Search Database

Life Span Development: Early Childhood

• Organizations: Local

  Imaginate Ink

  Imaginate Ink is a private creative mentorship program founded twenty years ago by Clarissa Ngo after she graduated from Harvard.
  Since 1998, Clarissa's students have learned to make things that matter to solve world problems and write and speak with power and eloquence. Eight of her students have given TED talks as kids, while others founded multi-national companies as young adults and charities with global impact as kids. After graduating from Harvard, Clarissa developed a method that lights young people on fire to help the world and learn to communicate with passion, which not only helps them gain admission to dream colleges but more importantly, teaches them real world skills. Clarissa teaches virtually worldwide, and her students win national and international awards in all subjects. Her youngest student is four and her oldest, 70. She also coaches CEOs. To find out more, visit ImaginateInk.com

• Organizations: State

  Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute - UNC (FPG), (NC)

  As one of the nation's largest organization for studying young children and their families, the FPG Child Development Institute of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill conducts research and provides outreach services. Find online evaluations of public programs.

• Printed Materials: Books

  A Volcano in My Tummy

  A Volcano in My Tummy gives an approach to helping children and adults alike understand and deal constructively with children's anger. The book includes activities which help to overcome the fear of children's anger which many adult care-givers experience, and distinguishes between anger the feeling, and violence the behavior. Primarily created for ages 6 to thirteen, it is accessible for use in class or at home.

  Awaken the Genius in Your Child: A Practical Guide for Parents

  Every child is a genius to his or her parents, but not every parent has the knowledge or confidence to develop their child's creative, intellectual potential to its fullest extent. This book by Shakuntala Devi helps create a constructive, fun and supportive learning environment for children, from babyhood through school. It offers practical, manageable advice and accessible, step-by-step methods designed to bring out natural abilities.

  Critical Issues and Practices in Gifted Education: What the Research Says (2nd ed.)

  This book is the definitive reference book for those searching for a summary and evaluation of the literature on giftedness, gifted education and talent development. The book presents more than 50 summaries of important topics in the field, providing relevant research and a guide to how the research applies to gifted education and the lives of gifted children. This second edition updates every topic with new research and introduces several critically important topics such as cluster grouping, Response to Intervention, programming standards, the Common Core State Standards, educational leadership, and legal issues. This book provides an objective assessment of the available knowledge on each topic, offers guidance in the application of the research, and suggests areas of needed research.

  Developing Your Child for Success

  Author Kenneth Lane outlines 103 activities that are designed to help give a child the necessary perceptual motor-skills needed to succeed in school. Categories covered are motor, visual motor, ocular motor, vision, laterality, directionality, sequential processing and simultaneous processing.

  Early Childhood Gifted Education (The Practical Strategies Series in Gifted Education)

  Written by Nancy B. Hertzog, Ph.D., this book presents an array of strategies that facilitate the growth and development of young gifted children. From creating a literacy-rich environment to affording opportunities for inquiry, the implementation of the strategies presented is sure to empower young children to pursue and develop their gifts and talents.

  Early Gifts: Recognizing and Nurturing Children's Talents

  Written by Paula Olszewski-Kubilius, Ph.D., Lisa Limburg-Weber, Ph.D. and Steven Pfeiffer, Ph.D., this book offers sound advice and guidance for parents of gifted and talented children of preschool and elementary school age. The authors detail how parents can create a home environment that both elicits and develops their child's special abilities through activities, games, and play.

  Einstein Never Used Flash Cards

  The authors join together to prove that training preschoolers with flash cards and attempting to hurry intellectual development doesn't pay off. In fact, the authors claim, kids who are pressured early on to join the academic rat race don't fair any better than children who are allowed to take their time. Alarmed by the current trend toward creating baby Einsteins, the authors urge parents to step back and practice the "Three R's: Reflect, Resist, and Recenter." Instead of pushing preschoolers into academically oriented programs that focus on early achievement, they suggest that children learn best through simple playtime, which enhances problem solving skills, attention span, social development and creativity.

  Enhancing and Practicing Executive Function Skills with Children from Infancy to Adolescence

  Each chapter of Enhancing and Practicing Executive Function Skills contains activities suitable for a different age groups. This book may be read in its entirety (which includes the introduction and references) or in discrete sections geared to specific age groups.

