This project has been funded by NICHD for more than 10 years and seeks to understand the development of critical child skills in both poor and non poor young children growing up in rural areas characterized by high poverty. The project recruited a representative sample of every baby born to a mother who lived in one of six poor rural counties (3 in Pennsylvania and 3 in North Carolina) over a one year period, oversampling for poverty in both regions and African American in North Carolina. An interdisciplinary team of investigators with expertise in a variety of important domains has been following these 1292 children from birth with measurement of child, family, and school functioning yearly (e.g., emotional and behavioral regulation, executive functions, language, and academic achievement as well as social competence), observed mother and father sensitivity and language input in the home setting, the observed quality of instruction in child care and elementary school, the characteristics of the neighborhood/community, as well as biomarkers of child and maternal stress.

Project Staff:
Lynne Vernon-Feagans, Principal Investigator, University of North Carolina
Mark Greenberg, Co-Principal Investigator, Pennsylvania State University
Clancy Blair, Investigator, New York University
Margaret Burchinal, Investigator, University of North Carolina
Martha Cox, Investigator, University of North Carolina
Michael Willoughby, Statistician/Investigator, University of North Carolina
Patricia Garrett-Peters, Project Director, University of North Carolina
Roger Mills-Koonce, Project Director, University of North Carolina