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.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 51
This project aims to identify specific linguistic markers of genetic liability to autism which may be used to illuminate the pathogenesis of autism and its component features.
The current study examines the link between poverty and executive functions (cognitive processes that facilitate learning, self-monitoring, and decision making) which are known to undergo rapid developmental change during the first years of life.
The Abecedarian Project was a carefully controlled scientific study of the potential benefits of early childhood education for poor children. Four cohorts of individuals, born between 1972 and 1977, were randomly assigned as infants to either the early educational intervention group or the control group.
This subcontract to the University of Chicago allows UNC-CH to join an interdisciplinary team that will collect, analyze, and compare data on the impacts on participants through midlife, and on their children, of the two most influential early childhood education programs: the HighScope Perry Preschool Program (PPP) and the Carolina Abecedarian Project (ABC) that targeted disadvantaged, predominantly Black, children.
The purpose of this study is to examine associations between language of instruction, student engagement, academic-self-concept, approaches to learning, student-teacher relationships, and gains in academic outcomes for students attending dual language educational settings.
This project will support the Foundation in gathering and analyzing implementation and outcomes data for students with disabilities (SWD) served by charter management organization (CMO) grantees and their schools. NIRN will provide input on measures and tools used to gauge measurement and reporting capacity of CMOs and their schools; help design, develop, and deliver technical assistance and associated materials and events to support CMO capacity to provide data; and help design implementation and outcomes studies.
The partnership among the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), County Welfare Directors Association (CWDA), Child and Family Policy Institute of California (CFPIC), California Social Work Education Center (CalSWEC), and Regional Training Academies (RTAs) is committed to supporting counties and their leadership in the implementation and sustainability of the California Child Welfare Core Practice Model (CPM).
The CCHD is an NICHD-T32 funded program for predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees engaged in the advanced study of developmental science. Key features of the program include a seminar series, regular training events, an outstanding team of mentors, and a longstanding track record of training excellent fellows who now serve in institutions around the world.
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 purpose of this project is to support the use of implementation science methods and practices within the technical assistance services provided by the Comprehensive Center Region 7. The NIRN team will support capacity building efforts of the TA providers and the state education agencies being served by the comprehensive center as well as the implementation of cross-state initiatives.
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.
The extent to which and how early education reduces achievement gaps related to race and income have not been studied extensively in rural areas in the United States, despite clear evidence that these achievement gaps are even larger in the rural United States and high-quality early education is one of the most effective means to promote educational success for all children.
This project leverages and builds upon an existing longitudinal cohort to propose hypotheses that investigate the ways in which early life stress alters well-specified developmental processes to adversely affect neurodevelopment in childhood and increase risk for obesity and other health outcomes. It extends our prior data collection both retrospectively and prospectively in order to amplify and enhance our focus on adverse exposures and health and behavior outcomes.
The goal of this project is to conduct follow-up studies of Educare graduates as they enter kindergarten and progress through the early elementary years. A team at Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute will coordinate and support the Educare local evaluators as they launch new follow-up studies or expand existing follow-up study efforts in 8-12 U.S. cities where there is an Educare school. This 3-year project will gather data on at least 3 years of Educare graduates and, in some sites, data from their parents as well.
The purpose of this project is to conduct a pilot study examining the impact of Family Engagement Specialists’ beliefs and attitudes (e.g., bias) on their engagement with families.
This project will examine cross-cultural patterns in feedback sensitivity, emotion regulation, and learning among adolescents. Findings may have practical applications to the classroom and could inform interventions for bolstering students' academic performance.
The purpose of this project is to determine in-school and out-of-school outcomes for high school students who participated in a cluster (CRCT) of the efficacy of a comprehensive treatment program developed by the Center on Secondary Education for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (CSESA).
The Equity Research Action Coalition will co-construct with practitioners and policymakers actionable research to support the optimal development of Black children prenatally through childhood across the African diaspora using a cultural wealth framework. The coalition will focus on developing a science-based action framework to eradicate the impact of racism and poverty and all its consequences on the lives of Black children, families, and communities, and to ensure optimal health, well-being, school readiness and success, and overall excellence.
The purpose of this project is to design and implement a developmental evaluation for an expected 10-year early childhood collective impact project, the Get Ready Guilford Initiative (GRGI). Activities will include gathering information on the organizations, relationships, practices, roles, and competencies involved in the systems work.
The purpose of this project is to understand the early development trajectories in both poor and non-poor young children growing up in rural areas characterized by high poverty. An interdisciplinary team of investigators has been following children from birth with measurement of child, family, and school functioning, observed mother and father sensitivity and language input in the home setting, observed quality of instruction in child care and elementary school, characteristics of the community, and biomarkers of child and maternal stress.
FirstSchool is a Pre-K through third grade approach to improving early elementary school experiences for African American, Latino, and low-income children and their families.
Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute will provide leadership and professional development for the Department of Public Instruction's demonstration pre-k and kindergarten classrooms. FirstSchool staff will serve on the steering committee and participate in biannual professional development sessions for demonstration site teachers.
The Georgia Pre-Kindergarten Evaluation project provides an external statewide evaluation of Georgia's Pre-K Program, a universal pre-kindergarten program for four-year-olds. The project is currently conducting an ongoing longitudinal study of the short- and long-term learning outcomes for children who attended Georgia's Pre-K Program as well as the quality of their preschool and early elementary school experiences from pre-k through fifth grade.
We are examining psychiatric and health outcomes in a 5-year follow-up of 200 well-characterized, very high-risk, maltreated and non-maltreated children. This is an ideal study in which to examine patterns of stability and change in the regulation of stress-sensitive genes over time.
The project team will research national trends and relevant models of governing and delivering early childhood special education systems, including but not limited to implementation of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), quality and control measures, and innovative approaches in other states and jurisdictions that hold the potential for enhancing the effectiveness, efficiency, or accountability of the early childhood special education system in the state.
This study will iteratively develop and test an adapted professional development model to be used with the Advancing Social-communication And Play intervention.
The National Implementation Research Network will provide training, coaching, and consultation supports in the use of implementation science methods and tools from common implementation frameworks utilized in K-12 education 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 secondary students who are experiencing poverty, Black, Latino, and/or English Learning designated.
This is a collaborative project with Michigan’s MTSS Technical Assistance Center (MiMTSS) to develop blended learning (pairing data captured from eLearning and/or other activities with onsite training) to support Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports (MTSS) within Michigan public school districts.
This study utilizes three large-scale early childhood education datasets (NCEDL, SWEEP and LAExCELS) to explore how children’s engagement, measured by moment-to-moment time sampling, varies within classrooms and explores if variation in levels and quality of child engagement and activity type/setting is associated with children’s outcomes.
The National Clearinghouse on Autism Evidence and Practice (NCAEP) is conducting a systematic review of the current intervention literature targeting individuals on the autism spectrum. NCAEP is a continuation of the evidence review that was completed by the National Professional Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorder.
