America's Youngest Outcasts.

Description:

America's Youngest Outcasts documents the number of homeless children in every state, their well-being, their risk for child homelessness, and state level planning and policy efforts. Using findings from numerous sources that include well-established national data sets as well as our own research, we rank the states in four domains, and then develop a composite of these domains to rank the states from 1 (best) to 50 (worst). A page about the District of Columbia is also available. 

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Use of Selected Nonmedication Mental Health Services by Adolescent Boys and Girls With Serious Emotional or Behavioral Difficulties: United States, 2010–2012

Key findings

Data from the National Health Interview Survey, 2010–2012

• About 4% of adolescents aged 12–17 had a serious emotional or behavioral difficulty and received nonmedication mental health services in the past 6 months.
• Nearly 71% of adolescents with serious emotional or behavioral difficulties received nonmedication mental health services in the past 6 months.
• Among adolescents with serious emotional or behavioral difficulties, boys were more likely than girls to receive nonmedication mental health services.
• Boys with serious emotional or behavioral difficulties were more likely than girls to receive services in school settings.
• The percentage of boys and girls with serious emotional or behavioral difficulties receiving nonschool services was similar for all settings except for the emergency department.

Mental health is a key component of a child’s overall wellbeing. Previous research using data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) found that about 6% of adolescents have serious emotional or behavioral difficulties. Both medication and nonmedication services have been found to be effective for treatment. Two recent reports from the National Center for Health Statistics have presented estimates of medication use among U.S. adolescents ). The use of prescription medication for emotional or behavioral difficulties was higher among boys than girls. This report describes differences between boys and girls in the use of nonmedication mental health services in various school and nonschool settings among adolescents aged 12–17 with serious emotional or behavioral difficulties.

Source: Center for Disease Control.

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Infant, control thyself: Infants’ integration of multiple social cues to regulate their imitative behavior

From the Press Release:

The latest I-LABS research shows that toddlers who watch an argument use that emotional information to avoid making adults angry.

The study, led by I-LABS' Betty Repacholi and Andrew Meltzoff, shows that children as young as 15 months can detect anger when watching other people's social interactions and then use that emotional information to guide their own behavior.

"Through studying the roots of social-emotional learning we are illuminating an important aspect of human personality and what helps kids succeed in life and school," said Meltzoff, co-director of I-LABS. "There's been a lot of attention on child problem-solving, but if we want to understand what makes kids tick, we need to study their social emotional lives, too."

Source: Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences

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Posthumously Conceived Children: An International and Human Rights Perspective

Abstract:

This essay considers posthumous conception from an international and child-centered approach. After a sketch in Part I of the phenomenon of posthumous conception and the complexities it evokes, Part II examines the types of issues arising in court cases concerning posthumous conception. Part III considers how courts in their rulings have addressed the welfare and best interests of posthumously conceived children and analyzes the scope and meaning of relevant decisions. Part IV looks into children’s rights or interests raised in those judicial decisions: parental acknowledgement, family structures, identity harm, and inheritance and social benefits. This part draws on the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), a prime instrument to advance children’s rights on the international level, incorporating as much as possible the perspectives of children. I argue that the discourse must include concern for the rights and interests of posthumously conceived children and that a new special category of children who are “outcast” cannot stand the test of equality and non-discrimination, nor of the entrenched principles of child welfare and best interests. Moreover, I suggest that attending to children’s perspectives may illuminate the gaps in the current discourse and what needs to be addressed. Finally, Part V draws some conclusions and calls for a more relational approach to ensure that posthumously conceived children do not pay the price of their parents’ decisions and that their welfare and best interests are upheld.

Source: Journal of Law & Health

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Laws on Children Residing with Parents in Prison

Description:

This report provides information on select international and regional measures and the laws of 97 jurisdictions from around the world that relate to allowing children to reside in prison with an incarcerated parent. Most of the countries surveyed impose specific age limits for a child’s admission into and length of stay in prison. Additionally, most of jurisdictions surveyed require that prisons that admit children meet certain standards.

Source: Law Library of Congress

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Dating and Sexual Behavior Among Single Parents of Young Children in the United States

Abstract:

Theory and research on partnered parents suggests trade-offs between parenting and sexuality, with those trade-offs most pronounced among mothers of young children. However, little research has focused on how a growing demographic of single parents negotiates dating and sexual activity. The current study drew upon a 2012 nationally representative sample of 5,481 single Americans 21 years of age and older, of whom 4.3% were parents of a child age five or younger. Dependent variables were sexual thoughts, frequency of sexual activity, number of sexual partners in the past year, dates during the previous three months, and whether one was actively seeking a relationship partner. Covariates included parental age, sex/gender, sexual orientation, education, and income. Using the entire sample of singles, we found no main effects of number (0, 1, 2+) of children aged five years and younger or number of children aged two years and younger on dating and sexual behavior variables. Next, using analyses restricted to single parents (n = 2,121), we found that single parents with a child aged five years or younger, adjusting for covariates, reported greater frequency of sexual activity and first dates but no differences in other outcomes compared with single parents of older children.

Source: The Journal of Sex Research via University of Indiana News Service.

