Author: Shelly Silva

UD Professor Roberta Golinkoff one of 22 scholars elected to National Academy of Education

Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Unidel H. Rodney Sharp Chair and professor in the School of Education (SOE) and in the departments of Psychological and Brain Sciences and Linguistics and Cognitive Science at the University of Delaware, has been elected to membership in the National Academy of Education.

The National Academy of Education advances high quality education research and its use in policy and practice, and its members are elected on the basis of outstanding scholarship related to education. Golinkoff is one of 22 national and international scholars elected to membership this year, and she is the first member from UD to receive this honor.

“This diverse group of scholars is at the forefront of those who are improving the lives of students in the United States and abroad through their outstanding contributions through education scholarship and research,” said Gloria Ladson-Billings, president of the National Academy of Education.

“Becoming a member of the National Academy of Education is one of our field’s highest honors, and is a fitting acknowledgement of Roberta Golinkoff’s decades of groundbreaking contributions to language development, the benefits of playful learning, the effects of media on children, and early spatial development,” said Laura Desimone, director of research in the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) and professor in the School of Education and the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration.

With research partner Kathy Hirsh-Pasek of Temple University, Golinkoff has dedicated her career to foundational research on language, literacy, education, and spatial reasoning in the field of developmental psychology in infants and young children. Her work has been recognized with prestigious awards from several organizations, including the American Educational Research Association, Association for Psychological Science, and the Society for Research in Child Development.

In the late 1980s, Golinkoff and Hirsh-Pasek pioneered an innovative research method for studying preverbal infants named the Intermodal Preferential Looking Paradigm (IPLP). Through the use of side-by-side visual stimuli on a television screen and a single auditory stimulus, researchers were able to determine whether preverbal infants could match what they heard with one of the events they saw on the screen. This method is now used throughout the world to study what young children know about language and how they learn it. At the University of Delaware, Golinkoff established the Child’s Play, Learning, and Development Lab (formerly the Infant Language Project), which continued this line of research and currently explores a range of topics on how children learn and grow.

Golinkoff and Hirsh-Pasek later focused their research on the importance of play in the development of young children, demonstrating that preschoolers often learn best during child-directed free play and guided play with adults. In 2010, Golinkoff and Hirsh-Pasek organized the Ultimate Block Party in New York City’s Central Park and invited families to engage in child-centered activities that illustrated the value of playful learning. Over 50,000 families participated in the event, and subsequent block parties were held in Baltimore and Toronto.

Golinkoff continues to engage the community through hands-on learning events. Through her Playful Learning Landscapes project, Golinkoff works to develop learning environments outside of the traditional classroom given that children only spend 20% of their waking time at school. Golinkoff and Hirsh-Pasek have showcased the science of how the brain works in New York City’s Central Park, transformed supermarkets to heighten caregiver-child interactions, and mounted a life-sized, human game board designed to encourage STEM learning at Philadelphia’s Please Touch Children’s Museum.

Their most recent book, Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children, reached the New York Times best seller list. Golinkoff and Hirsh-Pasek assert that the development of six skills are necessary for children to thrive in a 21st century global workplace, experience personal fulfillment, and become concerned citizens. They argue that adults and organizations need these six skills as well to thrive in a world where robots are becoming increasingly prevalent. Translating scientific evidence into accessible and usable information, Golinkoff and Hirsh-Pasek show how parents and educators can nurture collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creative innovation, and confidence in children and in themselves.

“In inviting Roberta into membership, the National Academy of Education has undoubtedly recognized her unceasing curiosity, boundless energy and enthusiasm, and the impressive range of her intellectual gifts. Her contributions span a wide range of substantive topics and the continuum from deep, scholarly articles to popular press to play-filled events to give families access to research-based resources to enhance their children’s development,” said Gary T. Henry, dean of CEHD and professor in the School of Education and the Biden School. “Whether working in her Child’s Play, Learning, and Development Lab at UD or speaking to school superintendents across Delaware or keynoting at a scholarly conference, Roberta speaks science in a way that is attuned to her audience, leaving them informed and motivated to know more and act accordingly. We are proud to have her as a colleague in the School of Education at the University of Delaware.”

