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Category: Early Childhood Education & Development

Early childhood professionals ‘Getting Ready’ to make positive impacts

Early childhood special education providers, service coordinators and supervisors from across the state gathered at Nebraska Innovation Campus June 5-8 for Getting Ready training sessions.
Early childhood professionals gather at Nebraska Innovation Campus June 5-8 for Getting Ready training.

Early childhood special education providers, services coordinators and supervisors from across the state gathered at Nebraska Innovation Campus June 5-8 for Getting Ready training sessions.

Hosted by CYFS faculty and staff, a pair of two-day training sessions focused on translating evidence-based research practices into real-world settings to positively impact children and their families. Part C state trainers delivered the training material after having received one year of training and support in Getting Ready from CYFS faculty and staff. Full Article

Nebraska-Brazil early childhood research partnership continues progress

Marjorie Kostelnik, senior associate to University of Nebraska President Hank Bounds, speaks to researchers from Nebraska and Brazil May 8.
Marjorie Kostelnik, senior associate to University of Nebraska President Hank Bounds, speaks to researchers working on joint projects through the University of Nebraska-Lincoln/Brazil Early Childhood Partnership.

Faculty and students from two continents came together recently in Lincoln for a pair of research luncheons to update one another on various joint projects.

Researchers from the University Federal Rural of Pernambuco in Brazil visited Lincoln April 24 to meet with their CYFS faculty and student counterparts in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln/Brazil Early Childhood Partnership. A second group of Brazilian researchers, from University Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, were on campus May 8 to discuss their projects with their Nebraska partners. Full Article

Summit on Research in Early Childhood helps connect research, practice, policy

Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, the Stanley and Debra Lefkowitz Faculty Fellow in the Department of Psychology at Temple University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, delivers the summit’s keynote address
Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, the Stanley and Debra Lefkowitz Faculty Fellow in the Department of Psychology at Temple University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, delivers the summit’s keynote address. View Photo Gallery

Creating connections among early childhood research, practice and policy — and how each element can enhance the lives of young children and their families — provided the central theme of the 2018 CYFS Summit on Research in Early Childhood.

More than 200 attendees, including researchers from across the University of Nebraska system, practitioners, administrators, community partners and policymakers, gathered April 25 at Nebraska Innovation Campus for the daylong, fifth biennial summit, which highlighted the latest findings in early childhood research from NU-affiliated faculty, and those findings’ implications for practice and policy. Full Article

New database enhances early childhood research collaboration

180202-Cati-portrait-CYFSA new faculty database has streamlined the process of identifying collaboration opportunities among University of Nebraska early childhood researchers.

The Nebraska Academy for Early Childhood Research has released the Find a Researcher database, an online directory of early childhood researchers. The database enables faculty to identify potential research partners from across the University of Nebraska system. Searches can be customized by researchers’ specific content areas, populations of interest, preferred research approach, research tools and methods. Full Article

Hong hosts Brazilian researchers for early childhood science collaboration

Visiting scholar Gisela Wajskop discusses literacy-based play with undergraduates in the Department of Child, Youth and Family Studies. Wajskop is researching early childhood science teaching with UNL's Soo-Young Hong.
Visiting scholar Gisela Wajskop discusses literacy-based play with undergraduates in the Department of Child, Youth and Family Studies. Wajskop visited Lincoln, Nebraska, as part of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln/Brazil Early Childhood Initiative. View photo gallery.

CYFS faculty affiliate Soo-Young Hong, associate professor of child, youth and family studies, recently hosted Brazilian researchers Gisela Wajskop and Patricia Pastorello for a weeklong visit in Lincoln, Nebraska, as part of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln/Brazil Early Childhood Initiative. Full Article

Faculty provide training, outreach to support international Zika study

Natalie Williams (right), assistant professor of child, youth and family studies, visits with mother in Recife, Brazil. Williams recently traveled to Recife as part of an international collaboration studying how families are affected by Congenital Zika Virus Syndrome.
Natalie Williams (right), assistant professor of child, youth and family studies, visits with a mother in Recife, Brazil. Williams is part of an international research collaboration studying how to help families affected by Congenital Zika Virus Syndrome. View photo gallery.

Recife is the capital city of Pernambuco, a northeastern state in Brazil — and one of the regions most affected by the Zika virus outbreak.

Natalie Williams, assistant professor of child, youth and family studies, and Christine Marvin, professor of special education and communication disorders, recently traveled to Recife, Brazil, as part of a joint study with Brazilian researchers at the Federal Rural University of Pernambuco. Full Article

Researchers fine-tune global measurement standards for early childhood learning 

Natalie Koziol, CYFS research assistant professor, and Abbie Raikes, associate professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center
Natalie Koziol and Abbie Raikes

Implementing standard measurements of early childhood development and learning worldwide has its challenges. But University of Nebraska researchers are working with the United Nations and other international organizations to ensure global measurement tools are not restrained by borders. Full Article