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6 CHILDREN AND FAMILIES Back-to-School 2008 • Real discretionary spending on children has declined by more than 6 percent since 2004, while at the same time all other non-defense discretionary spending has increased by more than 8 percent. To view or download a copy of Children’s Budget 2008, go to http:// rstfocus.net/pages/3391/. Policy Brief: Challenging Behaviors and the Role of Preschool Education Find out if there a rise in challenging behaviors among young children in early care and education, and whether preschool can provide positive experiences that can reduce the rates of challenging behaviors by reading the new NIEER policy brief, written by Lisa A. McCabe and Ellen C. Frede. To view the policy brief, go to http://nieer. org/resources/policybriefs/16.pdf. The O ce of the Surgeon General Launches New Web Page e O ce of the Surgeon General, under the leadership of Rear Admiral Steven K. Galson, M.D., M.P.H., has launched a new Web resource to 89 Percent of Children’s help adults improve children’s eat- Food Products Provide Poor ing and physical activity habits. e Nutritional Quality, Study resource on the Surgeon General’s Finds Web site highlights “Healthy Youth for a Most children’s foods provide poor Healthy Future,” the U.S. Department of Health nutritional quality despite packaging and Human Services’ (HHS) childhood overweight and obesity preven- claims and healthy images, which can be tion initiative. e initiative addresses childhood overweight and obesity prevention misleading to parents, according to a Ca- by helping kids stay active, encouraging healthy eating habits, and promoting healthy nadian study. Professor Charlene Elliott choices. reviewed 367 products. 70 percent of the e Web site is located at www.surgeongeneral.gov/obesityprevention/. e site products had higher than recommended also includes information on all of the other HHS obesity prevention programs and sugar levels, 23 percent had high fat initiatives. levels and 17 percent had high salt levels. Elliott found that nine out of 10 regular U.S. Bancorp Foundation New First Focus Report Shows food items aimed speci cally at children Grants Kids Getting a Mere One Penny have a poor nutritional content because U.S. Bancorp makes grants available to of Every New Federal Dollar of high levels of sugar, fat or sodium. e support community programs that re- First Focus recently released Children’s Budget study was published in the July issue of spect the diversity of local communities 2008, a comprehensive guide to federal spending the journal Obesity Reviews. and help nonpro ts organizations meet on children. e book includes information on Source: ScienceDaily (www.sciencedaily.com) speci c needs within each community. the more than 180 federally funded programs e Foundation’s funding priorities aimed at enhancing the well-being of our nation’s children. include initiatives aimed at increasing Key ndings published in Children’s Budget 2008 include the following: or supporting self-su ciency, economic • For the past ve years, only one penny of every new, real non-defense development, human services, educa- dollar spent by the federal government has gone to children and children’s tional opportunities for low-income programs. and at-risk students, and access to affordable housing. Applications accepted on an ongoing basis. For more information, including application guidelines, visit www.usbank.com/about/community_relations/grant_guidelines_print. html. • Spending on children makes up only 10 percent of the entire non-defense budget. • e overall share of federal, non-defense spending going to children’s programs has dropped by 10 percent over the past ve years. THE MAGAZINE OF THE NATIONAL HEAD START ASSOCIATION
New on the Bookshelf Early Literacy in Action, by Betty H. Bunce List price: $54.95 Publisher: Brookes Publishing Company ISBN: 978-1-55766-922-3 Designed to enhance young children’s language skills with a proven play-focused preschool curriculum that’s drawn from more than 20 years of eld testing and outcomes. is exible program is a practical and signi cantly expanded follow-up to the bestselling Building a Language Focused Curriculum for the Preschool Classroom. Child Well-Being Index Special Focus Report e Foundation for Child Development has initiated the development of the rst comprehensive report on the overall health, education, well-being, and quality of life of America’s youngest children — from birth through 11 years old. e report titled Trends in Infancy/Early Childhood and Middle Childhood Well-Being, 1994-2006 was released on April 25. It presents a wideranging picture of how children in their rst decade of life are faring in the United States and is the rst to track and compare child well-being across three primary stages of development — early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence using the Child Well-Being Index (CWI). Here are a few conclusions highlighted in the report: • Overall improvements in the well-being index are re ected across all age groups. Each age group follows very similar positive trends from 1994-2002. • e Health Domain overall is on a dramatic decline, dragged down by rising obesity rates and the number of babies born at low birth weight. Research has linked the latter to an increase in delayed childbearing among women and the use of fertility drugs that make multiple births with lower birth weights more likely. e prevalence of obesity among children ages 6-11 is nearly four times what it was in the 1960s; for children ages 2-5, it is three times more. • Some areas of health show steady improvement, driven by declining infant and child death rates (attributed to better prenatal and health care, nutrition, and seat-belt laws), rates of mothers smoking during pregnancy, blood lead poisoning and increased vaccinations. • Safety is on the rise. e rate of children from birth to 11 who are victims of homicide has decreased dramatically; for children ages 6-11, that number has been cut in half. • Educational attainment is also on the rise. is domain is showing good progress driven by the dramatic increase in the number of children ages 4-6 enrolling in full-day kindergarten. What’s more, the report found that more parents are reading to their children daily and setting rules for TV watching. • Family economic well-being is likely to decline in years ahead. While this indicator has been holding steady, if trends in job loss, the housing nance crisis, and rising in ation that have characterized 2007 to the present day persist, they are likely to drive down this key economic indicator for children of all ages. To view the report in its entirety, go to www.newamerica.net and type in the report’s title in the search option. Preschool Kids Do Better When They Talk To Themselves, Research Shows Parents should not worry when their preschoolers talk to themselves; in fact, they should encourage it, says Adam Winsler, an associate professor of psychology at George Mason University. His recent study Private Speech and Executive Functioning among High-Functioning Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders, published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly, showed that 5-year-olds do better on motor tasks when they talk to themselves out loud (either spontaneously or when told to do so by an adult) than when they are silent. Young children o en talk to themselves as they go about their daily activities, and parents and teachers shouldn’t think of this as weird or bad,” says Winsler. “On the contrary, they should listen to the private speech of kids. It’s a fantastic window into the minds of children.” e study also showed that children with behavioral problems (such as those diagnosed with Attention De cit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD) tend to talk to themselves more o en than children without signs of behavior problems. “Given that kids with behavior concerns need more direction and control from adults, teachers may unnecessarily ask children to be quiet in classrooms out of fear that such speech coming from di cult-to-manage kids will lead to problem behavior,” says Winsler. “Yet non-disruptive private speech would actually help these children as they develop. erefore, teacher training and professional development e orts should suggest that teachers increase their tolerance level for this kind of private speech.” Winsler says that private speech is very common and perfectly normal among children between the ages of 2 and 5. As children begin talking to themselves, their communication skills with the outside world improve. Source: ScienceDaily (www.sciencedaily.com) THE MAGAZINE OF THE NATIONAL HEAD START ASSOCIATION Back-to-School 2008 CHILDREN AND FAMILIES 7
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