Adam Winsler | |
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Occupation | Professor of Applied Developmental Psychology |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | University of New Mexico; Stanford University |
Academic work | |
Institutions | George Mason University |
Adam Winsler is a developmental psychologist known for his research on early child development,private speech,and benefits of arts education. Winsler is Professor of Applied Developmental Psychology at George Mason University.
Winsler co-authored with Laura Berk the volume Scaffolding Children's Learning:Vygotsky and Early Childhood Education, [1] which describes the theories of development created by Lev Vygotsky and how they be applied to children's learning in a school environment. He also co-edited the volume Private Speech,Executive Functioning,and The Development of Verbal Self-Regulation. [2] Winsler was Editor in Chief of Early Childhood Research Quarterly,and serves on their editorial board. [3]
Winsler received his B.A. degree in psychology at University of New Mexico in 1988. He furthered his education and obtained his Ph.D. in Child and Adolescent Development at Stanford University Graduate School of Education in 1994. [4] While at Stanford,Winsler worked as Program Evaluator and Evaluation Director at the Redwood City Schools in California,where he conducted research on bilingual language development, [5] and documented the benefits of bilingual preschool programs for Spanish-speaking children growing up in low income families. [6]
Winsler started his academic career at the University of Alabama,Tuscaloosa in 1994 as an assistant professor before moving to George Mason University in 1997. [7] His research has been funded by the Institute of Education Sciences [8] of the U.S. Department of Education [9] and by foundations including The Children's Trust and the Early Learning Coalition of Miami-Dade/Monroe.
As a graduate student,Winsler began a collaborative program of research with Rafael M. Diaz on young children's use of private speech, [10] which led to a series of studies on self-regulation in children with attention and behavioral problems. [11] [12] Winsler's research examined private speech in relation to aspects of executive functioning in children with disabilities such as autism spectrum disorder, [13] and ADHD. [14] Following Vygotsky,Winsler considers the use of private speech to be an important turning point in a child's development,as it supports the child in verbalizing their thoughts,regulating their attention,and helping them produce decisions on their own. According to Winsler,private speech is beneficial in lowering impulsivity in small children,while increasing performance as they learn to recollect and express their train of thought.
Winsler is also known for his research on early childhood education,where he has focused on evaluating the cognitive,language,and social-emotional outcomes and school readiness of children from diverse backgrounds,many who come from low-income families,attending variously structured child-care and preschool programs. [15] Winsler and his colleagues' research indicates the importance of the arts in early childhood development. [16] When young children are involved in electives such as dance,drama,and music,they become more socially competent, [17] show better self-regulation, [18] and their academic performance improves. [19]
In work with Martha Carlton,Winsler critiqued the concept of school readiness,which they view as a biased concept based on the perspective of the school system and its qualifications for children's school entry. [20] Winsler has focused on bilingual,immigrant children who are often misunderstood because of their inability to speak English,yet are just as capable as their peers;such children may fall behind due to bias toward languages other than English in the school system. Although immigrant children may lag behind their peers in preschool cognitive and language skills,they show advantages relative to non-immigrant children in socio-emotional skills and behavior. [21]
Developmental psychology is the scientific study of how and why humans grow,change,and adapt across the course of their lives. Originally concerned with infants and children,the field has expanded to include adolescence,adult development,aging,and the entire lifespan. Developmental psychologists aim to explain how thinking,feeling,and behaviors change throughout life. This field examines change across three major dimensions,which are physical development,cognitive development,and social emotional development. Within these three dimensions are a broad range of topics including motor skills,executive functions,moral understanding,language acquisition,social change,personality,emotional development,self-concept,and identity formation.
Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist,best known for his work on psychological development in children and creating the framework known as cultural-historical activity theory. After his early death,his books and research were banned in the Soviet Union until Joseph Stalin's death in 1953,with a first collection of major texts published in 1956.
Early childhood education (ECE),also known as nursery education,is a branch of education theory that relates to the teaching of children from birth up to the age of eight. Traditionally,this is up to the equivalent of third grade. ECE is described as an important period in child development.
Cognitive development is a field of study in neuroscience and psychology focusing on a child's development in terms of information processing,conceptual resources,perceptual skill,language learning,and other aspects of the developed adult brain and cognitive psychology. Qualitative differences between how a child processes their waking experience and how an adult processes their waking experience are acknowledged. Cognitive development is defined as the emergence of the ability to consciously cognize,understand,and articulate their understanding in adult terms. Cognitive development is how a person perceives,thinks,and gains understanding of their world through the relations of genetic and learning factors. There are four stages to cognitive information development. They are,reasoning,intelligence,language,and memory. These stages start when the baby is about 18 months old,they play with toys,listen to their parents speak,they watch TV,anything that catches their attention helps build their cognitive development.
Phonological awareness is an individual's awareness of the phonological structure,or sound structure,of words. Phonological awareness is an important and reliable predictor of later reading ability and has,therefore,been the focus of much research.
Pre-kindergarten is a voluntary classroom-based preschool program for children below the age of five in the United States,Canada,Turkey and Greece. It may be delivered through a preschool or within a reception year in elementary school. Pre-kindergartens play an important role in early childhood education. They have existed in the US since 1922,normally run by private organizations. The U.S. Head Start program,the country's first federally funded pre-kindergarten program,was founded in 1967. This attempts to prepare children to succeed in school.
