While much attention and effort has been directed at addressing the widening opportunity gap in the United States, children growing up in communities that are under-resourced from decades of historical and institutional racism face an equally pervasive and related health gap. By and large, they have markedly worse health than their peers from more advantaged communities. This gap appears early in life and builds over time. Science suggests that adverse early life experiences and environments — prenatally and in a child’s first years — can contribute to the health gap, leaving biological imprints on the child’s developing body and brain that can have strong and lasting effects.

Fortunately, new and current research points us to a critical strategy in narrowing the health gap and giving all children a chance at good health over their lifetime: We can ensure that every child has access to high-quality early childhood programs, including early education and home visiting.

Attachment ─ the security, confidence, and trust that infants and toddlers have with the adults responsible for their care ─ is the framework within which babies develop their growing ability to regulate emotions and behavior. Babies thrive when they are securely attached to their mother, father or primary caregiver who knows and responds consistently and reliably to their unique personalities. Infants and toddlers who are not securely attached are likely to become preschoolers who are unable to control their behaviors and kindergartners who have difficulty engaging in the process of learning.

Recognizing the importance of secure attachment, Start Early implements a continuity of care model in partnership with our network of early learning schools, the Educare Learning Network. This model minimizes the disruptions that children experience by keeping infants and toddlers with the same classroom team of teachers until they transition to preschool.

Young children who lack at least one loving and consistent caregiver in the earliest years may suffer severe and long-lasting development problems. This landmark study of scientific brain research shows environmental stress, even among infants and toddlers, can interfere with the proper development of neural connections inside the brain essential to a child’s proper social and emotional development. This report recommends that early childhood programs balance their focus on literacy and numerical skills with comparable attention to the emotional and social development of all children.

From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development  was published in 2000 by the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

How parents and caregivers speak to children significantly affects their I.Q., literacy, and academic success later in life, according to University of Kansas child psychologists Betty Hart and Todd Risley.

Hart and Risley found that the number of words and encouragements and the breadth of vocabulary heard by a child during the first three years of life can dramatically affect language development and I.Q. Their study was informed by close observations of 42 1- and 2-year olds and their families for more than two years.

From those observations, the researchers estimated children in professional families hear approximately 11 million words per year; while children in working class families hear approximately 6 million, and children in families receiving public assistance hear approximately 3 million words annually.

For more information on the study, read: Hart, B. & Risley, T.R. (1995). Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children.

The Start Early national policy team provides policy consultation and advocacy expertise to early education leaders and advocates across the country. We work to improve and expand the policies and programs that create quality early learning programs and effective early childhood systems.

Our 2019 State Policy Update provides a snapshot of states’ early childhood education policy priorities and budgetary changes during the 2019 legislative sessions.

Included in the report:

• Legislative, budgetary, and administrative changes across 33 states organized by topic to demonstrate the breadth of the work done by state early childhood leaders and advocates.
• Data that illustrates trends across state-level early childhood policy changes, how states are thinking about priority populations, and how state advocates are involved in federal-level policy advocacy.
• Stories from state advocates that give voices and faces to the policy wins and demonstrate the direct impact of their work.

The Illinois Policy Team works closely with partners and legislators to help shape the foundational elements of the state’s early childhood system, including major funding streams, legislation and federal and state initiatives. With a long history of work that is rooted in our deep experiences in Illinois, the team diligently advocates for high-quality early childhood services that children and families need beginning prenatally and through the first five years.

Over the last year, through legislative, administrative and grassroots advocacy, we successfully championed a number of noteworthy bills to became law that are significant to young children, parents, teachers and other early childhood practitioners. Perhaps most notably, the Illinois General Assembly passed the state’s fiscal year 2020 budget with significant funding for the state’s early childhood system.

This account of Illinois’ work from the 1980s to the early 2000s to raise young children to the top of its policy agenda offers insight to other states as they continue to push for public policies that respond to accumulated research findings about the importance of the early years. This publication shares what policymakers, advocates, and funders in other states might learn from Illinois’ approach and a breakdown of which strategies hinged on conditions unique to the state, and which hold promise for success elsewhere.

We have heard both enthusiasm for and skepticism about the use of technology in the early childhood field. One area of discussion is the use of technology to reach and support parents and other caregivers of children. Because of technology’s potential to engage parents and the many questions surrounding its efficacy, The Early Learning Lab decided to focus on this issue. After a comprehensive information gathering and interviewing, we’re excited to release the report NextGen Technology: Insights and Recommendations to Support the Parents of Children Ages 0–3 with our insights and recommended action steps.