  Exceptionally Gifted Children

  This book by Dr. Miraca Gross provides an account of the development of 15 children with IQs exceeding 160. Gross examines indepth the children's developmental and educational history, and common characteristics. As well, it identifies educational strategies and adaptations for exceptionally gifted students. This book is must read for anyone raising, teaching, counseling, or assessing highly and profoundly gifted children.

  Genius in Residence

  Written by Audrey Grost, this book is a mother's story of the early development of her profoundly gifted, extremely mathematically precocious son, Michael, and her struggles to obtain an appropriate assessment and educational provisions for him. Audrey Grost discusses family issues and educational problems as well as how the family dealt with extensive media coverage when Michael became the youngest college student ever.

  Gifted IQ: Early Developmental Aspects - The Fullerton Longitudinal Study

  This book presents research on the early developmental history of children who come to perform at the gifted IQ level during middle childhood, representing an integration of the four authors' interests in the fields of intelligence, psychometrics, and developmental psychology. The research presented is based on the Fullerton Longitudinal Study, which entails the systematic investigation of a single cohort studied from infancy onward.

  Growing Up Again: Parenting Ourselves, Parenting Our Children (2nd Edition)

  Growing Up Again provides information about ages and stages of development, ways to nurture children and yourself, and tools for personal and family growth. This new edition also addresses the special demands of parenting adopted children and the problem of overindulgence; a recognition and exploration of prenatal life and your final days as unique life stages; new examples of nurturing, structuring, and discounting, as well as concise ways to identify them; help for handling parenting conflicts in blended families, and guidelines on supporting children's spiritual growth.

  Helping Young Children Flourish

  Aletha Solter presents a new approach to parenting which respects the child's needs and feelings. Without using punishment nor rewards, children are allowed to reach their highest potential.

  In Celebration of Play

  Play is the child's way of learning about, adapting to and integrating with his or her environment. In addition to adequate sports and recreation facilities children need a wide variety of opportunities, choices and raw materials that they can use as they see fit for free constructive creative play. These essays, drawn from papers given at the International Playgrounds Association's Seventh World Congress, focus on the social significance of play.

  Learning All the Time

  Author of 10 books that concentrate on early child development and education, John Holt is widely considered the father of the modern-day homeschooling movement, because he grew to believe that schools stifle the learning process. In this, his final book--compiled by colleagues from drafts, letters, and magazine essays written by Holt before he died in 1985--he strings together his own observations and philosophies to show how young children can be encouraged to learn everything from reading and math to music and science.

  Nature's Gambit: Child Prodigies and the Development of Human Potential

  Feldman's study of six male child prodigies includes extensive descriptions of the children's development in babyhood and early childhood. This volume includes case study material on an "omnibus prodigy" who scored well above 200 IQ.

  Off the Charts: Asynchrony and the Gifted Child

  The editors of this book brought together 19 essays by renowned gifted education specialists to explore the effects of asynchronous development on gifted children and adults. It contains sections on Asynchrony and the Individual, Asynchrony and the Family, Asynchrony and Learning and chapters describe the nature of asynchrony, methods of dealing with the challenges of asynchrony, and recommendations for adapting education in a variety of settings.

  Parents' Guide to Raising a Gifted Child

  James Alvino details a practical, informative primer for raising and educating our gifted children from preschool to adolescence. Strategies are provided for determining whether a child is gifted as well as ways to nurture a child's gifts and talents, and explains how gifted children can become bored, socially aggressive, and even underachieving if not appropriately challenged.

  Parent's Guide to Raising a Gifted Toddler: Recognizing and Developing the Potential of Your Child from Birth to Five Years

  While this digest includes articles, research reports and advice from Gifted Children Monthly, it also contains original work by author James Alvino on emotional needs, perfectionism and the superbaby scourge and gender-specific issues.

  Raising an Optimistic Child: A Proven Plan for Depression-Proofing Young Children - for Life

  This book from Bob Murray and Alicia Fortinberry, offers a safe, drug-free approach to protect your child from depression. Parents can learn how to spot the early signs for depression and even prevent your own depression from influencing your child.

