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Biological, environmental factors are key to improving child development
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To effectively prevent maladjustment in at-risk children, researchers recommended a shift in national funding priorities from focusing on biological processes to balancing biological and environmental factors.
“We do know what helps kids and what hurts them, and how best to intervene. The problem is that at a national level we have not, in parallel, directed resources toward taking these evidence-based interventions to large scale. This must change,” Suniya S. Luthar, PhD, of Arizona State University, said in a press release. “If we are to truly help today's vulnerable children and families, there has to be greater commitment of resources to ensure that promising programs are readily accessible to those most in need, and that these programs are implemented with high quality and fidelity to treatment procedures.”
To establish strategies that prevent childhood disturbance and promote resilient adaptation, Luthar and colleagues compiled recommendations from multiple child development experts and combined them with priorities outlined in resilience research, prevention science and child clinical science.
Overall, researchers agreed that “toxins” in children’s socializing contexts should be minimized and nurturance should be maximized.
Efforts should target the “most important, malleable processes” in children’s everyday environments. As an extension of that, efforts should encourage nurturance of adults in schools, organizations and communities.
Researchers recommended that prevention science should move toward a deployment-focused approach to develop programs that consider real-world outcomes.
“Our progress will be limited if we focus too narrowly on the development and dissemination of evidence-based intervention programs that address individual problems in laboratories, failing to consider what is needed to ensure effective implementation in real-world settings of communities and organizations,” the researchers wrote.
To implement these programs, research is needed on requirements for organizations and communities to ensure successful adoption of programs at this level.
Funding issues are a significant concern, according to researchers.
In the last decade, there has been a significant shift toward biological indicators, largely due to trends in national funding, the researchers reported.
These changes could lead to adoption of an excessively narrow biological approach, which cannot address real-world situations.
Researchers encouraged funding agencies to utilize balanced approaches toward biological and environmental influences.
“Too many children continue to suffer greatly despite all we have learned about resilience and prevention,” Luthar said in the release. “Behavioral scientists know how to ease this in prevention programs and we urgently need earmarking of resources and funds to take these promising, empirically based programs to large scale. We hope that the clear, feasible and cost effective recommendations compiled here will spur more concerted programming to maximize the well-being of vulnerable kids and their families.” – by Amanda Oldt
Disclosure: Luthar reports receiving support from the Susan Budinger and the Rodel Foundation for her ongoing work with at-risk mothers. Please see the study for a full list of relevant financial disclosures.