Getting to Know Your International Contacts - Part 2

This week I explored Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative” website.  I found the early childhood development project that they were doing in Zambia very interesting.  In Zambia there was an initiative to determine the effect of early childhood environment, health and education on children’s development.  For this project they created an assessment tool specifically for Zambia called the Zambian Child Assessment Tool (ZamCAT).  This tool was created to assess preschool aged children in a variety of domains.  Some of the domains were fine motor, language development, nonverbal reasoning, information processing, executive functioning, socio-emotional development, and task orientation.  I found this assessment interesting because many of the domains were the exact same domains we look at here in the United States but some of them were different.  One test that was interesting was the test for executive functioning: delayed gratification.  “For the ZamCAT delayed gratification task, the assessor offers the child a piece of candy and promises that, if the child waits to eat it until the assessor finishes speaking with the parent (typically 20- 30 minutes), then the child will get a second candy. The children are told that they can eat the candy right away, but if they decide to do so, they will not get a second piece of candy” (Center on the Developing Child, 2014).  This test is done because “children who are about to enter school need to be able to control impulses—they must pay attention in class, do their homework, and avoid disruptive behavior. Delayed gratification has been linked to current and future socio-emotional and cognitive development” (Center on the Developing Child, 2014).  Through this assessment process they are striving to increase the equity and excellence in their early childhood education.   

Another project I found interesting was “A Good Start” project in Santiago, Chile.  In this project they are helping to improve early childhood education through teacher professional development.  Their goal is to improve the quality of educational offerings for four to six year olds, particularly in the area of language development.  They hope to help improve school attendance, socio-emotional development and get children’s families involved in their education.  I found these goals and hopes interesting because they are some of the very goals we continue to work on at my school.  They too are trying to reach excellence for their students.  Another interesting resource on this site was there were many videos available that had been translated into Spanish and Portuguese. What a great resource available for families and teachers speaking these languages.    

Reference

Center on the Developing Child.  Harvard University (2014). Global Children’s Initiative.  Retrieved from

http://developingchild.harvard.edu/index.php/activities/global_initiative/