Golinkoff will be inducted into the organization with a ceremony at the 2021 National Academy of Education annual meeting in November.

Learn more about Golinkoff’s research and projects on her website, https://roberta-golinkoff.com/

Article by Jessica Henderson. Photo by Evan Krape.

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New study shows benefits of reading to children over video chat

So please, oh please, we beg, we pray
Go throw your TV set away
And in its place you can install
 a lovely bookshelf on the wall.
— Roald Dahl in his classic children’s book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Though published in 1964, Dahl’s words continue to reflect the attitudes and concerns of parents when it comes to balancing how much time children spend looking at books compared to a screen. Parents have grown accustomed to reports on the news of yet another academic study that heralds the benefits of books while warning against excessive screen time.

However, as the world has come to learn these past few months, pandemics make for strange bedfellows. More than ever, families are embracing some combination of books and screens during virtual story times, often with teachers, grandparents, or other caring adults reading to young children whom they can no longer see in person.

For parents worried about the long-term effects this additional screen time may have on their children, according to a new study in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, remote story time using video chat software may be just as beneficial to the intellectual and academic development of young children as reading with an adult in person. The study was co-authored by Caroline Gaudreau, doctoral student in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Delaware, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Unidel H. Rodney Sharp Chair and professor in the School of Education, and their academic colleagues at universities across the country.

“We know that lots of family members and friends are video chatting with kids right now,” said Gaudreau. “Our research suggests that reading storybooks to kids over video chat is one activity that can promote learning, especially during a pandemic.”

Screen time or Story time?

When Golinkoff, Gaudreau and their partners started collaborating on this research project back in 2018, they had no idea that a global pandemic would shut down the economy and compel families to shelter in place for weeks or months on end. For Golinkoff, this was yet another multi-year research project that promised to broaden our understanding of how well children learn using digital technology. With a staff of postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and undergraduate research assistants in the Child’s Play, Learning and Development Lab, Golinkoff usually has multiple studies underway at any given time.

For Gaudreau, who is now in the fourth year of the doctoral program in Education and Learning Sciences, this research project was an opportunity to learn from renowned scholars at UD and other academic institutions, and to research the types of research questions that made her want to attend graduate school in the first place.

“We were really interested in how kids are interacting with video chat,” said Gaudreau. “But we also weren’t sure whether they were actually getting anything out of it. So we wanted to see whether they’re learning through video chat compared to the learning they do through other types of reading as well.”

All participants were children four years of age. To determine how well children learn over video chat, the research team designed a study using three reading conditions with the same adult serving as reader: reading with a child in person; reading remotely over video chat, and a pre-recorded video of the adult reading a book. Each child participated in only one reading condition.

In all three reading conditions, the adult engaged with the children, both asking and responding to questions. To account for verbal engagement in the pre-recorded reading conditions, adults asked questions about the book and then paused to give children time to respond, similar to popular children’s shows like Dora the Explorer and Blue’s Clues.

After story time, each child participant was given an assessment on what they had learned. For example, a vocabulary assessment tested knowledge of 10 words from the book, and reading comprehension was assessed through a list of pre-determined questions about the story.

To some surprise, the study’s findings revealed no noticeable difference in learning outcomes between those children who were read to in person and those who were read to over video chat.

Then, as the research team was preparing the study for publication, the coronavirus pandemic changed the world, and they considered how to reframe the findings to reflect current events.

“With so many kids on video chat, we felt it was important to publish this research and give people some evidence that video chat actually can be effective for preschoolers,” said Gaudreau.

One of the most surprising results of the study, Gaudreau said, was that children learned vocabulary and understood the story under all three reading conditions. However, when viewing a pre-recorded video, children were less likely to respond to the reader’s questions.

“What we found is that kids in live or video chat conditions responded more to questions during book reading than children viewing pre-recorded videos,” said Gaudreau. “And we know that responding to questions like this can promote learning. So even though vocabulary and comprehension look similar across the three reading conditions, child responsiveness suggests that personal interaction with an adult likely facilitates learning.”

