Dedicated to expanding quality early learning and preschool opportunities,
the Foundation for Child Development offers quick access to fact sheets,
interviews and publications.

This guide is designed to help adults working with adolescents and youth find appropriate assessments and support young people's career development. It also provides a learning needs screening tool for youth with suspected learning disabilities.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has long been a proponent of breastfeeding. Its updated policy statement reflects new research indicating that breastfeeding can decrease the incidence or severity of conditions such as diarrhea, ear infections and bacterial meningitis. Breastfeeding may also offer protection against sudden infant death syndrome, diabetes, obesity, and asthma. Among the AAP's new recommendations: babies should be breastfed for approximately the first six months (the group supports breastfeeding for the first year and beyond if mutually desired by mother and child), and that mother and infant should sleep in proximity to each other to facilitate breastfeeding.

Agenda for Children is Louisiana's statewide child advocacy agency. Its mission is to make Louisiana a state in which all children can thrive, by ensuring that the basic needs of children and familie

The Indiana Youth Institute (IYI) is a leading source of information and tools for nonprofit Indiana youth organizations. We also reach educators, policymakers, government officials, and others who can impact the lives of Hoosier children and promote healthy youth development in Indiana communities.

IYI's programs and services are organized into three areas: useful information, practical tools, and the promotion of positive youth development.

Parks give kids good places to play outside, but - based on the experience of a new generation of youth programs in urban parks - they can also go far beyond recreation to provide high-quality programs that foster healthy youth development, according to an Urban Institute report published in June 2004.

This article in Pediatrics, "Early Television Exposure and Subsequent Attentional Problems in Children," examines the first-ever study linking early television watching with later attention and concentration problems. Researchers from the University of Washington found that, for children age 3 and younger, every hour of television they watched led to a 10-percent increase in the likelihood of attention problems at age 7. Even before their first birthday, kids watch more than 2 hours of television a day.

Child development specialist Ed Zigler says that children's play is under attack as schools focus on children's reading development at the expense of their equally important (and related) physical, social and emotional development.

Preschool is growing up, and getting political. The focus is on getting young kids ready for school, and the policy struggle over what that means. More phonics and seat work? More formal testing? Where do finger paints and clapping games fit in? Child development expert Sue Bredekamp talked to Jan Richter about the five keys to understanding how young children learn.

Provocative new research shows a link between children's IQ scores and their families' socio-economic status, offering scientific support for the view that reducing poverty will help kids succeed. CFK has compiled a list of more research and links centered on kids and IQ.