The study, led by Ph.D. graduate Sabine Doebel and associate professor Melissa Koenig of the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development, found that children as young as 4 years old can detect logical inconsistency if the claims they are evaluating are presented in verbal context that encourages children to think about speakers’ reliability as information sources. In addition, the research indicated that “executive function,” or the ability to override habits or impulses, helped 4- and 5-year-olds detect inconsistencies in adult speakers.
Previous research had suggested that children younger than 6 years of age cannot detect logical inconsistency. This new research, however, provides new insights about when and how foundational logical skill first emerges in children and what role it plays in supporting early social learning.
Sabine Doebel
“This research gives us a more accurate sense of when children can detect logical inconsistencies and what skills seem to support it, which in turn provides new ideas about how this key ability might continue to develop into adulthood,” said Doebel. “The study also provides new evidence of social influences on reasoning. If we want children and adults to reason well, it may be beneficial to provide information in social contexts that support and motivate reasoning, rather than presenting information in abstraction.”
In one of the study’s experiments, 3- to 5-year-olds were presented with two speakers who expressed claims that were logically consistent and inconsistent. For example, one speaker said, “This box is full of toys and it has a ball in it,” while the other speaker said, “This box is full of toys and it is empty.” The 4- and 5-year-olds correctly identified the inconsistent speaker as not making sense.
In a second experiment, children were given the opportunity to detect logical inconsistencies either spoken or read from books by adults. Four-year-olds only detected logical inconsistencies when they were expressed by speakers; 5-year-olds detected them in both contexts.
In both experiments, children remembered when speakers were inconsistent and avoided learning new information from them. The second experiment also found that executive function, when controlled for verbal knowledge and working memory in the children, predicted inconsistency detection over and above the control variables.
“Executive function plays a role in many early emerging skills, and others have suggested it might be important for other logical concepts,” said Doebel. “More research is needed to understand exactly how this might work. Interventions to train executive function have shown a lot of promise, and it would be great if such training could promote logical skills.”
WCCO recently featured Department of Family Social Science professor Bill Doherty in a segment about how much time parents spend with their children.
According to the “Good Question” segment with Heather Brown, moms are spending about four hours a week more with their kids than they did 40 – 50 years ago. Dads are also spending more time with their kids.
“The big thing is interacting with them compared with just being around,” said Doherty.
He said there is no magic formula, but the key is being intentional with your time, and balancing quantity and quality of time.
Department of Family Social Science professor Bill Doherty was recently quoted in a Wall Street Journal article about the importance of doing spontaneous things as a family.
The author of the article tells the story of how she listened to her 10-year old son when he said he wanted to go from Pittsburgh to Cleveland to see the victory parade for the Cleveland Cavaliers, who won the 2016 NBA Championship.
Despite the crowds, booked hotel rooms, and the heat, the family took an impromptu road trip from Philadelphia to Cleveland for one reason: it would be memorable.
While parenting is often about structure and setting limits, “sometimes it’s good to say ‘what the heck’, and break out of what we normally do,” Doherty said.
He also said, “The thing about spontaneous family events is that they are a bit over the top. That is what makes them memorable.”
FSOS alumni Farrell Webb has been appointed dean of the College of Health and Human Development at California State University, Northridge.
Webb graduated with a Ph.D. in family social science in 1994.
After graduating, he worked for almost 20 years at Kansas State University. For the past two years, he worked as an associate dean at California State University, Los Angeles.
Compared with routinely implemented preschool, Child-Parent Center (CPC) participation was linked to greater school readiness skills and parental involvement, according to a study by a research team at the University of Minnesota’s Human Capital Research Collaborative (HCRC) and Institute of Child Development. The research also demonstrated that CPC expansion to new schools and diverse populations is both feasible and effective.
The CPC program is an early childhood intervention model that provides comprehensive educational and family-support services to children starting at ages 3 to 4 in high-poverty neighborhoods, with continuing services up to third grade. Under an Investing in Innovation Grant from the U.S. Department of Education, HCRC co-director Arthur Reynolds and the University team began an expansion of the CPC program in 2012 in four school districts, including St. Paul; Chicago; Evanston, Illinois; and Normal, Illinois.
