Projects
Research is at the heart of all we do at the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute. As one of the nation's foremost multidisciplinary centers devoted to the study of children from infancy to adolescence, our scientists are committed to conducting research and evaluation studies that improve children's lives, support families, and inform public policy.
Learn more about our projects—current and completed—by clicking on the links below. And to stay up to date on news and events related to our work via social media, visit our Project Digital Directory.
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The purpose of this project is to support the development of the early childhood practitioners’ ability to care for children and get them ready for kindergarten by improving their capacity for implementation of interventions in primary care settings.
The purpose of this project is to deploy a comprehensive stakeholder engagement and program assessment strategy to support a deeper understanding of the current landscape of disability inclusion, along with unique challenges, opportunities, perspectives and relevant factors impacting states, tribes, and territories as well as children with disabilities and their caregivers.
The dual increases in the prevalence of students with autism needing special education services and the number of paraeducators providing instruction in special education had created a need for preparing paraeducators to use evidence-based practices (EBPs) with autistic students in educational settings. The AFIRM for Paraeducators (AFP) program is a professional development program for paraeducators to be delivered by special education teachers in authentic educational settings. The purpose of this project is to examine the promise of the AFP program, through a pilot randomized control trial (RCT), for increasing paraeducators use of EBP with high fidelity of implementation and resultant goal attainment by autistic students receiving instruction.
According to the U.S. Department of Education (2018), among students ages 3 through 21 served in special education, less than one-fifth are Black/African American (17.7 percent), but Black/African American students with disabilities account for more than one third (36.6 percent) of individuals who experienced disciplinary removal. Ethnic-racial socialization (ERS) practices have been found to mitigate the effects of such discrimination on children’s development. Yet, little is known about what these practices may look like for Black children with disabilities as ERS practices have typically been studied among typically developing, able-bodied children. This mixed-methods study aims to explore: 1) What types of ERS practices, and how frequent, do Black/African American parents/caregivers engage in with their children? 2) What is the relation between parents/caregivers’ ERS practices and children’s academic engagement, school disciplinary, and mental health outcomes? 3) What are the purposes and goals of Black/African American parents/caregivers engaging in ERS practices among their children with disabilities? and 4) What are some challenges that arise for Black parents/caregivers who communicate ERS practices to their children with disabilities?
The goal of this planning grant is to design a new study focused on deeper, more meaningful investments across three core domains in Head Start. It will result in a policy scan and a preliminary feasibility of an innovative program where there is a laser focus on the trifecta of health, wealth, and education, moving beyond “light touch” impact on families' lives to transformative impact on communities.
In partnership with the Erikson Institute, the University of Delaware, the Indigo Cultural Center, and the National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC), the Equity Research Action Coalition at the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute will establish a Center for Home-based Child Care Research to support research about home-based child care (HBCC) in states, territories, tribes, and/or local community contexts through a cooperative agreement with OPRE. The purpose of the Center is to provide leadership, build research capacity in the field, and offer support in the development and facilitation of local research to improve understanding of HBCC settings and providers and access by the families who seek and utilize HBCC.
The Center for IDEA Early Childhood Data Systems (DaSy Center) provides national leadership and technical assistance to states to support early intervention and early childhood special education state programs in the development or enhancement of coordinated early childhood longitudinal data systems.
The Active Implementation Support for the Center for Trauma Recovery and Juvenile Justice’s (CTRJJ) grant project designates Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute’s resources in support of the CTRJJ’s Workplan and Core Team, in addition to other key participants. The aims of the project include the use of applied, proactive implementation support training, coaching and technical assistance as noted below. The primary role on the implementation support to CRTJJ is to work behind the scenes with all designated relevant partners. However, FPG implementation specialists will have the ability to deliver content, coaching, and ongoing systems supports to relevant recipients.
UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute is collaborating with CU Denver to analyze secondary data on Spanish-speaking dual language learners (DLLs) attending pre-K. The project aims to:
• identify socioemotional development profiles for Spanish-English DLLs;
• examine how individual characteristics and family contexts differ across these profiles; and
• determine which classroom sociocultural factors predict different socioemotional profiles.
The Early Childhood TA Center (ECTA) is funded to support state Early Intervention and Preschool Special Education programs in developing high-quality early intervention and preschool special education service systems, increasing local implementation of evidence-based practices, and enhancing outcomes for young children with disabilities and their families.
Spoken language is predictive of many positive life outcomes, such as employment, social interaction, play skills and more. But, researchers still don’t know why some children talk and others don’t, especially as it relates to historically marginalized and minoritized populations. A new study, EMERGE: Early Markers of Expressive and Receptive Language Growth in Ethnically Diverse Autistic Toddlers, seeks to change that.
In collaboration with the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) and African Family Health Organization, community-based organizations that engage and educate African American and Black immigrant communities, we will conduct an exploratory sequential mixed-methods research to identify barriers and facilitators to positive birth outcomes for Black mothers with a focus on attention to health care access through focus groups and interviews and conduct causal inference analyses using extant data (i.e., Vital Statistics) to examine the effect of 2009 Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act on the birthing outcomes of Black immigrants.
In support of efforts related to Georgia’s Quality Rated Language and Literacy Endorsement (QRLLE), we will collect information on the degree to which the Endorsement helps programs to improve their language and literacy practices, and information to advise next steps in the development and rollout of the Endorsement. This study will involve data collection, analyses, and reporting on the QRLLE related to practices observed during the upcoming school year (2023-24). The study will take place during the 2023-2024 school year and will be divided into three phases: (1) August 2023-September 2023: Preparation of data collection measures, IRB application, data collector hiring, observation refresher training, recruitment and scheduling classroom observations (2) October 2023-December 2023: classroom observations and data cleaning, and (3) January 2023-June 30, 2024: prepare report to summarize quality data and describe QRLLE programs and alignment with the LITTLE Program, convene a national expert panel on language and literacy endorsements, and summarize information gathered about QRLLE programs, endorsements nationally, and recommendations for next steps for the QRLLE.