Press Release: Kinsey study of single parents' dating, sexual activity contradicts assumptions

After Decades of Decline, A Rise in Stay-at-Home Mothers

From the Overview:

The share of mothers who do not work outside the home rose to 29% in 2012, up from a modern-era low of 23% in 1999, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of government data. This rise over the past dozen years represents the reversal of a long-term decline in “stay-at-home” mothers that had persisted for the last three decades of the 20th century. The recent turnaround appears to be driven by a mix of demographic, economic and societal factors, including rising immigration as well as a downturn in women’s labor force participation, and is set against a backdrop of continued public ambivalence about the impact of working mothers on young children.

Source: Pew Research Center

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2014 Brown Center Report on American Education: How Well Are American Students Learning?

From the introduction:

This year’s Brown Center Report on American Education represents the third installment of volume three and the 13th issue overall since the publication began in 2000. Three studies are presented. All three revisit a topic that has been investigated in a previous Brown Center Report. The topics warrant attention again because they are back in the public spotlight.

Part I summarizes the recent controversy involving the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and its treatment of Shanghai-China. The PISA is a test given to 15-year-olds every three years in math, reading, and science. Sixty-five national and subnational jurisdictions participated in the 2012 PISA. When the scores were released in December 2013, no one was surprised that Shanghai-China scored at the top in all subjects. But what has been overlooked by most observers—and completely ignored by the authorities running PISA—is that Shanghai’s population of 15-year-olds is sifted and shaped in ways that make its scores incomparable to those of any other participant.

Part II is on homework, updating a study presented in the 2003 Brown Center Report. That study was conducted at a time when homework was on the covers of several popular magazines. The charge then was that the typical student’s homework load was getting out of control. The 2003 study examined the best evidence on students’ homework burden and found the charge to be an exaggeration.

Source: Brookings Institution

Download full pdf report: 2014 Brown Center Report on American Education

New Database: Diversity Data Kids: public access to measures of child wellbeing and equity throughout the U.S.

From the press release:

The Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy (ICYFP) at Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management has launched a new online data and analysis tool, providing unprecedented insight into wellbeing and equity among the ever- more diverse child population in the United States.

The site, diversitydatakids.org, allows users to create customized profiles, rankings and maps that make data visual and digestible. It also features a neighborhood-level child opportunity index, the first of its kind, developed in partnership with the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University. This index allows users to view interactive maps of the opportunities that are available to children in their own neighborhoods; a story that is often strikingly different by race/ethnicity. In addition to providing this index and hundreds of standard data indicators broken down by race and ethnicity, this site generates unique, equity- focused indicators of known structural factors that influence disparities in healthy child development. It also allows users to drill down from the national level to smaller levels of geography such as metropolitan areas and school districts, and in some cases, down to the neighborhood level, providing pinpoint views of the often nuanced inequities present among children of various racial and ethnic groups.

Source:  Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy (ICYFP) at Brandeis University

Link to site: http://www.diversitydatakids.org/

Supporting Immigrant Families' Access to Prekindergarten

Abstract:

Children of immigrants can benefit from attending prekindergarten, though they enroll less, on average, than children with US-born parents. This detailed report draws on interviews conducted with over 40 prekindergarten directors and staff, directors of early childhood education programs, and other specialists to present strategies for improving prekindergarten enrollment among immigrant families and English Language Learners. This includes strategies for outreach to support prekindergarten enrollment; helping immigrant families overcome language, documentation, and other logistical barriers when enrolling their children in prekindergarten programs; and building trust and good relationships with immigrant parents and designing immigrant- and ELL-friendly programs.

Source: Urban Institute

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Study: Hatred of Outsiders Kicks in Between Ages 6 and 8

From the Pacific Standard article:

Provocative new research from Germany suggests this problematic psychological process—which underpins racism, extreme nationalism, and prejudice of all sorts—kicks in somewhere around age seven. Love for one’s own group and hatred for perceived outsiders are separate attitudes that emerge at different stages of a child’s development, according to University of Erfurt researchers David Buttelmann and Robert Böhm.

Paper: The Ontogeny of the Motivation That Underlies In-Group Bias
Abstract:

Humans demonstrate a clear bias toward members of their own group over members of other groups in a variety of ways. It has been argued that the motivation underlying this in-group bias in adults may be favoritism toward one’s own group (in-group love), derogation of the out-group (out-group hate), or both. Although some studies have demonstrated in-group bias among children and infants, nothing is known about the underlying motivations of this bias. Using a novel game, we found that in-group love is already present in children of preschool age and can motivate in-group-biased behavior across childhood. In contrast, out-group hate develops only after a child’s sixth birthday and is a sufficient motivation for in-group-biased behavior from school age onward. These results help to better identify the motivation that underlies in-group-biased behavior in children.

 Read full pdf publication: The Ontogeny of the Motivation That Underlies In-Group Bias

The Youngest Americans: A Statistical Portrait of Infants and Toddlers in the United States

Introduction:

America’s youngest children—12 million infants and toddlers—are the leading edge of a demographic transformation in the U.S. They herald a nation more diverse with respect to race/ethnicity, country of origin, language, and family type than at any time in our recent history. They are surrounded by, and engaged with, new technology. Most of our youngest Americans, according to their parents, have at least some of the important characteristics associated with optimal development.