This is the first study on the Midwest expansion of CPCs and is featured in the July issue of Pediatrics. The research, led by Reynolds, director of the CPC expansion project and professor at the Institute of Child Development, studied full- and part-day preschool programs from a large cohort of low-income children who were enrolled in Midwest CPCs or alternative preschools in the fall of 2012 in 30 Chicago schools. Co-authors were Momoko Hayakawa, Midwest CPC expansion manager, and HCRC researchers Brandt Richardson, Michelle Englund, and Suh-Ruu Ou.
Arthur Reynolds
“Our findings show that a strongly evidence-based program, which sets CPCs apart from many early education programs, can be effectively scaled in a contemporary context and within a preschool to third grade system of continuity,” Reynolds said.
The study involved end-of-preschool follow-up of a matched-group cohort of 2,630 predominantly low-income, ethnic minority children. The study, which assessed the preschool component, included 1,724 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds enrolled in 16 CPC programs. The comparison group included 906 children of the same age who participated in the usual school-based preschool services in 14 matched schools.
Compared with the children enrolled in the usual state pre-kindergarten and Head Start services, CPC participants had higher mean scores on all performance-based assessments of literacy, socio-emotional development, and physical health. Seventy percent of CPC participants were at or above the national average on six domains of learning, compared with 52 percent for the comparison group. Additionally, the scores were equivalent to more than a half-year gain in proficiency skills and a 33 percent increase over the comparison group in meeting the national norm.
Seventy-five percent of CPC full-day preschool participants met national performance norms compared to sixty-eight percent for CPC part-day participants, but both groups showed significantly greater performance than the comparison group. Compared to the CPC part-day group, full-day participants had significantly lower rates of chronic absence.
CPC participants also had higher ratings of parental involvement as 59 percent of the program group exhibited high involvement in school compared to 20 percent for the comparison group. For example, as described by one CPC parent, “I came to the workshops [at the center], and movie day, or game night. Stuff like that has helped me be more involved with my son, and learn how to create different activities for him to do.” Another parent reported “being able to see what he was doing in the classroom, I could relate to school more. I felt like this was a tool for me at home as a parent to make it a more seamless transition.”
Because of their demonstrated impact on well-being, early childhood programs are at the forefront of prevention for improving educational success and health. Life-course studies indicate that participation in high-quality, center-based programs at ages 3 and 4 links to higher levels of school readiness and achievement, higher rates of educational attainment and socioeconomic status as adults, and lower rates of crime, substance use, and mental health problems.
The study provides support for increasing access to effective preschool as a strategy for closing the achievement gap and addressing health disparities. It demonstrates that preschool appears to be a particularly effective approach for strengthening school readiness, and it supports the positive effects of full-day preschool over part-day as key factor in increasing access to early childhood programs.
Although publicly-funded preschool programs such as Head Start and state prekindergarten serve an estimated 42 percent of U.S. 4-year-olds, most provide only part-day services and only 15 percent of 3-year-olds are enrolled. These rates, plus differences in quality, intensity, and comprehensiveness, may account for the finding that only about half of entering kindergartners have mastered the cognitive skills needed for school success.
Federal initiatives such as Healthy People 2020 and the President Obama’s Preschool for All plan prioritize improving children’s school readiness skills. The results of this study show that gains are possible with effective programs that provide comprehensive services.
The study noted that “because CPC provides more intensive and comprehensive services than most other programs, larger and more sustained effects have been found on educational, economic, and social well-being.” In CPC, class sizes are small, family services are extensive, and curriculum is focused on child engagement in all aspects of learning.
“Closing the achievement gap requires not only highly effective early education, but a strong system of continuity into the elementary grades,” Reynolds said. “A major reason why CPC has sustained effects leading to high economic returns is that it is high in quality but also includes comprehensive services over many years.”
A description of the CPC program and manual is available here.
