Two Notes of Thanks and Support for Colleagues

Maggie,
You brought many people's attention with the informaiton you provided about the horrible situation that was and is still going on in Haiti. You were a lucky child to have not grown up with the stressors in your childhood. Keep doing what you do everyday with the young children in your care, because rather you know it or not,you are making a difference in the lives of young children as well as adults.
Deborah,
I love the information you posted on the Assessment blog, children do have to be assessed regularly, so that the proper resources are available to meet their needs throughout the year. I love the story you shared about your ex-mother in law, it was very heart touching. You have alot of knowledge and wisdom to share not only with young children but adults, as well. Thanks for sharing and helping me to look at other aspects of young children as well as life.

WK 8 Quote about children

Whatever they grow up to be, they are still our children and the one most important of all the things we can give to them is unconditional love. Not a love that depends on anything at all except that they are our children. Rosaleen Dickson.

Wk 6 Testing for Intelligence?

In my judgment, all children should be assessed or measured especially in a school setting. Without an assessment or some type of assessment tool, how can a childhood professional know the needs of the child or how can the needs of each child be met. Each child should be assesses at the beginning, in themiddle and the end of each school year, so that each child is able to receive the proper resources needed to meed their needs, especially if the child is in need of extra or special resources. All children should be provided the proper resources outside the classroom, jsut as well as inside the classroom. The regular teacher and the outside teacher and /or resources can and should work together to help each and every child reach his or her best potential.

I choose to look at Ugandan, due to the fact of having a child from that country in my classroom and I taught her brother two years ago. I found a study that was conducted on a cohort of 89 healthy children (45 females) aged 5 to 12 were follwed over 24 months and had cognitive tests measuring visual spatial processing memory, attention and spatial learning administered at a baseline, 6 months and 24 months. Nutritional status, child's education level, maternal education, socioeconomic status and quality of the home environment were also measured at baseline. A multivariate longitudinal model was then used to identity predictors of cognition over the 24 months.
RESULTS: A higher child's education level was assessed with better memory (p=0.03), attention (p=0.005) and spatial learning scores over the 24 months (p=0.05); higher nutrition scores predicted better visual spatial processing (p=0.0002) and spatial learning scores (p=0.0008) and a higher home environment score predicted a better memory score (p=0.03).
CONCLUSION: Cognition in Ugandan children is predicted by child's education, nutritional status and the home environment, community intervention to improve cognition may be effective if they target multiple socioeconomic variables.

References:
Bangirana,P., John C.C., Idro, R., Opoka, R.O., Byarugaba, J. et al. 2009. Socioeconomic: Predictors of Cognition in Ugandan Children. Implications for Community Interventions, PLoS ONE 4 (11): e7898. doi:10.1371/journal.pone. 0007898