This project is grounded in a science education partnership between Kidzu Children’s Museum and FPG’s STEM Innovation for Inclusion in Early Education Center (STEMIE). The project will include sharing resources and spaces to develop and implement playgroups for pre-K children with a variety of abilities and their caregivers with specific STEM related goals and activities through the sequence of playgroups.
Successful adoption, implementation, improvement, and scale of the Triple P system across the Carolinas holds the promise of improving child health outcomes, including reduced rates of child abuse, reduced out of home foster care placement, and fewer hospital visits due to child abuse injuries. Continued collaboration and co-creation is the foundation for ongoing work to provide proactive and responsive implementation support, system-wide support and dissemination of effective implementation approaches, and develop the team of professionals providing these essential supports.
Although the first EHDI programs in the United States were established more than 20 years ago, most states/territories are not yet able to document the receipt of essential early intervention services and provide documentation of outcomes resulting from early intervention services. Lacking such documentation, it is unclear whether states/systems are accomplishing the goals of ensuring all babies who are D/HH receive early intervention and minimizing the communication delays typically observed in late-identified children who are D/HH. Establishing an IPA with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will assist CDC EHDI in (1) engaging with Part C early intervention programs; (2) developing strategies to assist state EHDI programs in identifying best practices/models to collaborate with Part C programs to address issues of ensuring the provision and documentation of essential early intervention services; (3) supporting assessment of outcomes among babies who are D/HH; and (4) meeting the requirements of the EHDI Act of 2022.
In a collaborative project with ITTI Care at Duke Center for Child & Family Policy, Wendy Morgan will work to integrate trauma-informed care practices within infant-toddler child care settings by evaluating existing training materials and suggesting revisions as necessary and designing comprehensive instructional strategy and training curricula for both coach-the-coach and direct-to-provider professional development efforts.
The K-12 Coherent Instructional Systems portfolio of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s U.S. Program seeks to support a cohort of provider-local education agency partnerships focused on implementing coherent instructional systems (CIS) built around high-quality middle-years mathematics curricula in contexts that serve Black, Latino, and/or English Learning-designated students, and students who are experiencing poverty.
As a Learning Partner for the Effective Implementation Cohort (EIC), the National Implementation Research Network (NIRN) at UNC-Chapel Hill's Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute seeks to support the cohort of Provider-Local Education Agency partnerships in their implementation and measurement efforts related to their scale-up of high-quality mathematics curricula.
This project intends to conduct an independent, unbiased evaluation of the MECK Pre-K program that will be longitudinal in scope, tracking cohorts of MECK Pre-K students in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools through 5th grade. Given the longitudinal nature of the evaluation and the need to track multiple cohorts, it is expected that this project will span 10 years. The focus of that evaluation will cover three key areas: program characteristics; program implementation and quality; and student outcomes.
The Mental Health, Earlier ALACRITY Research Center addresses a key element of the NIMH 2020-2025 Strategic Plan Goal 3: Strive for Prevention and Cures: advancing preventive interventions in a developmentally appropriate manner as early in life and illness course as possible, to prevent or forestall mental illnesses and associated dysfunction.
The Minnesota Department of Education is seeking support for the capacity development of its team in advanced implementation practices. To support the development of implementation capacity, the National Implementation Research Network at the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute proposes providing a blended model of implementation practice and implementation research to inform the future development of the Minnesota Department of Educations' implementation science infrastructure.
This project consists of planning and implementing an evaluation of The Educare Learning Network, a consortium of programs nationwide providing high quality learning environments for at-risk children from birth to 5 years. The evaluation will document the features of Educare and how implementation of the model contributes to program quality and links to child and family outcomes.
“Neighborhood environments and heart failure outcomes in the GET with the guidelines-heart failure registry” will investigate the association of the neighborhood environments and heart failure outcomes analyzing the secondary data, the GET with the guidelines-heart failure registry.
The primary outcome of this investment is to support a cadre of New York State districts (Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers) with operationalizing their district implementation plans related to their selected math high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) with each of the plans focused on addressing the common challenges and barriers identified across districts. The project’s long-term outcome is to create capacity within each respective district to sustain high-quality math instruction and desired outcomes for K-12 students, instructional staff, and the community by working together to determine solutions to their normalized barriers.
The National Implementation Research Center (NIRN) will partner with Rivet Education to design and conduct an empirical evaluation of the Scoring & Evidence Guide (SEG)’s reliability and validity. The free and public-facing SEG is an evidence-based framework and rubric that serves as the basis for Rivet's reviews of providers. It evaluates the extent to which providers have expertise in content and specific high-quality instructional materials implementation (HQIM), as defined as "green" on EdReports, the extent to which they design professional learning that meets overarching and type-specific indicators of quality, and the extent to which they collect data about the effectiveness of their services and use those data to improve their services.
OJJDP Juvenile Justice System Enhancements is a three-year broad systems improvement project. It is designed to advance state level juvenile justice systems toward the adoption and delivery of evidence-supported practices stemming from a full system review, recommended modifications, capacity building where needed (or desired), and enhanced performance of chosen reforms.
Lancaster-Lebanon IU13 is looking to improve implementation efforts through monitoring district plans. To support the development of implementation capacity, the National Implementation Research Network (NIRN) proposes providing a blended model of training, coaching, and consultation support.
