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 the Dialogic Reading Implementation Project was to create, implement, and field test a web-based module on the topic of dialogic reading. Project staff organized Doing What Works resources along with other project-developed resources into a module using the CONNECT project’s 5-Step Learning Cycle.
The purpose of this project is to establish the psychometric properties of the District Capacity Assessment (DCA). Specifically, the internal structure and test-retest reliability of the DCA will be developed and a professional paper will be published summarizing the results.
Diversity Learning Table 2 will provide a sequence of professional development on evidence-based approaches to supporting young learners who are culturally, linguistically, and socio-economically diverse to 6-8 states. This will include a face-to-face orientation, a series of four interactive webinars, and individualized technical assistance.
The purpose of this project is to engage with grassroots and grasstops early education partners to identify and conduct a landscape analysis of active North Carolina policies and regulations focused on young children and their families (birth to age 5) with a focus on policies that show effect or promise in mitigating (or exacerbate) racial disparities in early care and education.
The Early Childhood Inclusion Professional Learning Program led by Chih-Ing Lim, PhD. at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Elena Soukakou, PhD., is committed to support the Community Psychology Hub, Singapore in ensuring that the InSP program is implemented effectively to serve young children with disabilities.
The Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center (ECTA Center) funded by the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) built upon the foundation of several OSEP-funded TA centers to improve service systems and assist states in scaling up and sustaining effective services and research-based interventions for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers 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.
The goal of this study through the IES-funded Early Learning Network is to understand variations in practices that augment transitions and early learning; determine malleable factors that improve learning environments and promote school readiness and academic achievement for disadvantaged children; and understand the processes necessary for effective transitions from pre-K through grade 3 in rural and urban communities.
This study will examine the early biological embedding of health and disease risk in young children’s telomeres, a biomarker of cellular aging. We will conduct a novel longitudinal study to examine the effects of prenatal and postnatal early life adversity (i.e., poverty, parent conflict, maternal stress) on accelerated biological aging, including telomere erosion and epigenetic aging clocks, across the first three years of life.
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 Early Literacy Module Project in Singapore aims to design, develop, implement, and evaluate a professional development module that includes early language and literacy resources for Early Childhood Educators (ECE) and Learning Support Educators (LSEd) within the Singapore context. Developmentally appropriate early language and literacy resources will also be developed for ECEs, LSEds, families, and caregivers to use with children with developmental needs or from disadvantaged families.
The goal of this series of studies is to develop recommendations that could be used to inform the next revisions of the ECERS-3, a global early care and education quality measure for children aged 3-5 that examines quality from the child's perspective.
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.
This qualitative study will examine data utilization processes in Educare schools. The multi-method evaluation will include key informant interviews and focus groups, as well as review of data-sharing documents and agreements.
The purpose of this project was to launch a randomized clinical trial in six Educare schools.
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 examine the relationship between implicit bias, teacher expectations, teacher–child interactions, and child outcomes. There are disparities in child discipline and development that can manifest early for poor and/or minority children and can have lasting consequences.
This is an IES-funded evaluation of the Incredible Years Dinosaur Classroom Prevention Program (IY Dina) and Teacher Classroom Management (IYT) Program on pre-k students' social-emotional functioning, executive functioning, and early academic skills. The study will involve approximately 120 NC PreK classrooms in four counties in North Carolina. Approximately 1200 preschool children from 120 classrooms will enter the study in two cohorts during preschool and will be followed up in kindergarten.
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).
This study examined how the economic downturn impacted parents' work characteristics in the rural South and how those conditions are related to economic strain, food insecurity, and public assistance program participation and what supports may buffer these experiences.
The Environment Rating Scales are designed to assess process quality in an early childhood or school age care group. Process quality consists of the various interactions that go on in a classroom between staff and children, staff, parents, and other adults, among the children themselves, and the interactions children have with the many materials and activities in the environment, as well as those features, such as space, schedule, and materials that support these interactions.
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 goal of this project is to support the development of an interdisciplinary, multi-organizational research action coalition to identify anti-racist, culturally-sustaining, and asset-focused factors that ensure that Black children, their families, and communities thrive. Specific to this project is the development of a national repository/clearinghouse that provides up to date information on actionable research, practice, and policy evidence about what matters and works for Black children.
FPG will partner with the North Carolina DCDEE to conduct an evaluation of a pilot implementation of the NC Preschool Pyramid Model (Pyramid Model) in selected private center-based preschool programs where NC Pre-K classrooms are housed. The pilot implementation of the Pyramid Model is an extension of the existing implementation in many NC Pre-K classrooms currently located in public school settings.
The purpose of this evaluation project is to examine whether the provision of resources and supports to spur regional and community innovation projects to develop new business and financing models will ensure the ECE workforce is equitably compensated, well-trained, and valued, and ECE businesses are thriving, and subsequently leading to equitable, affordable, and accessible high-quality early learning experiences for young children and their families. This study will also examine facilitators and barriers to engaging in systems change in child care grounded in racial equity.
The purpose of this project is to conduct the year 1 evaluation of the ECIC Child Care Innovation Fund. Guided by a racial equity evaluation framework, the evaluation will determine how this fund influences policy changes to address racial disparities in wages and families' access to affordable, high-quality early care and education. This study will also examine facilitators and barriers to engaging in racial equity systems change.
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.
This project employed a multi-disciplinary team to evaluate NC's Smart Start initiative and to help local Smart Start partnerships evaluate their own programs.
