How to Talk About Early Child Development: Lessons from the - PDF document

6/25/09 How to Talk About Early Child Development: Lessons from the Research • 30 focus groups with civically active adults in 15 states 2001 - 2006 • Cognitive interviews with 82 adults in 8 states • Cognitive interviews with 10 business leaders in DC area + experimental survey with 2,000 business owners • 6 focus groups with state legislators in 3 states + 40 interviews in 5 states • 500 talk back interviews with ordinary Americans to test simplifying models • Experimental surveys with 2,000 on-line informants in 2007, 4,200 in 2008 1

6/25/09 Reframe the Map the Blame • Simplifying Models • Media Campaigns/ Gap Ads Development (Peer Discourse Analysis, • CD Tool-Kits • Media Interviews, Linguistic • FrameChecks Content Analysis, and • Study Circles • Experimental • Expert/Advocate Analyses Experimental Tests) Tests of Frame • TA Intensive Interviews and • Peer Effects • Webinars/ Materials Review Discourse Workshops • Reframe Analysis • Peer • Discourse Analysis Analysis (Peer Discourse • Message/Creative Discourse Professional Mtgs. Briefs Analysis, Interviews, Analysis • Cultural Models • Benchmark and Experimental Interviews Surveys Tests) • Peer Discourse • Spokesperson Analysis Training Seal the Pump the Expose and Swamp Close the Holes Deal • The reason we need to care about this issue as a society is (Value). • The way this problem works is (Simplifying Model, Messenger, Visual) . • Here’s how big this problem/solution is (Social Math). • What prevents it from working as it should is (Simplifying Model, Messenger, Visual). • The consequences for society if left unchecked are (Causal Series). • The potential benefits for society if repaired, maintained, etc. are (Causal Series, Simplifying Model, Messenger). • Here are the solutions that experts recommend (Messenger). 2

6/25/09 Emotional Development Brain Interaction Social Architecture Development Cognitive Development Successful Fate child Black Free will Box Parents Genes Unsuccessful Environment child 3

6/25/09 Child development=prosperity Very Complicated Something about the brain Only for scientists Everything matters We turned out Momma knows best Brains are OK Bad parents built Private not public issue Self-made Family Child Bubble Development is automatic Schools Discipline = Hurried Child focus Fancy Parents Skill begets Opportunity Stress is good Flash cards in Safety skill for you Children = future cribs Leave it alone Begins in school Control and contain Physical = Focus Community = Predator • Their environments: housing, neighborhoods, schools, museums, libraries, community resources • Their relationships: caregivers, neighbors, peers, adults in addition to parents - teachers, mentors, coaches • Their healthy development: multi-track, age- appropriate stimuli and opportunities • Their learning and values: social, cognitive, emotional and moral 4

6/25/09 Media Frames of Children Center for Communications and Community  Crime and health stories predominate  In health stories, the dominant frame is child safety (seat belts)  Only 13% of stories look at systemic factors  Only 3% look at development  Frame is “the imperiled child” or child as precious object Content analysis of local news, 11,000 stories, July 2000, 3 affiliates in 6 cities Experts Advocates Self Regulatory Development Kids are very complex Everything counts "The ability to inhibit a response one is all set to perform, Children are made for learning sometimes called effortful control, Infants become persons at a very early has been of special interest to age researchers who seek to The brain is not developed at birth understand how individual Early intervention services are critical differences in children's Education is about individualized service tendencies to respond to stressful or exciting events affect Parenting is difficult the growth of emotion regulation. Parents are teachers Effortful control is one component Parents are students of a larger set of inhibitory Trained coaches are needed for parents competencies, termed 'executive All parents are good functions', discussed later..." Parents are experts 5

6/25/09 You say…They think You (the experts) say… They (the public) thinks… Environments are important in shaping Yeah , parents are really important… outcomes and individual differences. Environments can effect genes. But there’s really nothing you can do about genes, they’re set in stone, you get what you get and that’s it. Genes and environments shape But will power trumps it all. You can outcomes. overcome all the other “stuff” by being motivated and disciplined. Things like making plans, shifting gears, But what’s really basic is a good moral and inhibiting emotions and behaviors are compass, sense of responsibility and self- basic skills and competencies. confidence. Basic skills and competencies can be Kids get basics competencies passively— taught, practiced, and learned in early like osmosis—from parents. education. Pre-K students are expelled at a rate more than three times that of children in grades K-12, according to a primary study by researchers at Yale on the rate of expulsion in prekindergarten programs serving three- and four-year-olds. The study found that although rates of expulsion vary widely among the 40 states funding prekindergarten, state expulsion rates for prekindergarteners exceed those in K-12 classes in all but three states. Expulsions are lowest in classrooms located in public schools and Head Start, and highest in faith-affiliated centers, for-profit childcare and other community-based settings. In classrooms where the teacher had no access to a psychologist or psychiatrist, students were expelled about twice as frequently... 6

6/25/09 ... Boys were expelled at a rate over 4.5 times that of girls. African-Americans attending state-funded prekindergarten were about twice as likely to be expelled as Latino and Caucasian children, and over five times as likely to be expelled as Asian-American children. “No one wants to hear about three- and four-year-olds being expelled from preschool, but it happens rather frequently,” said the study’s author. “Pre-K teachers need access to the support staff they need to help manage classroom behavior problems. Without this support, we are setting up for failure both our children and their teachers.” “Children’s development is affected most strongly by factors close to the child, such as his or her immediate family. However, neighborhoods, schools, and extended families also affect children. More distant influences, such as public policies, the media and the larger culture, also can affect children, though the effects of these distant factors tend to be transmitted through family and community influences. Peer influences can be negative but are more often positive and do not inevitably or necessarily displace parental influences, even among adolescents. Genetic influences affect possibilities for children’s characteristics and development, but the effects of genes occur in interaction with environmental influences. Hence, it is not so much ‘nature vs. nurture’ as an ongoing interaction between heredity and environment. Happily, there are few critical periods, or times, when irreversible problems develop.” 7

6/25/09 To explain the science in such a way that it redirects attention away from the default positions - by identifying Values and explanations that make the societal, not individual goals, obvious - by creating Simplifying Models that serve to better explain how development works - by explaining the consequences of inaction - by showing how they can be attached to policy thinking To Change the Outcome….. You Must Change the Lens • When communications is inadequate, people default to the “pictures in their heads” • When communications is effective, people can see an issue from a different perspective 8

6/25/09 Prosperous Society Fate Brain Successful child Architecture Free will and Toxic Parents Stress Unsuccessful child Genes Environment Dysfunctional Society 1. Child development is a foundation for community development and economic development, as capable children become the foundation of a prosperous and sustainable society (Prosperity). 2. The basic architecture of the brain is constructed through an ongoing process that begins before birth and continues into adulthood (Brain Architecture). 3. Brains are built from the bottom up (Skill Begets Skill). 9