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 current projects by clicking on the links below. Change the project end date to view completed projects. 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 was to evaluate the quality and effectiveness of the Arkansas early intervention program for toddlers with disabilities and their families, and make recommendations for improving this system.
This project expanded on the work conducted by the National Professional Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorder for preschool through high school-aged students with ASD. The Toddler Initiative developed new materials and modified existing materials/processes to support the use of evidence-based practices for young children (birth-3) and their families.
Project staff worked with professionals in Saudi Arabia to establish and promote the provision of high quality programs and the use of evidence-based practices for learners with autism spectrum disorder and their families.
The FPG Autism Team will provide professional development training on the Autism Program Environment Rating Scale (APERS). The training will be for nine participants who are team members or affiliates of the Autism Professional Learning & Universal Supports Project at Illinois State University.
Communication is fundamental to quality of life, social connection, and long-term outcomes. It encompasses the broad exchange of information through various means, including speech, gestures, facial expressions, and body language, while language is a structured system of symbols used as one specific way to communicate. Although language impairment is no longer a diagnostic criterion for autism, communication difficulties remain central to diagnosis. Parents often identify communication and language delays as an early concern, and nearly all early interventions focus on addressing these delays alongside the behavioral challenges that arise from communication difficulties. This project aims to generate meaningful, high-impact research that improves real-world outcomes and bring about increased knowledge and interest in research and care of autistic individuals and their communication needs through mentoring new generations.
Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute will work in collaboration with Child Care Services Association and the North Carolina Division of Child Development and Early Education as appropriate to develop a plan to conduct a rigorous evaluation that will use an experimental or quasi-experimental approach to examine whether the program is implemented with high-quality and the degree to which it yields positive impacts on child outcomes.
Be Active Kids designed and evaluated an evidence-based program of developmentally appropriate physical activities to be used in North Carolina child care centers targeting children zero to five years of age. The program was formatted in a way that is easy for educators to use.
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.
Through collaboration with national, state and local coalitions and organizations, the Equity Research Action Coalition will identify, track and align strategies to strengthen the focus on protecting, promoting, and preserving the well being, health, wealth, access and experiences of Black families and their families through anti-racist and cultural wealth policy making framework and communication.
The purpose of this project as part of the Equity Research Action Coalition is to identify strengths-based programs and policies that support the well-being of Black parents and their infants and toddlers during the pandemic.
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?
A collaborative project with Michigan’s MTSS Technical Assistance Center (MiMTSS) to develop blended learning strategies and related resources in support of functional behavioral assessments and behavioral intervention planning (FBA/BIP) as part of the Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports (MTSS) provided within Michigan Public School Systems.
The purpose of this project is to develop a statewide systemic professional development blueprint for North Carolina's early care and education workforce. The blueprint will reflect evidence-based best practices for professional development in the areas of coaching, mentoring, technical assistance consultation, and formal coursework that will support the early care and education workforce and prepare them to meet the developmental needs of participating infants, toddlers, preschool, and school-age children.
This project will support a cohort of place-based, cross-sector educational collaboratives ("myFutureNC network") across the state to develop model programs that significantly increase the number of students successfully pursuing post-secondary education and entering the workforce. This pilot aligns with the state's goal of having 2 million individuals between the ages of 25 and 44 with a high-quality credential or postsecondary degree by 2030.
TRI staff will create and present a series of five caregiver education workshops, which are designed to build knowledge and skills in the science of reading, in five locations across the Triangle.
This project will promote the replication of evidence-based programs through an increased focus on local community/agency capacity building to achieve the greatest return on The Duke Endowment's philanthropic investment.
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.
This longitudinal study of a multimodal integrated preschool program was designed to improve children's school readiness by promoting pre-literacy, communication, mathematics, and socioemotional skills in children at risk for school difficulties.
The State Implementation and Scaling up of Evidence-based Practices (SISEP) Center is developing a manuscript to disseminate strategies for states to deliberately and systematically develop and make effective use of an implementation infrastructure to accomplish educationally and socially significant outcomes for students statewide.
The goal of this project is to provide training and nine months of ongoing support to a Smart Start of Forsyth County Teaching and Learning Specialist serving as a coach in the More Than Baby Talk, Plus! coaching program.
This multi-year project, in partnership with Erikson Institute and the University of Delaware, seeks to understand how best to value, compensate, and authentically integrate the family child care (FCC) workforce and approach in future efforts to build and expand more equitable PreK systems. This project will involve focus groups, surveys, and case studies to understand how FCC is being integrated into PreK efforts.
This project will assist the state in further coordinating and growing its cadre of available home visitation resources to better meet the needs of the families of North Carolina.
Building Implementation Capacity to Promote and Support Evidence-Based Home Visitation in Washington
The National Implementation Research Network supported Thrive by Five Washington in the development of their Implementation HUB for Evidence-Based Home Visitation.
This project is designed to partner with the Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation to develop implementation capacity using the NIRN Active Implementation frameworks across six rehabilitation sites. The work of this project will facilitate the development of a Spinal Cord Injury Knowledge Mobilization Network and develop a national strategy for selecting, implementing, and sustaining evidence-based practices that can be scaled across the continuum of care and throughout the provinces.
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 Calhoun Intermediate School District is seeking support for the capacity development of their systemic support staff and network partners in best practices of implementation science to support implementation of evidence-based practices with their participating local education agencies (LEAs). To support development of internal implementation capacity, the National Implementation Research Network (NIRN) will provide virtual training, coaching, and consultation supports.
The National Professional Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorder is the developer of the Foundations of Autism Spectrum Disorders online course that has been a required component of our work with states throughout the US over the past 5 years. We offer access to the course free of cost to our state partners for the duration of our active work with them. The state of California has contracted with us so that we will continue to offer, support, and manage the course for them.
The National Implementation Research Network will support the implementation of the Healthy Places North Carolina (HPNC) initiative. Through HPNC, the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust seeks to create the conditions for initial, sustainable, and dramatic improvements in health in selected counties in North Carolina.
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.
