Life course literature states that early childhood development (ECD) can influence most aspects of health throughout the life-cycle. Canada ranked last among 25 wealthy nations in meeting ECD objectives. Fewer than 5% of children born have clinically detectable shortcomings in developmental health, increasing to 26% by school age with emerging socioeconomic associations. Understanding how social determinants of health (SDH) influence ECD at the household and neighbourhood scales would help identify conditions for optimal developmental outcomes. The effects of SDH on ECD in the Kingston, Ontario area were studied. SDH were classified via marginalization (ONMarg) and deprivation (Pampalon) indices. ECD was measured via 2006 Early Development Instrument (EDI) scores for children most at risk upon school entry (Grade One). The basic spatial unit of analysis was 2006 Census of Canada Dissemination Areas, subdivided into quintiles of deprivation (Q1 being the least deprived and Q5 the most). EDI results from each of the quintiles within the two indices were compared and then combined. The socioeconomic health gradient assumes that EDI scores will directly correlate to material and social deprivation. Social deprivation had a slightly greater impact than material deprivation on children’s developmental vulnerability, with Q5 being the most vulnerable in all competencies. Surprisingly, emotional health and social competence were significant areas of vulnerability for children in Q1 and Q2. “Village effects” – when social determinants at the neighbourhood level have protective effects on ECD despite material deprivation at the household level – were present within the Q3 and Q4 groups for the domains of social competency and emotional health. While the highest proportions of early childhood developmental vulnerability are found within the most deprived households, the largest numbers of vulnerable children are spread throughout the middle-class in a variety of neighbourhoods. Canadian policy should focus on mediating avoidable risks within this critical time to avoid future deleterious health effects and costs. Mapping the effects of SDH at the neighbourhood level generates knowledge that informs intersectoral action by policy makers to provide the supports needed to foster healthy children. / Thesis (Master, Geography) -- Queen's University, 2013-05-04 10:36:25.165

The aim of this study is to explore the links which exist between community development and urban food gardens. South Africa has experienced a twenty five percent growth in the urban population from 2005-2010. It is further predicted that this will increase by a further thirty six percent to thirteen million inhabitants by 2015. The practice of urban agriculture is one of the strategies that can assist in addressing development challenges in an urban setting in South Africa and around the world. Urban agriculture has the potential to provide a survival strategy for the poor and thus contribute to poverty alleviation, employment, food security, social integration and skills transfer. This research explores the economic, social and ecological benefits of the activity, questioning the ways in which the Siyakhana food garden (and larger initiative) contributes to the Siyakhana community. For the purpose of the research the Siyakhana community refers to the Siyakhana group (eight women in the inner city of Johannesburg who run Early Childhood Development Centres (ECDCs)) and the gardeners who work in the food garden. Data was collected by means of semi-structured interviews, in-depth questionnaires, participant observation and informal conversation, as well as primary and secondary sources. The data was collected for a twelve month period from June 2010 to June 2011. In total the food garden was visited thirty times during the field work and the ECDCs twelve to fifteen times each. Because of the initiatives potential in community development, the focus of the research gives in-depth insights into the Siyakhana group, their history with the initiative, details about their ECDCs and their expectations and their perceived benefits of being involved with the Siyakhana initiative. The key findings of the study are that there are two primary ways in which the Siyakhana group benefit from being involved in the Siyakhana initiative. The benefits relate to the supplementary food which the Siyakhana group receive on a weekly basis and the practical learning environment of the Siyakhana food garden. This research shows that through their connection with the Siyakhana initiative the Siyakhana group act as a conduit for inner city community development. The healthy and nutritious food from the food garden and the knowledge obtained from being involved with the initiative is shared with a range of stakeholders within the inner city. The Siyakhana food garden is a unique example of a community project which embraces the concepts of ecological health promotion in a multiplicity of ways – through the distribution of food, training, conscientisation and mobilisation. Finally the study shows that when exploring the links between urban food gardens and community development it is not a pre-requisite for the community to physically engage in the production activities of the garden for empowerment and skills transfer to take place.