  Raising Boys: Why Boys Are Different - And How to Help Them Become Happy and Well-Balanced Men

  In this book, author and therapist Steve Biddulph explains to parents how to embrace the differences between boys and girls and work with them. Citing such gender specific risks facing boys as a higher percentage of learning disabilities to greater threats of violence and suicide, Biddulph maps out parenting strategies for three distinct stages of growth.

  Raising Resilient Children: Fostering Strength, Hope, and Optimism in Your Child

  Authors Robert Brooks and Sam Goldstein present a set of 10 essential parenting behaviors ("guideposts") - a prescription of sorts, for nurturing resilience in kids. Each chapter describes a different guidepost and illustrates what can be done to foster psychological strength, hope and optimism.

  Real Boys' Voices

  Dr. William Pollack provides an inside look into the secret emotional lives of boys. The reader is able to hear boys speak for themselves, in their own voices, about everything from violence, school, parents, depression and girls to suicide, sports, sex and spirituality.

  Scientist in the Crib

  This book, written by three pioneers in the new field of cognitive science, discusses important discoveries about how much babies and young children know and learn, and how much parents naturally teach them. It argues that evolution designed us both to teach and learn, and that the drive to learn is our most important instinct. It also reveals as fascinating insights about our adult capacities and how even young children -- as well as adults -- use some of the same methods that allow scientists to learn so much about the world.
  

  Teaching and Counseling Gifted Girls

  This Gifted Child Today reader, by Susan Johnsen and James Kendrick, covers some of the most important issues facing gifted and talented girls during their school years, from elementary school through college. Included are specific chapters on counseling and classroom strategies for help ensure these students' future success.

  The Development of Giftedness and Talent Across the Life Span

  Renowned developmental psychologists and experts in gifted education come together to explore giftedness from early childhood through the elder years. Focusing on the practical implications of emerging theoretical perspectives and empirical findings, contributors examine prediction and measurement, diversity issues, and psychosocial factors as they relate to developing talent in different domains.

  The Hundred Dresses

  The Hundred Dresses won a Newbery Honor in 1945. In the book, Wanda Petronski, a Polish girl in a Connecticut school who is ridiculed by her classmates for wearing the same faded blue dress every day. Wanda claims she has one hundred dresses at home, but everyone knows she doesn’t and bullies her mercilessly. The class feels terrible when Wanda is pulled out of the school, but by that time it’s too late for apologies. Maddie, one of Wanda’s classmates, ultimately decides that she is "never going to stand by and say nothing again."

  The Social and Emotional Lives of Gifted Kids: Understanding and Guiding Their Development

  Tracy Cross, Ph.D. is considered the nation's leading authority on the psychology of gifted children. In this book, he helps provide a framework for understanding the wide range of needs gifted students have and the potential role that differing groups of adults undertake to help these students. Cross' Continuum of Psychological Services, makes it evident that parents, teachers and counselors need to work together to cover most of the services gifted students will need and that no one person can assume all of the necessary roles. Click here to read a review of this book.

  The Thinking Teacher: A Framework for Intentional Teaching in the Early Childhood Classroom

  This essential professional development resource provides advice for early childhood teachers who are navigating demands and changes in their careers, helping them see these challenges as growth opportunities. Through in-depth self-assessment and reflection, educators reexamine their teaching philosophy, integrate new knowledge and strategies into their practice, and strengthen the impact of their teaching on students.

  The Uncommon Child: Genesis of Behavior

  Bringing together theoretical research and empirical data on infant biology, developing infant capacities, animal models, and the impact of various social forces, this volume presents these disparate approaches in an attempt to examine uncommonness in children.

  The Young Gifted Child: Potential and Promise - An Anthology

  This anthology provides a practical, informative, and wide-ranging discussion of how to meet the needs of the gifted in the early years. Click here to read a review of this book.

  Things to Do with Toddlers and Twos

  This book from Karen Miller offers more than 400 actual activities, techniques and designs for toys that are effective in working with very young children in home and group care settings.

  To Be Young and Gifted

  This book offers insights into the intellectual and emotional development of exceptional children. Contributors explore the nature of giftedness and how to recognize it in youngsters; the complexities of the creative process; standardized tests and their effectiveness in asserting potential; and developmental theories and how they relate to the identification of gifted children. Several chapters also examine young prodigies and the diversity of personalities and talents that exist among the gifted.