The study also has its limitations, one of which is age. Children younger than two and sometimes three years tend to experience more difficulty learning over video chat and so these activities may not be developmentally appropriate. Also, further research is needed to better understand the social-emotional impact of each reading condition.

What does this study mean for families? The researchers want adults to know that reading activities over video chat promote learning in preschoolers.

“There’s no reason why families should feel hesitant to have grandparents, aunts, uncles, and so forth, read to kids online because kids can benefit from it,” said Golinkoff. “Like anything, it needs to be books that are appropriate for the child’s age. If you pick a subject that they are interested in, and when you talk about what they point to and answer their questions about the book, children are going to learn from that. That’s when kids learn the most.”

If you want to participate in Golinkoff’s research – remotely, of course – please write to Elana Herbst at Herbste@udel.edu or visit the lab’s website https://www.childsplay.udel.edu/. Herbst is Golinkoff’s lab manager and they still have many ongoing studies.

Article by Jordan Howell. 

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A pioneer in early childhood and infant learning, Roberta Golinkoff wants children to play more

Did you know your baby is a genius? 

It’s a serious question, one that University of Delaware professor Roberta Michnick Golinkoff has been asking parents since she arrived on campus in 1974 and established the Infant Language Lab, since renamed the Child’s Play, Learning and Development Laboratory.

When Golinkoff looks into the eyes of infants, she doesn’t see blank slates waiting to be filled with information. Rather, she sees brilliant minds actively analyzing the world around them, decoding the sounds and rules of language. Infants are learning words by six months even though they’re not going to say anything until at least one year old. They can also identify patterns and calculate statistics.

We know this because of research methods pioneered by Golinkoff. In the lab, Golinkoff and her team of research assistants use facial monitoring to determine how well babies understand relationships between similar concepts. For example, in one method babies will be shown two images, like a boat and a shoe, which is accompanied by audio that matches only one of the images, as in, “Where is the shoe?”

“We measure whether children look longer at the shoe or at the boat. If they understand, then they should look longer at the shoe than the boat,” said Golinkoff, currently the Unidel H. Rodney Sharp Chair and Professor of Education in the School of Education, which is within the College of Education and Human Development. Golinkoff is also a professor of psychological and brain sciences and of linguistics and cognitive science in the College of Arts and Sciences. “We have used this method to study word learning in children as young as 10 months of age.”

In other words, there’s a lot going on inside their tiny heads.

“We know how children learn best,” said Golinkoff. “Children learn best when they are engaged and active, and that’s the kind of learning we have to create.”

In a time when most are standing on the shoulders of giants, Golinkoff stands apart as one of the giants. She’s the award-winning author of 16 books, including Einstein Never Used Flashcards: How Our Children Really Learn and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less, and the New York Times bestseller Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children, both with coauthor Kathy Herschel-Pasek, distinguished faculty fellow at Temple University. She’s contributed to more than 150 scientific articles and delivers lectures all over the world. Not content to publish research only to be used by other academics, Golinkoff is prolific when it comes to sharing her research with the general public, including popular press books, a blog on The Huffington Post and appearances in numerous documentaries and interviews.

Golinkoff is acknowledged among her colleagues as a leader in the field. Her research has been funded by more than $8 million in external grants, primarily from the National Science Foundation and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the independent, non-partisan statistics, research and evaluation arm of the U.S. Department of Education. She’s also a Guggenheim fellow and the recipient of the American Psychological Association’s Distinguished Service Award, among a bevy of other impressive awards too numerous to list here. 

To say that Golinkoff is busy would be an understatement. She talks fast, thinks even faster and rarely stays seated for more than a few moments. If in conversation she discovers you to be the parent of an infant or toddler, she’ll have the phone number to her Lab in-hand before the end of the next sentence. Then she’s off to teach, or to the Lab, or to her office to mentor graduate students or write another award-winning book. 

At the center of it all is her research, which has been steadily pulling back the veil to peer inside the infant mind.

