funding of the research network is a strong example of current interagency
collaboration as it is supported by NICHD, the Administration for Children
and Families (ACF) and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning
and Evaluation (ASPE), both within HHS, and the Office of Special Education
and Rehabilitation Services (OSERS) within the U.S. Department of Education.
This research program has also developed a comprehensive initiative to
support the development of assessment and measurement tools and strategies
to provide psychometrically sound data on children’s competence
across multiple domains of functioning in early childhood.
The Research Program in Mathematics and Science Cognition and Learning
– Development and Disorders
This, the newest research program in the CDBB also initiated in 2002 develops
and supports both basic and intervention studies in all aspects of mathematical
thinking and problem solving, as well as in scientific reasoning, learning
and discovery. In December, 2002, this program developed an initiative
titled “ Mathematics Cognition and Specific Learning Disabilities”
in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special
Education and Rehabilitation Services (OSERS) and subsequently funded
five major projects that are currently focusing on a range of issues to
include: (1) studies of the neurobiological and genetic substrates of
mathematical learning; (2) the longitudinal analysis of deficits in number
estimation; (3) studies of subtypes of mathematics disabilities; (4) normative
development of specific mathematics competencies; and (5) classroom interventions
for disabilities in mathematical problems solving. Children participating
in these landmark studies include youngsters who have learning disabilities
in mathematics, children who display both reading and mathematics difficulties,
children who have attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and
youngsters with specific genetic disorders including Turner syndrome,
Williams Syndrome, and Fragile X Syndrome. Among the researchers contributing
to this initiative are developmental scientists from Vanderbilt University,
the University of Texas Health Science Center, the University of Missouri,
the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania State
University. In addition, NICHD supported scientists are examining early
development of critical early precursors of mathematics development among
preschool infants and preschool children at Harvard University, Yale University,
and Carnegie Mellon University.
THE SIGNIFICANT ROLE OF INTERAGENCY COLLABORATION
The development of the early childhood research initiatives, the bilingual
research initiatives, and the mathematics and science research initiatives
reflect an uncommon degree of interagency planning and collaboration.
For example, the focus and scope of our recent research program to support
rigorous scientific studies of the effectiveness of integrated early childhood
interventions and programs to promote school readiness was done in close
collaboration with the Institute of Educational Sciences and with co-funding
from both ACF and ASPE within HHS and the OSERS within the U.S. Department
of Education. Likewise, our research program in the development of early
reading and skilled reading abilities among Spanish speaking children
was discussed in the planning phases with researchers and program officials
from the U.S. Department of Education with subsequent co-funding from
this Department. Moreover, the OSERS within the U.S. Department of Education
worked closely as a planning and funding partner in the development of
the research program in Mathematics Development and Disabilities. These
systematic collaborations have allowed NICHD to avoid duplication of scientific
effort while leveraging resources for critically needed research on issues
that are essential to our understanding of early childhood development.
WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS
We at the NICHD are dedicated to the goal of ensuring that all of our
nation’s children develop, learn, and thrive to the maximum extent
possible in their homes, their schools, and their lives. The research
initiatives that I have summarized are designed to serve as the scientific
foundation for the development of programs that parents, child care providers,
teachers, and other developmental scientists have access to trustworthy
information that can help foster optimal development for all children.
We must continue to collaborate with our sister agencies and programs
to better understand through research how we can productively support
families and parents, particularly those from disadvantaged circumstances,
with effective programs and usable information about child development.
While some studies are now underway, we have a long way to go before we
clearly understand what preschool teachers need to know and do to prevent
later school failure among children who by age three already have significant
gaps in language development and emergent literacy and numeracy concepts.
We have to develop teacher preparation programs and dissemination strategies
to make sure that all involved in the development of our children not
only have access to usable and practical information, but can apply it.
This effort will require genuine collaboration across all groups to include
researchers, educators, parents, and policymakers to stretch beyond our
typical boundaries and make sure that what we learn from our research
is translated rapidly into practice.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I would be pleased to respond
to your questions and comments.
Last Revised: March 25, 2004
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