Research That Benefits Children - An Uplifting Story

One positive example of the effects of research on children is the progress being made in children’s Leukemia cancer treatments.  According to the Children’s Cancer Research Fund, cutting edge research, such as the use of umbilical cord blood transplants, has decreased the rate of leukemia relapses from 34 to 19 percent. The greatest strides in leukemia research are tailoring treatments to individual children. In the early 80s, researchers found that not all leukemia is the same; therefore researchers look at genetics and environmental factors to find where the leukemia originated, and what types of treatment it will respond to.  I have a work colleague whose nine-year-old son is currently being treated for ALL Leukemia.  He is responding very well to the chemotherapy treatments, but will be required to do these on-going treatments for three years.  The doctor’s told my colleague that the survivability rate for this type of cancer is now over 90% due to research completed in effective treatments.  This colleague’s son wanted to help other kids like him, so he consented to donate his blood and salvia samples to research in ALL Leukemia.  It is because brave children participated in this research before him that my colleague’s son is getting the effective treatments and has a positive prognosis to survive this disease.  Part of the powerless feeling he has at having cancer is made better by the empowerment he feels in providing research samples that can possibly save another child’s life.  He has also been such a motivational example to the community by increasing awareness of this disease.  He and his family have organized blood drives, donor match drives, and 5K races to promote cancer research and aid in the fight to find a cure.  This kids is exceptional and such a fighter!

Children’s Cancer Research Fund website: http://www.childrenscancer.org

My Personal Research Journey

I am the director of a child development center serving young children ages 6 weeks to 6 years old.  I have been saddened to see many early childhood care and education facilities lessen the value of social-emotional learning to accommodate greater amounts of academic-based curriculum.  Earlier in my Walden coursework, I was contemplating how to advocate the importance of social-emotional learning to our parents, and promote an overall culture of prosocial behavior throughout my center.  I came across an article that deeply resonated with me because I realized that prosocial development wasn’t something that only belonged as part of the preschool curriculum, but should be implemented as early as infancy.  Quann & Wien (2006), along with other contemporary researchers, now prove that infants and toddlers seem fine-tuned to one another’s feelings and able to put themselves in the position of others long before researchers in moral reasoning expect to observe empathy and prosocial behaviors.  Therefore, I want to research specific ways early childhood professionals can help infants and toddlers develop prosocial skills (kindness, sharing, cooperation, empathy) to build a strong foundation for continued healthy social-emotional learning. 

I have gained several insights thus far in this course:

1. How to read research papers following the “Practical Guide to Reading Research Articles”.  This empowered me and helped me to feel less overwhelmed at the thought of reading and trying to make sense of all the statistical information that is usually found in these studies! 

2. The “Understanding Research Chart” helped me to make better sense of the text definitions because I had to put in my own words what they meant.  I chose the literary review as my topic to summarize, because I needed more guidance in understanding how to write our application literature review.  The key take-aways I got from synthesizing this information was to not get overwhelmed by the massive amounts of research and information that is available on my research topic.  Applying what I learned about literature reviews, I have started specifying my reading to identify the key issues, themes and arguments made in each of these papers.  One great suggestion that I have implemented early on in my coursework has helped me tremendously while reading various resources.  It is to use different colored highlighters to mark each area of study.  For example, I want to know specific curriculum strategies teachers are using to promote prosocial behavior, so anything to do with this I will highlight yellow.  I also want to find out how each author defines prosocial behavior, so this might be pink.  Any challenges or conflicting viewpoints might be green, etc.… This has helped me keep organized in doing past research, so hopefully it is a suggestion that can help my fellow classmates!

        3. I have appreciated the links that everyone posted in the Discussion this week.  I actually used several of the sites suggested as quality sites to find sources for my research so…thank you!  I am open to any additional advice/sources you have to offer that might help me in my research, and hopefully I can be a good resource for you too!  Happy researching!

Quann, V., & Wien, C. A. (2006). The visible empathy of infants and toddlers. YC Young             Children, 61(4), 22-26,28-29.

EDUC 6163: Building Research Competencies

After taking the summer off to enjoy my kids and attend to family responsibilities, I am excited to return to my Master's program and learn from all my colleagues at Walden University!  I hope to become a better researcher of children, and be able to apply this research to my career in the Early Childhood field!  Best wishes to you all!