Many early childhood learners enter kindergarten not academically and social-emotionally prepared. This qualitative study explored teachers' perceptions of what constitutes high-quality learning concerning kindergarten readiness and parents' understanding and support of kindergarten readiness. The conceptual framework is based on recent studies by early childhood researchers on how and what early learners should experience during their pre-k years. The research questions focused on teachers' understanding of structural quality and process quality, kindergarten readiness, and age- appropriate curriculum. In addition, parents' understanding of kindergarten readiness and what types of learning opportunities they offer their children were examined. Through purposeful sampling, 16 teachers and 17 parents were interviewed from an early childhood site. Interview data were analyzed using a thematic analysis. The data were analyzed by coding and observing for recurrent categories and themes. Key findings indicated that teachers demonstrated a lack of understanding of structural quality and process quality and believed that the current curriculum is outdated and should be replaced to significantly impact student learning. Parents perceived that academics were far more important than social-emotional development and that affording their children learning opportunities outside of school was important. As a result of this study, a professional development program was developed for teachers intended to enhance their instructional practices in preparing early learners towards kindergarten success. Parents will also receive training from teachers to support social-emotional learning opportunities. The training could enable both teachers and parents to better support the cognitive and social-emotional growth of children.

This project used data from the School Readiness Survey (SR) of the 2007 National Household Education Surveys Program collected by the National Center for Education Statistics Institute of Education Science. A subsample of 1,712 to 2,622 subjects who participated in the survey was used for this project. The purpose of the study was to examine parent perceptions, behaviors, and reported child ability related to school readiness and the effect ethnicity and socioeconomic status (SES) had on each comparison. Variables from the existing data were matched to one of the five domains of School Readiness: Health and Physical Development, Social and Emotional Development, Approaches to Learning, Communication, and General Knowledge. Data were analyzed by means of Pearson correlations and Moderate Multiple Regression analyses. Findings revealed weak, but significant, correlations among parent perceptions, parent behaviors, and parent reported child ability in specific domains. SES and ethnicity were found to be a moderator of parent perceptions and parent behaviors. SES was also shown to affect the relationship between parent behaviors and parent reported child ability in the domains of communication and general knowledge. Several limitations are presented, including possible reasons for the significant but weak results. Findings from this study suggest much more can be learned regarding parent perceptions across ethnicity and SES and the influence it has on school readiness.

The critical role of children’s play in the development of peer relationships, social and communicative skills is reviewed and discussed. The difficulties experienced by a pre-school learner in engaging in peer relationships, communicating successfully in a classroom situation and constructively using play materials was explained. This was done through the use of anecdotal records, checklists, questionnaires, photographic evidence and a semi-structured interview with the learner’s parent. A pre-school play programme, using blocks, dough and puppets (BDP Programme) was devised and used to assess its influence on the acquisition of social and communicative skills by a non-social and non-communicative learner. The study found the BDP Programme to be very successful in assisting this learner to develop peer relationships and communicative skills in the peer group and thus played a critical role in the social development of this learner. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (Psychology of Education)

Because music is sound, the development of the young child's musical intelligence is integrally linked to his/her auditive development. By neglecting to develop the child's musical intelligence, and in particular by neglecting the age-controlled auditive development of the young child, essential learning stages may be missed. It is therefore encouraging that the government has stated its intention to introduce a compulsory reseption year (Grade 0) for five to six year old children. There is, however, at present no comprehensive pre-school music education programme available which specifically focuses on the auditive development of the child in the process of developing his/her musical intelligence. In this study, a comprehensive music education programme based on the praxial philosophy of music education has been compiled. It promotes procedural knowledge (making music), without negating propositional knowledge (knowing about music). It is hoped that the study will assist the class teacher as well as the music specialist as they strive to develop the musical intelligences of South Africa's pre-school children. / Thesis (MMus)--University of Pretoria, 2004. / Music / unrestricted

The main concern of this thesis was to investigate the possibility of implementing a Western Classical music listening programme for teacher training through integrated arts in Early Childhood Development (ECD). The outcome of this thesis suggests that it is possible to train musically untrained teachers at a one-day practical workshop how to introduce young learners in an acceptable and enjoyable way to Western Classical music. At these workshops, teachers had to dress up in homemade fantasy outfits to depict different characters in stories to music which they had to dramatize. The costumes turned the listening activity into a fun-filled experience which ensured the success of the training. The teachers were mostly generalists without any previous specialized music training. These teachers needed knowledge and skills to integrate the arts in the Early Childhood learning programme. In this programme, a selection of Western Classical music pieces is vividly brought to life through storytelling, dramatization, creative dance movements, instrumental play and the visual arts. Example lessons from the proposed listening programme were implemented during a pilot study in Mauritius with Creole and French speaking ECD teachers who were unfamiliar with Western Classical music. It became evident through the main research study that took place in underprivileged areas in Gauteng, Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces in South Africa that most black African teachers were also unfamiliar with this music style. Both the pilot study and the main research showed that the methodology of the proposed listening programme is suitable for the training of ECD teachers from different cultures and language groups. Teachers in remote areas made it their responsibility to look for, find or fabricate resources for costumes they could not afford. It has proved to be an effective method that can be implemented at grass-roots level in underprivileged areas and used as a guideline for the integration of the arts throughout South Africa and other countries. The study concludes with recommendations to implement the proposed listening programme at all primary schools in South Africa. / Thesis (DMus)--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Music / DMus / unrestricted