Pioneer in ‘play’

Golinkoff remembered vividly a newspaper article that convinced her that something was terribly wrong with the parenting ideals being sold to the public. The article was about young children who were unprepared to enter school because they lacked the fine motor skills necessary to hold a pencil properly. Most children acquire this skill by playing with crayons and markers, but somewhere along the line, the notion of “play” joined the ranks of other disdainful four-letter-words. Rather than let their children play, parents were hiring occupational therapists to teach their children how to hold pencils.

“Children weren’t ready for school because they weren’t allowed to muck around,” said Golinkoff. “Children miss out when they don’t get to play. They can’t have every moment of their time structured.”

Unfortunately, that’s what Golinkoff saw happening all around her. 

“The race to turn children into the most talented kids in their classroom begins even earlier than the crib — it now begins in the womb,” Golinkoff wrote in Einstein Never Used Flash Cards, with co-authors Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Diane Eyer. “Magazine articles coax expectant parents to exercise during pregnancy with the promise that it will enhance their babies’ intelligence. Ads on the next page urge them to buy foreign-language CDs to play to the unborn children.”

Ever wonder if all those “educational” toys advertised on TV and online are scientifically proven to be effective? Or fancy digital apps that promise to teach your infant how to read at an unrealistically young age?

According to Golinkoff, most of these claims are just a bunch of bologna, and there’s no science to support parenting norms that overwhelm children with an emphasis on academic success. As it turns out, most kids simply don’t need all this extra stuff. They just need to play. 

Rather than sitting children at desks to have information drilled into their brains, Golinkoff recommends “guided play,” where educators or parents introduce learning activities that help to foster curiosity. This might look like an educator transforming the classroom into a grocery store where each student plays a role. The children interact, learn to negotiate social situations and develop critical thinking skills all while engaging in more physical activity. 

“How you play as a child predicts what you will become as an adult, and we have taken away many children’s opportunities to figure out what they like and who they are,” said Golinkoff. “It used to be the case that IQ ruled, but now the findings are showing that it’s not about IQ. It’s about social-emotional development, it’s about perseverance, it’s about executive function, and these are all the things that develop in the context of play.”

When Golinkoff was nominated for the Francis Alison Award, the highest faculty award at UD, letters of support claimed that she “altered our understanding of how children learn language and develop thought.” 

“Play is really good for kids,” Golinkoff said in the 2018 documentary Kindergarten: Where Play and Learning Can Meet. “It’s good for their social-emotional development, it’s good for their physical development, it’s good for their cognitive development.”

Professor and mentor

Under the direction of Golinkoff, the Child’s Play, Learning and Development Lab, located on the second floor of the Willard Hall Education Building, explores how children develop language and spatial skills. As director of the lab, Golinkoff oversees two lab coordinators, five graduate students, one postdoctoral fellow and 20 undergraduate interns. For these students, an appointment in the lab will provide them with real-world skills and experience that will make them more competitive after graduation.

One of those students is Daniela Avelar, who is pursuing a doctoral degree in education with a specialization in learning sciences. Avelar and Golinkoff are currently collaborating on an experiment tracking the emotional responses of four-year-old children during three reading scenarios: co-reading a physical book with their mothers, co-reading an e-book with their mothers or listening to an e-book independently.

The experiment is fascinating to behold. On a Wednesday afternoon near the end of spring semester, a mother and child enter the lab and are greeted by a happy lion carved out of yellow and orange construction paper. They call this the “Jungle Room,” and the kids love it. 

To measure how the child reacts to each reading scenario, multiple cameras are positioned to track the child’s facial responses while a fancy FitBit known as an E4 multi-sensor bracelet measures heart rate and skin conductivity. All of this information will allow Avelar and Golinkoff to better understand the child’s emotional response to reading with a parent, or with an iPad. It’s an impressive research project for a graduate student.

“Roberta has high expectations,” said Avelar. “I know that she cares, and she wants to help me reach my goals and be well prepared for my future endeavors. It’s a lot of responsibility, but she’s also available to help and answer questions whenever I need her. I’ve learned to be even more organized and responsible than I was before, and more proactive.”