The Midwest Expansion of the Child-Parent Center Education Program, Preschool to Third Grade, is an intervention project of the Human Capital Research Collaborative (HCRC) at the University of Minnesota and eight school districts and educational partners. HCRC is a unique partnership between the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota to advance multidisciplinary research on child development and social policy.
In an interview with NPR, Department of Family Social Science professor emeritus Pauline Boss said there is no such thing as “closure” when relationships end.
This month NPR featured Boss in a segment of On Being with Krista Tippett titled “The Myth of Closure.”
According to the Orlando Sentinel, Boss placed emphasis on the importance of remembering loved ones, and that actively trying to “get over” a death or failed relationship often prevents people from being able to do just that.
Boss also praised CNN anchor Anderson Cooper for putting “closure” in its proper place in the media when interviewing survivors and family members after tragedy.
“I know from his own biography that he knows what loss is, and he understands that there is no closure. He’s the only reporter I’ve ever heard explain that in the line of his work, and I think the rest of us have to do a better job of it, too.”
Boss coined the term “ambiguous loss” for her pioneering research on what people feel when a loved one disappears. However, she says, “We have to live with loss, whether clear or ambiguous, and it’s okay.”
Research on Improving Systems of Education (RISE) — a new initiative aimed at conducting high-quality research to build evidence to enhance children’s learning throughout the world — announced today that it will begin work in Vietnam. University of Minnesota and CEHD researchers are leading this effort.
The £4.2 million, six-year undertaking will seek to understand how Vietnam “got it right” in creating an education system that has led its students to achieve learning levels exceeding those of their peers in far wealthier nations.
The project in Vietnam is one of four research endeavors being launched in countries throughout the world to shed light on ways to address a global learning crisis. Countries around the world have been remarkably successful in making progress toward universal primary (elementary) schooling, but in many places, learning levels are poor, or have declined. As a result, even when children finish many years of schooling, they still lack basic math and literacy skills. The RISE agenda emphasizes the need to make changes that can provide children with the education they need to be successful adults in their local, national, and global communities.
Research about the experiences of Vietnam offers the potential to inform policies that can help other countries enhance students’ education.
Vietnam’s achievements in elementary and secondary education over the last two decades are extraordinary. Out of 65 countries, Vietnam ranked 17th in math and 19th in reading — surpassing both the United States and the United Kingdom — in the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the worldwide scholastic performance measure of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Vietnam’s primary school completion rate is 97 percent, and its lower secondary enrollment rate is 92 percent.
Paul Glewwe
“Vietnam’s success raises key questions about how it reached such levels of learning, and whether its achievements can provide insights that help other nations,” said Paul Glewwe, one of the research team’s principal investigators (PIs). He has been engaged in research in Vietnam for 25 years and is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota. “The project is very ambitious in scope, and it takes advantage of an incredible success story in education in developing countries.”
Joan DeJaeghere
Co-PI Joan DeJaeghere, associate professor in CEHD’s Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development, is part of a team of nine experts from institutions within and outside of Vietnam that will undertake a systematic evaluation of Vietnam’s education system by analyzing the status and impacts of past, current, and upcoming educational reforms. The aim is to understand how policy levers made Vietnam’s exceptional achievements possible, and whether and how new reforms are able to build on its achievements. DeJaeghere is a Fulbright Scholar and Fulbright Specialist to Vietnam, having worked on education projects there for over 10 years.
Department of Family Social Science assistant professor Lindsey Weiler is part of a team researching homeless youth in Hennepin County, which has been awarded the Hennepin-University Collaborative Grant.
The project investigates homeless youth’s perceptions of their education and employment interests, needs, and potential interventions. This award will bring together the Office to End Homelessness (OEH) and FSOS to give voice to youth interests and desires.
The FSOS group in front of a statue of James Madison, at the Library of Congress. From left to right: Sarah Burcher, Dung Mao, Joyce Serido, and Veronica Deenanath.
In early June, several graduate students and one faculty member represented FSOS at the annual American Council on Consumer Interests (ACCI) conference in Arlington, Virginia.