By 2010, it is projected that there will be 25 million orphans worldwide. It is anticipated that 2.3 million children will be orphaned due to AIDS in South Africa by 2020. Traditionally, the extended family has absorbed most people affected by the disease but there is a growing concern that families are finding it increasingly difficult to cope, perhaps reaching saturation point. In the absence of alternatives, some children end up living alone in child-headed households (CHHs), the numbers of which are rising at an alarming rate. Despite the increase in this living arrangement research is scarce on the psychosocial consequences of AIDS related orphanhood. This is more evident concerning very young orphans living in CHHs. This qualitative study explores psychosocial issues pertaining to young orphans living in CHHs from an ecosystemic perspective. Four participants, who worked in various capacities for two non-governmental organisations, were interviewed in-depth about their experiences of working with young orphans. The conversations were subjected to an interpretive analysis where, in collaboration with the participants, central themes and sub-themes were identified. Eleven main themes emerged from the analysis: why children live in child-headed households; issues surrounding the death of a parent; experiences of a young child living in a child-headed household; the experience of living in a child-headed household; stigma; relationships with relatives; relationships with peers; relationships with crèches and teachers; relationships with the community; relationships with non-governmental organisations; and relationship to government and essential services. Based on an integration of the findings, a model was presented depicting the ecosytemic factors affecting the very young child living in a CHH. Copyright / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Psychology / unrestricted

Early childhood development programs enhance children's development of knowledge, skills, and processes. Despite efforts to improve early childhood education in the United States, poor student performance in early literacy and kindergarten achievement is still occurring, and questions remain unanswered about the utility of early childhood education programs. Drawing from the theory of constructivism, the purpose of this quantitative, quasi-experimental, retrospective study was to determine the effectiveness of early childhood programs on the literacy achievement of kindergarten children. The research question addressed the differences in literacy achievement of kindergarten children based on the early childhood programs they attended. Using repeated measures analysis of variance tests for 501 student test scores, no significant interaction effects existed between program participation and gains across time for prewriting (F [2, 998] = 0.87, p = .42), cognitive (F [2, 998] = 0.84, p = .43), or language (F [2, 998] = 1.26, p = .28). However, using the Pearson correlation coefficient, younger participants had significantly more gain from pretest to posttest for prewriting (r [499] = .14, p = .002) and cognitive (r [499] = .21, p = .001) but less gain for language (r [499] = .10, p = .03). Knowing that literacy achievement can be improved in an early childhood setting contributes to the knowledge base on the effects of early learning. Educators could benefit from these findings when implementing early childhood policies and adopting effective practices to help develop successful readers in kindergarten and beyond.

Introduction: A population especially overlooked in early childhood development research is the ‘missing-middle’, predominantly represented by middle-income, urban populations. Research typically focuses on populations that are either from lower- or upper socioeconomic classes. Insight into the risks, protective factors, and developmental outcomes of children from middle-income populations is needed to guide the implementation and customisation of early intervention policies and services. Aim: The study aimed to describe the developmental outcomes of young children aged six to 24 months from an urban, middle-income setting in South Africa using a descriptive correlational research design. Method: The Vineland-3 was used to describe the developmental outcomes of 55 children between six to 24 months, from an urban, middle-income setting in South Africa. The mHealth PEDS was used to identify caregivers’ concerns regarding their children’s development. Results: Caregivers’ concerns were positively associated (φ = 0.355; p = .024) with their children’s overall developmental outcomes, emphasising their valuable contribution in early identification of developmental delays. Fifteen percent (n = 8) of participants’ children presented with developmental delays, with low birth weight identified as a significant developmental risk (p = .011). Within this sample population, higher maternal education was identified as a significant protective factor (p = 0.16). Conclusion: Developmental delays, risks, strengths and protective factors exist within an urban, middle-income South African setting. Early childhood development can be promoted in all income settings by using baby wellness clinics as a point of access to identify children at risk for developmental delays through caregiver-led developmental screening. Prioritising early childhood development across different socioeconomic classes will help ensure that all children reach their full developmental potential. / Dissertation (MA (Speech-Language Pathology))--University of Pretoria, 2021. / National Research Foundation (NRF) / Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology / MA (Speech-Language Pathology) / Unrestricted