For Hillary May, who is enrolled in the same doctoral program as Avelar, Golinkoff was the deciding factor in her choosing UD above other schools.

“I’m still not sure whether I want to go into academia or industry, but Roberta’s name is recognizable by people in both,” said May. “She is accomplished in academia, but she also recognizes the importance of disseminating information to the public. That is something I really wanted in an advisor. I want my work to directly impact the issues I’m passionate about and the people affected by those issues.”

There’s a seriousness about the students working in Golinkoff’s lab. The spots are competitive, and landing one is an honor that can launch students into impressive careers. It’s also exciting for students to contribute to a major faculty research project. Students say they are grateful for the opportunity.

Golinkoff is also grateful. She said she knows that the research coming out of the lab would not be possible without the dedicated team of students who keep the experiments running on time and according to schedule. After all, training the next generation of educators is what brought her to UD all those years ago. 

“I am so proud of our students and what they have accomplished,” said Golinkoff. “Even as students, they are stepping into leadership roles and working together for the common good. They are going to change the world, and that’s what I’m determined to help them do.”

Student opportunities in research

If undergraduate or graduate students are interested in joining Golinkoff’s team, they can get in touch with her at Roberta@udel.edu. If you are a parent and want to participate in her research, please email her lab manager Calla Pritulsky at CPritulsky@udel.edu. 

Article by Jordan Howell. Photos by Evan Krape.

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‘Smart’ technology is no substitute for a living, breathing adult, says UD researcher

In the eyes of a child who is learning how to read, touchscreen tablets and “smart” technology are no substitute for a living, breathing adult. At least, that’s according to new research by University of Delaware doctoral student Daniela Avelar.

The cognitive benefits a child experiences when reading with an adult are well known, but Avelar’s research indicates that there are emotional and physiological benefits as well.

When reading with a child, the adult assumes the roles of storyteller and teacher, both guiding the child through a narrative while also answering questions when the child becomes inquisitive or confused. A tablet may be “smart” enough to mimic some of the actions of the adult, but it is not necessarily an adequate replacement.

Avelar, who is pursuing a doctoral degree in education with a specialization in learning sciences, tracked the emotional responses of 40 four-year-old children during three reading scenarios: co-reading a physical book with their mothers, co-reading an e-book with their mothers, and listening to an e-book independently.

To understand the emotional response to reading, Avelar monitored the physiological reactions of both parents and children using E4 multi-sensor bracelets, which are made by Empatica, Inc. The bracelets are like fancy Fitbits that measure heart rate and skin conductivity. When a person is exposed to stimuli, such as reading, sweat secretion allows the skin to momentarily conduct electricity more efficiently, which is known as skin conductance responses (SCRs). Avelar is then able to translate that data to measure each child’s state of alertness. The more SCRs, the more attentive the child. Additionally, Avelar monitored facial expressions to track emotions (happy, sad, interested, angry, worried, and neutral) and asked children to rate how they feel before and after reading the book.

In recognition of Children’s Book Week, Avelar shared information about her research in a question-and-answer interview.

Q: What prompted you to pursue this research project?
Avelar: The cognitive benefits of parent-child shared book reading have been well established, but few studies have examined the emotional benefits of such interactions. Parents sometimes do not have time to read with their children, but with the availability of eBooks, parents can give a book to their children and have them listen to it, while they attend to other tasks. But, are they missing out on an opportunity to bond with their child? Are there emotional benefits of co-reading with a child?

Q: How did you test for this?
Avelar: We explored 4-year-old children’s reading experiences when they co-read a traditional book or an e-book with their mothers or when they listened to an e-book independently by measuring physiological arousal, facial affect expressions, and self-reported emotion. Reading a traditional book with a parent was associated with greater physiological reaction measured by E4 multi-sensor bracelets. Children’s facial expressions were also more positive in terms of happiness and interest when reading with a parent compared to listening to an e-book independently. These findings suggest that that reading e-books independently may cause children to miss out on valuable emotional experiences that come from shared book reading.

