Early Childhood Development
Despite years of research and public discourse about child development and related issues, there is considerable evidence to suggest that the public, policy makers and the media still do not understand the crucial issues underlying this debate, nor do advocates and policy makers know the best way to incorporate the science of early childhood development in order to promote positive change for children.
FrameWorks researchers have been working on this problem over several years -- with funding from the Benton Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Working Group on Public Dissemination and Social Policy of the MacArthur Foundation, the McDonnell Foundation Research Network on Early Experience and Brain Development, the A.L. Mailman Foundation, and continuing now with the Center for the Developing Child at Harvard University.
Our Recommendations
A comprehensive strategic message memo is available, which synthesizes the research findings and makes recommendations for how to apply these findings in the context of FrameWorks' total research on early childhood development. Download the Message Memo.
Our Research
Initial ResearchFrameWorks' initial research focused on the issue of child care and led to the understanding that child care is framed by the media as either a work facilitator (getting moms into the labor force, welfare reform) or in terms of safety (a child left alone at a center, proper regulation, choosing a safe center). These frames have the effect of shutting out quality concern. The challenge then was to transform the child from an object into a malleable creature, subject to his or her environment. Then the center could become something other than a "container."
This initial research, with input from researchers George Lakoff and Joseph Grady, resulted in a publication, Effective Language for Discussing Early Childhood Education and Policy, which can be viewed here. An article by Susan Nall Bales in Zero to Three's journal summarizes this research. The journal issue, Volume 19, No. 6 (June/July 1999), can be ordered for $10 by calling Zero to Three at 1-800-899-4301.
FrameWorks next conducted research, funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, to lay the foundation for understanding how the public thinks about school readiness and what alternative frames might yield better public support for the kinds of policies that child-focused organizations propose.
The research on school readiness includes a review of the frames promoted by advocates and experts in the field, a review of existing public opinion research, in-depth interviews with the public, and focus groups. Complete copies of the research reports can be downloaded here.
- The Whole Child - Parents and Policy: A Meta-Analysis of Opinion Data Concerning School Readiness, Early Childhood and Related Issues
- Promoting School Readiness and Early Child Development: Findings from Cognitive Elicitations
- What Kids Need and What Kids Give Back: A Review of Communications Materials Used by Early Childhood Development Advocates To Promote School Readiness and Related Issues
- Hearts Souls and Minds: An Analysis of Qualitative Research Regarding Communicating School Readiness and other Child Development Policies
- Moving the Public Beyond Familiar Understandings of Early Childhood Development
Findings from TalkBack Testing of Simplifying Models
The above research suggested that what is lacking in the public's ability to incorporate new learning about early childhood development is one or more models, sufficiently powerful and developed to displace the limited default frames (safety, auto-pilot, bad parents, etc.) in favor of concepts that highlight the importance of interaction. This realization resulted in another research effort, funded by the A.L. Mailman Foundation, to develop a simplifying model for early childhood development. The complete research report, "Simplifying Early Childhood Development: Findings from Cognitive Analysis and Phone Interviews " is available.
Ongoing ResearchWith the National Academy of Sciences' publication of the landmark volume From Neurons to Neighborhoods in late 2000, there arose the opportunity to reinvigorate the public discourse on early childhood development and to reframe the discussion in such a way that the public and its policymakers could focus their energies on the most significant scientific findings and their implications for program, policy and practice. As a result, the FrameWorks Institute is now collaborating with university-based groups of scientists working to translate the latest science and policies affecting early development to lay audiences.
The FrameWorks Institute, in collaboration with the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, the National Forum on Early Childhood Program Evaluation, and the Center for the Developing Child at Harvard University, has been engaged in a multi-year, multi-discipline study of how communications about early child development (ECD) influences public attitudes and policy preferences. Experimental research is currently underway which examines the impact of exposure to central elements of the core scientific story about ECD - as developed by the collaborators - on people’s support for programs and policies associated with the developmental perspective.
