Research suggests that young children's active participation in music supports emergent mathematics knowledge, such as patterning and one-to-one correspondence. The authors define and explain steady beat, rhythm, melody, tempo, dynamics, rhythm, and style. They suggest ways teachers can use these elements of music with infants, toddlers, and young…

Appropriate design and redesign of programs, responses to accreditation agencies, and internal academic legitimacy concerns are critical challenges in education in general and in leadership education in particular. "Guiding Questions: Guidelines for Leadership Education Programs (Guiding Questions)," a member initiated project sponsored…

Children begin to learn at an early age their "place in the world." Through their natural curiosity and in using their five senses to explore nature, children begin to understand human-environment relationships: sensing how to get from point A to point B on their own, experiencing the movement of products and people, and observing how places…

Early life experiences are critical to a child's development. Research has shown that, for a variety of reasons, children born into low-income families are at a disadvantage when compared to their higher-income peers. Fortunately, research has also shown a positive association between high quality child care and the academic and social-emotional…

Children grow and change more rapidly during the first eight years of life than any other time in their life span. Progression through the physical, cognitive, and social-emotional developmental stages varies for each individual child. Children with atypical development experience a wide spectrum of variability in their development. Over the past…

Despite the widespread popularity of the National Association for the Education of Young Children's guidelines on Developmentally Appropriate Practices (DAP), research on the effects of these practices is limited, in this article we review studies assessing the effects of DAP. We find no evidence of consistent effects of DAP for cognitive or…

Universal screening enables service providers and families to quickly identify difficulties and implement strategies that are likely to lessen the probability of longterm negative outcomes including severe persistent challenging behaviors. The practice of universal screening is in line with the prevention approach that is the foundation of the…

The provision of choice making is frequently cited as an indicator of developmentally appropriate practice for young children with and without disabilities; however, there is little empirical evidence regarding the rate of delivery of choices within the preschool classroom. The delivery of intervention strategies by a classroom-based…

Research Findings: The toddler stage is a unique developmental period of early childhood. During this stage, children are developing autonomy, self-regulation, and language capabilities through interactions with significant adults in their lives. Increasing numbers of toddlers are being enrolled in child care. This article focuses on the need to…

Early childhood teacher education methods classes often emphasize the application of developmentally appropriate practices (DAP). In today's digital age, it is important for teacher educators and their students to think about how to extend DAP to technology use. In this article, two contrasting classroom scenarios are provided to illustrate…

Transitions can be difficult at any age; however, the move from elementary school to middle school, coupled with the onset of adolescence, is often associated with a myriad of psychological and academic declines. One strategy currently used to "ready" elementary students for middle school is a departmentalized organizational structure. The purpose…

This article reviews the current status and a future agenda for childhood career development theory, research, and practice. The fragmented nature of the current state of the literature is noted, and a call is made for a reexamination and reconsideration of the childhood developmental pathways of life's work. It is suggested that the study of…

In the Early Childhood Education (ECE) field, the term Developmentally Appropriate Practice, otherwise known as DAP, has been defined many times and many ways. One aspect of DAP that has received recent attention is environment. Because of the accountability emphasis of the No Child Left Behind Act, environment is generally being approached in a…

This article describes early childhood educators' responses to a professional development series aimed at helping them to understand and incorporate early learning standards for social studies. While the primary aim of the professional development was to focus on the social studies content standards, the secondary aim was to introduce early…

This study was conducted to evaluate perceptions held by early childhood educators about the assessment process in their schools and to identify current assessment practices in early childhood settings in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. In February 2009, 230 early childhood educators completed surveys on the topic of assessment at an annual early…