Q: Why is this of interest to you?
Avelar: Tablets are becoming really popular and it is crucial to understand the impact they are having on parent-child interactions and on children’s development. While there are many advantages of using tablets for reading, like using the auto-narration option and making books available for children when their parents are busy, there may be potential downfalls that should be investigated.

Q: What are the potential implications?
Avelar: This research project is important because it will highlight why sharing books is important not only for children’s cognitive, language and literacy development but also to strengthen the bond between children and parents. We’ve also studied the physiological impact reading to a child had on the parent, and determined this shared experience may also reduce stress and put the reader in a better mood.

Q: What has your work shown so far?
Avelar: So far, we have examined emotions using physiological data, facial emotion coding, and self-report and initial results suggest that reading with a parent is a different emotional experience than reading an e-book independently.  We are looking to expand our research and are recruiting families with 4-year-old monolingual or Spanish-English bilingual children to participate. The session lasts approximately 60 minutes and takes place in UD’s Child Play Lab in Willard Hall Education Building.

For more information on participating in this study, please visit the project website or email childsplaylab@gmail.com or call (302) 831-2073.

Article by Jordan Howell. Photo by Evan Krape.

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University of Delaware holds three of ten national education fellowships

The American Educational Research Association (AERA), the largest national interdisciplinary education research association, has selected 10 researchers as 2019 AERA Fellows, three of whom are University of Delaware School of Education faculty members.

Laura Desimone, College of Education and Human Development director of research and professor, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Unidel H. Rodney Sharp Chair and professor in the departments of Linguistics and Cognitive Science and Psychological and Brain Sciences, and James Hiebert, Robert J. Barkley Professor, received this honor.

The AERA Fellows program honors education researchers with notable and sustained research accomplishments. This honor recognizes excellence in research as well as scholarship that constitutes and enriches education research as an interdisciplinary field. Fellows are nominated by their peers, selected and recommended by the Fellows Committee, and approved by the AERA Council.

Roberta Golinkoff

With research partner Kathy Hirsh-Pasek of Temple University, Golinkoff has dedicated her career to groundbreaking research on language, literacy, education, and spatial reasoning in the field of developmental psychology in infants and young children. Her work has been recognized with prestigious awards from several organizations, including the Association for Psychological Science and the Society for Research in Child Development.

“Professor Golinkoff has used sensitive research methods that allow her to investigate children’s comprehension of language even before they are actively using it. She has examined children’s early conceptual knowledge and how they come to understand and construct early grammatical forms, with her work on the acquisition of verbs being of singular importance,” said David K. Dickinson, Margaret Cowan Chair in the Department of Teaching and Learning and the Associate Dean for Research and Strategic Initiatives of Peabody College at Vanderbilt University. “Through her careful attention to both verbal and nonverbal communication she has helped the field understand how parents and children come to understand each other’s intentions and words and how those linguistic dances nourish children’s long-term development.”

Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children, Golinkoff and Hirsh-Pasek’s most recent book, asserts that the development of six skills are necessary for children to thrive in a 21st century global workplace, experience personal fulfillment, and become concerned citizens. With accessible scientific evidence and illustrative examples from current school practices, Golinkoff and Hirsh-Pasek show how parents and educators can nurture collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creative innovation, and confidence in children.

Golinkoff also actively engages the community through hands-on learning events. In her Playful Learning Landscapes project, Golinkoff works to develop learning environments outside of the traditional classroom space. Through the Playful Learning Landscapes project, Golinkoff and Hirsh-Pasek have showcased the science of how the brain works in New York City’s Central Park, transformed supermarkets to heighten caregiver-child interactions, and mounted a life-sized, human game board designed to encourage STEM learning at Philadelphia’s Please Touch Children’s Museum.

Article by Jessica Henderson. Photo by Evan Krape.

Read the article on the School of Education website.

Though play-based learning is new to the Illinois school districts featured in this film, the University of Delaware has long recognized the value of play in early childhood education. To learn more about play-based learning at the University of Delaware, visit our Child’s Play, Learning and Development Lab (directed by Roberta Golinkoff) and our Early Learning Centers.

For more information about this documentary, visit the IES Regional Education Laboratory Program webpage.