Ahead of the research!

My real-life example of research benefits to children and families comes from my own mother, Christine Silvis. At the time of this story she was a first grade teacher who worked very closely with the Intermediate Unit (IU) classroom teacher of the physically and mentally disabled. Both my mother and the IU teacher worked hard to mainstream those students into my mother’s first grade classroom. Christine learned never take things at face value. She worked with a student who came from a severe and profound class and by mainstreaming into her first grade class, throughout the year, working with the IU teacher; they developed a way for the student to communicate. By providing the means to communicate this student went from a first grade class to a fifth grade class within a year. This student eventually entered the regular school system at a gifted level. All she needed was a way to communicate and if Christine hadn’t spent the time to make that happen, everyone would have still considered her severely and profoundly retarded. The sad side of this story is that Christine and the IU teacher were ahead of the research of inclusion. In previous classes we have studied the benefits of inclusion. My mother saw first-hand the benefits. She and the IU teacher wrote up a proposal to combine the two rooms for a year to see the outcomes of all the children involved in the classes. Sadly since they were ahead of the research and the district would not allow them to implement this wonderful proposal that we now know would have benefited many children and is now supported by so much research.

My Personal Research Journey

            I chose my general topic as child development. I chose this very broad topic because even though I have a lot of knowledge about this topic there is more that I need to learn. Child development really plays an important part in my current job as a Program Supervisor/ Education Coordinator at an Early Head Start program. As I was thinking about child development, I began to think about all the different factors that influence or affect the child’s development. I have come up with three subtopics that I feel really relate to child development. The first one is the family’s socio-economic status in society and how it can affect different parts of child development either positively or negatively. The second one is the relationship or the attachment a child has with their parents and how that can influence the child’s development especially in the social-emotional domain. The last subtopic is having siblings versus having no siblings and how that can affect child development especially the social-emotional domain with regards to relationships.   

             After much thought and consideration I have decided on the subtopic of how siblings can affect children’s social-emotional development with regard to relationship building with siblings and other children. I choose the subtopic on siblings because it can be directly related to what I currently do in Early Head Start. I am always trying to learn about how different factors affect the child’s development. I can also relate to this topic on a personal level as well. I am a middle child and also a mother of three young children. I have seen that certain factors influence each child differently. I anticipate that researching this topic will help with current families I am serving in Early Head Start and will help me come up with different techniques to work with families. I feel that understanding this topic will help me better understand where certain families are coming from and let me see them from a different angle. I also feel that it will help me on a personal level as a mother of three to see my own children’s development in a different light and help determine what influences their development.

            I know that growing up as a middle child had its advantages and disadvantages. My older sister would always talk for me so I didn’t really start using language to communicate until much older in my childhood. My siblings and I have a very close relationship. I am seeing familiar situations with my own children as I remember growing up with my own siblings. I have often wondered how having siblings affect social-emotional development and also language development. I wonder how many colleagues have shared the same experiences or have seen them in their own children.

            Some of the main resources I like to use are the Zero to Three Website: http://www.zerotothree.org/, National Head Start Association: http://www.nhsa.org/, and also Walden’s library. I am always looking for different resources so if anyone wants to share ones that they find valuable please feel free to post a comment.