The group of graduate students included Sarah Burcher, Dung Mao, and Veronica Deenanath. FSOS faculty member and ACCI president Joyce Serido also attended the conference.
The graduate students presented on the following research:
Sarah Burcher, ” “The Financial Behavior of Low-Income and Ethnically Diverse First-Year College Students: The Power of Parenting and Self-Beliefs”
Dung Mao, “Young Adults’ Financial Behavior, Financial Values, and Relationship Satisfaction: Do Perceptions of Partner’s Behavior or Shared Financial Values Matter?”
Veronica Deenanath, “High School Students’ Financial Behavior: The Role of Decision Context, and Access to Money”
Burcher also received a scholarship.
The group also attended a celebration at the Library of Congress for the 50th anniversary of the Journal of Consumer Affairs (JOCA), the academic journal published by the ACCI.
Jed Elison, assistant professor in the Institute of Child Development, was featured on Fox 9 for groundbreaking research that is using infant brain scans to establish early identification and intervention strategies for the emergence of maladaptive behaviors in children, including autism spectrum disorder. The goal is to chart brain development in children between 3 and 24 months, an age when the foundation is laid for subsequent social and cognitive development.
“We have evidence that the brain starts to change long before the behavior starts to manifest,” Elison said in the story.
The National Institutes of Health has awarded the first-ever grant dedicated to laying the policy groundwork needed to translate genomic medicine into clinical application. The project – LawSeq – will convene legal, ethics, and scientific experts from across the country to analyze what the state of genomic law is and create much-needed guidance on what it should be.
The principal investigators leading the grant are Susan M. Wolf, J.D., U of M chair of the Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences; Ellen Wright Clayton, M.D., J.D. (Vanderbilt University); and Frances Lawrenz, Ph.D., U of M associate vice president for research and professor of educational psychology. Lawrenz is an expert in qualitative and quantitative research methods who has successfully led multiple National Science Foundation grants and has directed qualitative research on managing incidental findings and return of genomic results.
The leading investigators will be joined by a group of 22 top experts – from academia, industry, and clinical care – who will collaborate over the course of this three-year project to clarify current law, address gaps, and generate the forward-looking recommendations needed to create the legal foundation for successfully translating genomics into clinical care.
The College of Education and Human Development was recently recognized for its leadership in the innovative use of technology to support learning of pre-service teachers by the U.S. Department of Education and ASCD at the Teacher Preparation Innovation Summit in Washington, D.C.
Dean Jean Quam and Cassie Scharber, associate professor of learning technologies, represented the University of Minnesota and CEHD at the event, where Joseph South, director of the U.S. Office of Educational Technology, praised CEHD’s ongoing work to improve teaching with educational technology.
“America’s pre-service teachers must be prepared to use technology effectively in the classroom,” he said. “We are excited by the innovations we’re seeing at CEHD to ensure their pre-service teachers have opportunities to actively use technology to support learning and teaching through creation, collaboration, and problem solving.”
The summit brought together researchers, schools of education, district leaders, accreditors, and support organizations to advance four goals for educational technology in teacher preparation programs outlined in the 2016 National Education Technology Plan, Future Ready Learning: Reimagining the Role of Technology in Education.
“We are excited about the future of educational technology as a tool to enhance student success in a variety of teaching and learning environments,” said Quam. “It’s part of our core mission in CEHD to prepare all of our graduates to develop and use new technologies.”
The summit cosponsor, ASCD, is a global community of 125,000 members— including superintendents, principals, teachers, and advocates from more than 128 countries—dedicated to excellence in learning, teaching, and leading.
The work of Dr. Piper Meyer-Kalos, executive director of The Minnesota Center for Chemical and Mental Health (MNCAMH) in the School of Social Work, has been receiving attention in the news recently.