Bilingualism,a subset of multilingualism,means having proficiency in two or more languages. A bilingual individual is traditionally defined as someone who understands and produces two or more languages on a regular basis. A bilingual individual's initial exposure to both languages may start in early childhood,e.g. before age 3,but exposure may also begin later in life,in monolingual or bilingual education. Equal proficiency in a bilingual individuals' languages is rarely seen as it typically varies by domain. For example,a bilingual individual may have greater proficiency for work-related terms in one language,and family-related terms in another language.
Universal preschool is an international movement supporting the use of public funding to provide preschool education to all families. This movement is focused on promoting a global,rather than local,preschool program. The goal is to provide equity across all socioeconomic backgrounds,enabling children to improve their academic and social skills before they attend kindergarten. Universal preschool,funded by the public,would allow more families to send their children to preschool.
Bilingual–Bicultural or Bi-Bi deaf education programs use sign language as the native,or first,language of Deaf children. In the United States,for example,Bi-Bi proponents state that American Sign Language (ASL) should be the natural first language for deaf children in the United States,although the majority of deaf and hard of hearing being born to hearing parents. In this same vein,the spoken or written language used by the majority of the population is viewed as a secondary language to be acquired either after or at the same time as the native language.
Private speech is speech spoken to oneself for communication,self-guidance,and self-regulation of behaviour. It is between the ages of two and seven that children can be observed engaging in private speech. Although it is audible,it is neither intended for nor directed at others. Private speech was first studied by Lev Vygotsky (1934/1986) and Jean Piaget (1959);in the past 30 years private speech has received renewed attention from researchers. Researchers have noted a positive correlation between children's use of private speech and their task performance and achievement,a fact also noted previously by Vygotsky. It is when children begin school that their use of private speech decreases and "goes underground".
Child development involves the biological,psychological and emotional changes that occur in human beings between birth and the conclusion of adolescence.
LOTE or Languages Other Than English is the name given to language subjects besides English in Australia,New York City,and other schools. The name evolved from 'heritage language',a term first used to refer to languages other than French and English in Canada. Later modified in relation to Australia to refer to languages other than English. LOTEs have often historically been related to the policy of multiculturalism,and tend to reflect the predominant non-English languages spoken in a school's local area,the idea being to play a part in the maintenance of cultural identities in local communities.
Compensatory education offers supplementary programs or services designed to help children at risk of cognitive impairment and low educational achievement succeed.
In the framework of the Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) the leading activity is the activity,or cooperative human action,which plays the most essential role in child development during a given developmental period. Although many activities may play a role in a child's development at any given time,the leading activity is theorized to be the type of social interaction that is most beneficial in terms of producing major developmental accomplishments,and preparing the child for the next period of development. Through engaging in leading activities,a child develops a wide range of capabilities,including emotional connection with others,motivation to engage in more complex social activities,the creation of new cognitive abilities,and the restructuring of old ones.
Social emotional development represents a specific domain of child development. It is a gradual,integrative process through which children acquire the capacity to understand,experience,express,and manage emotions and to develop meaningful relationships with others. As such,social emotional development encompasses a large range of skills and constructs,including,but not limited to:self-awareness,joint attention,play,theory of mind,self-esteem,emotion regulation,friendships,and identity development.
Laura M. Justice is a language scientist and expert on interventions to promote children's literacy. She is the EHE Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology at Ohio State University,where she also serves as the Executive Director of the A. Sophie Rogers School for Early Learning.
Margaret R. Burchinal is a quantitative psychologist and statistician known for her research on child care. She is senior research scientist and director of the Data Management and Analysis Center of the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Developmental neuropsychology combines the fields of neuroscience and developmental psychology,while drawing from various other related disciplines. It examines the relationship of behavior and brain function throughout the course of an individual's lifespan,though often emphasis is put on childhood and adolescence when the majority of brain development occurs. Research tends to focus on development of important behavioral functions like perception,language,and other cognitive processes. Studies in this field are often centered around children or other individuals with developmental disorders or various kinds of brain related trauma or injury. A key concept of this field is that looks at and attempts to relate the psychological aspects of development,such as behavior,comprehension,cognition,etc.,to the specific neural structures;it draws parallels between behavior and mechanism in the brain. Research in this field involves various cognitive tasks and tests as well as neuroimaging. Some of the many conditions studied by developmental neuropsychologists include congenital or acquired brain damage,autism spectrum disorder,attention deficit disorder,executive dysfunction,seizures,intellectual disabilities,obsessive compulsive disorder,stuttering,schizophrenia,developmental aphasia,and other learning delays such as dyslexia,dysgraphia,and dyspraxia.
Cassandra Cybele Raver is an American developmental psychologist currently serving as Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at Vanderbilt University. She previously served as Deputy Provost at New York University and Professor of Applied Psychology in the Steinhardt School of Culture,Education,and Human Development at NYU.
Ross A. Thompson is an American author and research psychologist. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of psychology at the University of California,Davis,and is director of the Social &Emotional Development Lab. Thompson is known for his work on the psychological development of young children. His influences on developmental research and public policy were recognized in the Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contribution to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society in 2018 by the American Psychological Association,the Ann L. Brown Award for Excellence in Developmental Research in 2007. Thompson received the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement from Zero to Three in 2023.
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