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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Beginning June 2022 through September 30, 2022, the FPG Autism Team, led by Dr. Ann Sam, will provide virtual professional development training on the Autism Program Environment Rating Scale (APERS). The training will be for nine participants who are team members of Guilford County Schools (GCS). The project will include training on the FPG version of the APERS (note Brookes Publishing will publish the full updated APERS in 2022 for purchase). Training consists of virtual didactic training (8 hours), APERS practice conducted in schools by participants, interview and feedback review by trainers, virtual consensus scoring, virtual debrief and professional development planning, and virtual follow-up.
The proposed study will employ several methodologies including single-case design and qualitative methods to explore processes and drivers necessary to support early intervention (EI) providers in using online modules with embedded coaching supports to: (a) increase their own knowledge and use of evidence-based practices (EBPs) and (b) support EI providers to coach caregivers to use EBPs. The study will examine factors that lead to effective EI services empowering caregivers of toddlers with autism to embed EBPs into their everyday routines and activities. We will collaborate with EI providers and caregivers of toddlers with autism to examine the extent to which online EBP modules with ongoing implementation support:
•are perceived as useful and relevant to EI providers
•effectively support EI providers and caregivers to embed EBPs with fidelity
We also intend to:
•determine if and how provider and caregiver use of EPBs impacts child coordinated joint engagement
•explore provider and caregiver perceptions related to EBPs and implementing them
By examining perceptions and outcomes related to implementing EBPs, the study may enhance the quality of EI professional practice and improve outcomes for children with autism and their caregivers.
The National Implementation Research Network (NIRN) will support effective and quality implementation of the New Jersey Department of Children and Families' Family Success Centers' (FSC) Practice Profile across their network of providers.
This collaborative project with Michigan’s MTSS Technical Assistance Center (MiMTSS) aims 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 Systems.
The purpose of this project is to develop the Supporting paraprofessionals-Teachers use of Evidence-based practices with Learners having Autism (STELA) program, a professional development intervention targeting the knowledge and skills that paraprofessionals need to implement evidence-based practices for students with autism spectrum disorder.
This project will provide support for a process to enhance the curriculum at Tacoma Community College by incorporating evidence-based practices and content. The work will include developing opportunities for coursework and practica with an emphasis on young children with disabilities and their families.
This plan for this project includes the identification of a district teacher, who is an experienced TRI instructor, to assume the role of TRI specialist and trainer; the arrangement of training from the UNC TRI team for the specialist; and the establishment of procedures necessary to ensure fidelity of implementation in all schools.
In this NC Quest project, the School of Education, the College of Arts and Sciences, and Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at UNC-Chapel Hill will partner with Bertie County Schools to provide intensive literacy instruction professional development to kindergarten, first grade, and second grade teachers and their struggling readers at approximately 4 schools in one high-need local educational agency.
The School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill aims to provide an interdisciplinary graduate program of study for Birth–Kindergarten professionals who will be highly qualified to teach young children with and without disabilities with a specialization in working with immigrant children and families experiencing poverty.
This study examines teachers' emotional responses to children's classroom behaviors, focusing on two issues: (1) whether their responses are affected by the race of the child and (2) whether approaches to support teachers in regulating their emotions might reduce the association between teachers' emotions and punitive or negative discipline practices.
This short-term exploratory study will seek to systematically gather input from stakeholders with expertise in technical assistance to develop a compilation of technical assistance strategies used to support the use of research evidence in child welfare, as well as definitions of these strategies. The study will categorize technical assistance strategies that include stakeholder involvement and assess which strategies under what conditions facilitated research use.
The ECTA Center will assist the CDC's EHDI team with (1) identifying some best practices/models with Part C programs at the state and national levels to better address issues of documenting that infants with hearing loss are receiving ED services, (2) measuring progress, (3) assessing outcomes, and (4) meeting national benchmarks.
This study will utilize data from an ongoing, epidemiologically-derived, prospective longitudinal study to test whether early indices of temperament predict the emergence of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in 1st grade.
The California Abundant Birth Project (CA-ABP) is a guaranteed income program for pregnant people at greatest risk of birth inequities in five California counties (San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Riverside, and Los Angeles), funded by the State of California, municipal governments, and philanthropic funding. The California Abundant Birth Project will provide unconditional, monthly income supplements during pregnancy and postpartum to randomly selected participants, with the goal of curbing financial stress and promoting healthy pregnancy outcomes. The goal of this project is to evaluate the impact of this guaranteed income program on birthing outcomes, maternal and child health, and children’s early outcomes.
The current study will be the first to examine the influence of early toxic stress, including the distal effects of living in poverty as well as the proximal factors of negative parenting and household chaos, on the development of gut microbiome diversity and maturity across 15, 24, 26, and 54 months.
This project involved multiple tasks including the provision of intensive, implementation-focused technical assistance to promote the scaling-up of evidence-based practices to improve child and family outcomes post-permanency, and a program evaluation to assess implementation fidelity and outcomes.
The purpose of the Early Childhood Outcomes (ECO) Center was to provide national leadership in the development and use of outcome information in early intervention and preschool special education programs. ECO was a collaborative effort of the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, SRI International, the Research Triangle Institute, and the University of Connecticut.
This dissertation study aims to identify characteristics of kindergarten classroom and elementary school contexts that contribute to Head Start children's continued learning across the transition to school in order to inform policymaking related to this topic, both in the state of North Carolina and nationally.
This collaborative project will design and deliver a comprehensive professional development system of support for infant and toddler teachers, anchored in an online associate's degree program for English and Spanish-speaking professionals serving infants and toddlers.
The Impact Center at FPG’s Rural Church Summer Literacy Initiative Support Team supports the ongoing development and implementation of The Duke Endowment’s Rural Church – Summer Literacy Program in North Carolina.
The Impact Center at FPG’s Triple P Support Team is currently supporting the scale-up and expansion of the Triple P—Positive Parenting Program®—System of Interventions in North Carolina.
The Impact Center at FPG's Implementation Capacity for Triple P (ICTP) projects are currently supporting the scale-up and expansion of Triple P System of Interventions in North and South Carolina.
This research examined the development of African American English (AAE) from childhood through adolescence and its potential impact on literacy acquisition and school achievement based on a unique, longitudinal database of 70 African American adolescents from low- and middle-income families.
This project will provide support for a process to enhance the curriculum at Terra Community College by incorporating evidence-based and competency-based practices and content. The work will include developing opportunities for coursework and practica with an emphasis on young children who are culturally, linguistically, and ability-diverse and their families.
The National Implementation Research Network (NIRN) will partner with The Pew Charitable Trusts (Pew) to build the capacity of Results First States to integrate implementation science into their evidence-based policymaking approaches.
This project will use secondary data analysis of two longitudinal datasets to test if childcare provider language prospectively predicts child executive functions (EFs) directly or indirectly through child language. We will also examine if different ways of measuring preschool teacher language quality are differentially predictive of child language and subsequent EFs.
In this project, we will examine teacher instructional strategies as a moderator of child grade entry skills in predicting literacy achievement at 2nd and 3rd grade. We will also examine how variations in the match between teacher instructional strategies and child grade entry skills are associated with children's engagement in the classroom and literacy achievement.