The CEHD 2020 Vision blog featured an article about her work on the first episodes of psychosis in people who go on to develop schizophrenia. She saw firsthand that those with schizophrenia are underserved, and that the access to mental health treatment is something that isn’t talked about enough. The Recovery After Initial Schizophrenia Episodes (RAISE) project was created in 2009 in response to research and other early intervention programs that had been developed in other countries. Meyer-Kalos was apart of the RAISE Early Treatment Program, which developed into NAVIGATE. The goal of NAVIGATE is to study a combination of psychosocial treatment and medication management over a period of time, with a focus on the improvement of the quality of life. The results of the study were that those that participated in NAVIGATE saw larger improvements in the quality of their life. They had greater participation in work and school, experienced fewer overall symptoms, and were able to stay in treatment longer.
Meyer-Kalos also commented in a Minnesota Public Radio story about the Minnesota chapter of the Hearing Voices Network. The story featured a member of MNCAMH’s advisory council, Albert Garcia, who founded the state chapter of the network in 2013.
Jed Elison, assistant professor in the Institute of Child Development, is using infant brain scans to establish early identification and intervention strategies for the emergence of maladaptive behaviors in children, including autism spectrum disorder. He was recently interviewed at length about his innovative research by MinnPost.
“We are looking for brain-based biomarkers that precede the manifestation of behaviors that indicate a child is going to develop autism with the ultimate hope of being able to implement some type of interventions before the child is actually showing signs of this disorder,” said Elison in the story.
David Hollister, professor in the School of Social Work, is one of 12 people at the U of M to be awarded the 2016 President’s Award for Outstanding Service. The award recognizes exceptional service to the University, its schools, colleges, departments, and service units by any active or retired faculty or staff member. Recipients of this award have gone well beyond their regular duties and have demonstrated an unusual commitment to the University community.
Hollister’s research and teaching has focused on immigrant and refugee resettlement and on international social work and social development. He has received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Michigan School of Social Work and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Minnesota Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.
Hollister will retire in August 2016 after 50 years as a faculty member, 45 at the U of M. In 1971 he helped form a new social work school organized around the concept of social development at University of Minnesota Duluth. Along with colleagues from five universities, he helped establish the International Consortium for Social Development, now in its 42nd year. In 1980 he came to the Twin Cities as a full professor. He served as director of the School of Social Work from 1983 to 1991 and also as director of graduate studies and Ph.D. program chair.
Grier-Reed’s courses combine intellectual rigor with engaging experiences that support students’ success and personal growth. As the founder, in 2005, of the African American Student Network, Grier-Reed created a safe and constructive space for black University students to connect with and find support from peers, faculty, staff, and graduate students as they make meaning of their experiences on campus. Her work inside and outside the classroom embodies common themes: a commitment to inclusive pedagogy, intellectual rigor, supportive peer advising, and research.
In a recent New York Times article, FSOS professor Marlene Stum says it’s not the big things that matter when dividing assets after the death of a loved one.
In fact, Stum says that most often families have decided ahead of time what will be done with the items bearing any significant monetary value. It’s the smaller things worth almost no money, but high in sentimental value, that families end up fighting over, which leads to strife in relationships.
Stum’s publication, Who Gets Grandma’s Yellow Pie Plate, helps families navigate the division of the assets. Her book sets forth principles such as helping family members understand that each belonging has a varying value to each family member, and stresses the importance of setting up a fair system for dividing assets, and sticking to it.
FSOS department head, Lynne Borden, recently traveled to Washington, D.C. for an event with Joining Forces.
As part of the event titled, “Operation Educate the Educators: Sharing Successes and Setting Sights for the Future,” Dr. Borden met Dr. Jill Biden.
Joining Forces is an organization that works on behalf of military families. In addition to her duties as department head, Dr. Borden also runs the REACH lab, which also focuses on helping military families.
School of Social Work doctoral student Tanya Bailey recently won the U of M Outstanding Community Service Award, the highest honor given to a student for service to the University and community. She received the award at a ceremony on March 31. Bailey established the PAWS (Pet Away Worry & Stress) program, which involves over 100 volunteers who bring registered therapy animals to campus to interact with students and staff, helping them reduce and manage stress.
See a video about the program and Bailey’s outstanding achievements.