At the same time, they are a generation characterized by marked inequities, with disturbing proportions facing severe disadvantage that imposes both immediate and lasting threats to well-being. Significant numbers are born into families without the human and financial resources to pro- mote their development; disparities by race and Hispanic origin persist; public policy responses have been slow to materialize and, where they exist, often serve only a fraction of the children in need.

 Source: Child Trends and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation

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Improving Maternal Depression Screening and Treatment for Pregnant Women

From introduction:

Although depression is highly treatable, especially in early stages, only half of women are screened for maternal depression, and only a minority receive treatment. Untreated depression puts women and children at risk, as pregnant women with depression are 3.4 times more likely than baseline women to deliver preterm, and children of depressed mothers also demonstrate high lifetime medical spending, because maternal depression can impact child development. Maternal depression disproportionately impacts low-income women, as evidenced by their overrepresentation among women suffering from depression overall.

Source: Policy Briefs, UCLA Center for the Study of Women, UCLA [via eScholarship Repository]

Download: Improving Maternal Depression Screening and Treatment for Pregnant Women

Children with Special Health Care Needs in California: A Profile of Key Issues

Description:

Compared to children in other states, California’s children with special health care needs receive care that is less coordinated, less family-centered, and fails to meet many of the key quality indicators prescribed by the Federal Maternal and Child Health Bureau, according to this new analysis of the 2009/10 National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs.

Source:  Program for Children with Special Health Care Needs, launched by the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health.

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Children with brain lesions able to use gestures important to language learning

Abstract:

Children with pre/perinatal unilateral brain lesions (PL) show remarkable plasticity for language development. Is this plasticity characterized by the same developmental trajectory that characterizes typically developing (TD) children, with gesture leading the way into speech? We explored this question, comparing eleven children with PL – matched to thirty TD children on expressive vocabulary – in the second year of life. Children with PL showed similarities to TD children for simple but not complex sentence types. Children with PL produced simple sentences across gesture and speech several months before producing them entirely in speech, exhibiting parallel delays in both gesture + speech and speech-alone. However, unlike TD children, children with PL produced complex sentence types first in speech-alone. Overall, the gesture–speech system appears to be a robust feature of language learning for simple – but not complex – sentence constructions, acting as a harbinger of change in language development even when that language is developing in an injured brain.

Source: Journal of Child Language / Volume 40 / Special Issue 01 / January 2013, pp 69-105 Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0305000912000220

Download pdf of Gesturing with an injured brain: How gesture helps children with early brain injury learn linguistic constructions

Trickle-Down Anxiety: Study Examines Parental Behaviors that Create Anxious Children

Parents with social anxiety disorder are more likely than parents with other forms of anxiety to engage in behaviors that put their children at high risk for developing angst of their own, according to a small study of parent-child pairs conducted at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. 

...

Specifically, the Johns Hopkins researchers identified a subset of behaviors in parents with social anxiety disorder — the most prevalent type of anxiety — and in doing so clarified some of the confusion that has shrouded the trickle-down anxiety often seen in parent-child pairs.

Source: Johns Hopkins Children's Center

Read entire article online:  Trickle-Down Anxiety: Study Examines Parental Behaviors that Create Anxious Children

Home environment relationships with children's physical activity, sedentary time, and screen time by socioeconomic status

Abstract Background: Children in households of lower socioeconomic status (SES) are more likely to be overweight/obese. We aimed to determine if home physical activity (PA) environments differed by SES and to explore home environment mediators of the relation of family SES to children’s PA and sedentary behavior. Methods: Participants were 715 children aged 6 to 11 from the Neighborhood Impact on Kids (NIK) Study. Household SES was examined using highest educational attainment and income. Home environment was measured by parent report on a survey. Outcomes were child’s accelerometer-measured PA and parent-reported screen time. Mediation analyses were conducted for home environment factors that varied by SES. Results: Children from lower income households had greater media access in their bedrooms (TV 52% vs. 14%, DVD player 39% vs. 14%, video games 21% vs. 9%) but lower access to portable play equipment (bikes 85% vs. 98%, jump ropes 69% vs. 83%) compared to higher income children. Lower SES families had more restrictive rules about PA (2.5 vs. 2.0). Across SES, children watched TV/DVDs with parents/siblings more often than they engaged in PA with them. Parents of lower SES watched TV/DVDs with their children more often (3.1 vs. 2.5 days/week). Neither total daily and home-based MVPA nor sedentary time differed by SES. Children’s daily screen time varied from 1.7 hours/day in high SES to 2.4 in low SES families. Media in the bedroom was related to screen time, and screen time with parents was a mediator of the SES--screen time relationship. Conclusions: Lower SES home environments provided more opportunities for sedentary behavior and fewer for PA. Removing electronic media from children’s bedrooms has the potential to reduce disparities in chronic disease risk. Source: U.C. San Diego [via eScholarship Repository] Download the pdf full report: Home environment relationships with children's physical activity, sedentary time, and screen time by socioeconomic status