  We Care, A Preschool Curriculum for Children Ages 2-5

  This book by Bertie Kingore and Glenda Higbee contains 30 units of study organized into nine monthly sections, each unit includes hundreds of activities in multiple curriculum areas, and all units have been classroom tested. It provides a well-balanced curriculum in an easy-to-follow organizational format and has been proven to have effective content for two through five year olds. This book can be a tool to enrich each child's educational opportunities.

  Yardsticks: Children in the Classroom Ages 4-14

  Written by Chip Wood, this is a guide for anyone working or living with children ages 4-14. Written for teachers and parents, it offers clear and concise descriptions of children's development. A comprehensive, "user-friendly" reference that helps translate knowledge of child development into schooling that helps all children succeed. Yardsticks includes charts summarizing physical, social, language, and cognitive growth patterns, suggestions for curricular areas, thematic units, and favorite books for different ages.

  You Know Your Child Is Gifted When . . . A Beginner's Guide to Life on the Bright Side

  This entry level book is written by Judy Galbraith for parents of children ages 2-8. It includes characteristics of gifted, descriptions of terms used in gifted education, perfectionism, parenting the gifted child, working with the schools and the rights of parents.

  Your Child: Emotional, Behavioral, and Cognitive Development from Birth through Preadolescence: What's Normal, What's Not, and When to Seek Help

  This book is the result of a group effort of more than 6,500 members of The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP). Many of the most common physical, emotional, behavioral, cognitive, social and moral issues and the challenges of parenting that you will confront in raising a child are discussed.

  Your Gifted Child: How to Recognize and Develop the Special Talents in Your Child from Birth to Age Seven

  An estimated 500,000 potentially gifted children are born each year. Since most schools don't begin to test for giftedness until about age 8, it is left to parents to recognize and nurture their children's special talents and abilities in the early critical years. Written by Joan Franklin Smutny, Kathleen Veenker and Stephen Veenker, this intelligent, insightful, and useful book is a complete guide to identifying gifted children and helping them develop to the fullest.

• Schools & Programs: College Affiliated

  The Hollingworth Center - Teachers College, Columbia University (New York, NY)

  The Hollingworth Center, a program within the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University, is a service, research, and demonstration site. The Center is designed to provide internship and training opportunities for the gradute students of Teachers College, develop model programs in early childhood education, and offer enriched educational services for children, families, and educators. Primarily concerned with nuturing the talent development of all young children, the Center maintains a special commitment to creating and implementing programs for underserved children and teachers in urban schools, and designing model curricula in areas traditionally neglected in elementary schools.

• Schools & Programs: Independent

  Bellevue Discovery Center for Early Childhood Education (Bellevue, WA)

  This preschool offers an enriched curriculum using research-based methods for working with young gifted children. Their program focuses on children’s social and emotional growth, as well as creative, in-depth project learning. Around 90 percent of their preschoolers move on to gifted programs.

• Websites & Other Media: Informational

  Early Child Development Stages

  A section for education is located on The World Bank's website, which contains information on early childhood development. You will find concise, thorough descriptions of each developmental stage among young children on this page.

  Social Thinking

  The term social thinking encompasses many treatment programs described as "teaching social thinking and related social skills." These strategies share common traits: How their own social minds work - why they react and respond the way they do, The behaviors that make others feel good and bad, How these behaviors are affecting their own emotions, responses to and relationships with others across different social contexts.

  Table of developmental milestones contrasting normal children with gifted children at 30% advancement

  This is a great site that gives parents of young children a great source of information about the developemental milestones while contrasting normal children with gifted children.

  The Overlooked Side Effects of Overscheduling Kids, Families

  This article hosted on the Hyper-Parenting.com, is authored by Jan Dehner and covers the topic of children's hectic schedules. She reveals that according to a recent to a study by the American Academy of Pediatrics, over-scheduling can lead to increased stress, anxiety and physical ailments.

  Zero To Three

  Zero to Three's mission is to support the healthy development and well-being of infants, toddlers and their families. As a national nonprofit multidisciplinary organization, Zero to Three informs, educates and supports adults who influence the lives of infants and toddlers.