When early childhood education providers become more entrepreneurial, the quality of their programs improves, research shows.
One child in three is physically or sexually abused or witnesses violence between adults in their home. Other adversities including emotional neglect, living in an unsafe neighbourhood or experiencing prejudice and bullying are even more common.
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One in three children experiences abuse or neglect. These adverse events increase lifelong risks for chronic diseases and mental health issues, creating a public health hazard hiding in plain sight.
Vulnerability to suicide may build up throughout the course of life, and may start with events occurring in the perinatal period and infancy.
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Early life influences have been linked to higher risk of suicide later in life. Reducing those risks, and boosting resilience in children exposed to them, may help reduce suicide rates.
In expanding early learning and care, Canada must addresses a current crisis is retaining and recruiting educators.
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Beyond addressing key staffing issues, developing high-quality early childhood programs must involve using school boards to expand access and grow spaces while offering more affordable fees.
Toxic stress has long term impacts on the overall well-being of children.
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Robert C Hughes, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
The early childhood years, particularly ages 0-3, are the building blocks of life.
With some kindergarten children now participating in online learning, questions persist about how they will learn the competencies needed to help them flourish both socially and academically.
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Do we need to just endure grumpy pandemic walks? Creative arts therapists offer tips about how to light up the important family and community connections and routines in your life.
Through creativity, children make sense of the world.
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Art can be a way to promote and support mental health in children, and understanding children’s experiences through the pandemic as seen through children’s art may help support them into the future.
My research focuses on how to support children with a parent who must travel afar for work. Strategies that boost understanding and maintain connection with the absent parent build resilience.
Both when planning family activities and choosing a child care provider, parents should be mindful of how much physical activity their children are getting.
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When young children are active, their brains and bodies develop the ABCs of “physical literacy,” a key developmental foundation. A new program from University of Winnipeg can help.
Choosing child care when returning to paid work can be hard and to the uninitiated the terms can be confusing. One alternative to long day care in a larger centre is known as family day care.
The interruption to young children’s learning is happening precisely at a time when developmental gains matter most.
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Remote contact with families in the coronavirus emergency is critical, but learning on a screen is not how young children will gain the foundational and developmental skills they need.
If schools and childcare centres shut without the necessary support, Australia may permanently lose valuable teachers and early childhood educators.
Imagination and play encourage children to think through hypothetical situations and create new worlds — and even to develop new possibilities for our shared world.
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The Productivity Commission has highlighted the growing burden of mental illness in Australia. But to really change things, its final recommendations should have a sharper focus on prevention.
A community health worker screening a child’s hearing in Cape Town.
Ora Buerkli
mHealth supported service-delivery systems can provide increased access to hearing and vision services for preschool children in poor communities.
A study found that asking young children aged three to four years to look at themselves in a mirror while asking them about a potential misdeed significantly increased their truth-telling.
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To tell a lie, a child must first understand that other people can have different beliefs and knowledge than they do, and that these beliefs can be false.
Contemporary research challenges older ideas that early exposure to a single language is best.
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Research shows babies in bilingual environments can track the precursors to words, known as word forms, in two languages.
Although guidelines suggest that developmental delays, including language delays, are ideally diagnosed by age three, most diagnoses don’t occur until age four or five.
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Language milestones matter not as the final word, but as possible signals about where children might be struggling and how they can be best supported to reach their full potential.
Professor, Canada Research Chair in Determinants of Child Development, Owerko Centre at the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute, University of Calgary
Adjunct Professor, Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development at Ontario Institute for the Study of Education (OISE) and Senior Policy Fellow at the Atkinson Centre, University of Toronto