Annotated Bibliography: Child Development and Early Years

This annotated bibliography presents summaries of three research papers focused on child development. The first study, based on student evaluations at the University of South Australia, examines the benefits of integrating neuroscience findings into early childhood education to address childhood stress and mental health. The second paper explores the impact of early mental health consultations on children exposed to adversity, emphasizing the importance of timely interventions and caregiver support. The third article, though not included in the provided text, is mentioned in the assignment brief, aiming to explore the use of symbolic gestures in preverbal children to assess their ability to represent emotions and concepts. Together, these papers highlight the significance of understanding early childhood development, mental health, and the role of caregivers in supporting children's well-being.

Running head: CHILD DEVELOPMENT
Child Development
Name of Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:
1.

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Diamond, A., & Whitington, V. (2015). Studying early brain development: Educators'
reports about their learning and its applications to early childhood policies and
practices. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 40(3), 11-19.
The study done in this paper is aimed at closing the gap in the literature that exists with
examining the development of a child needs to be done from a perspective of both Health and
Education to ensure that a wholesome study can be done. 10 years of literature has been
dedicated to studying children’s early development with respect to either abuse or stresses at
home or with the respect of mental illness, it has not be studied what benefits these children
could have if their caregivers were able to assess the children’s mental situation with respect
to how stresses at home may cause various types of mental illnesses. The research done in
this paper is on the basis of the student’s remarks and comments after they have studied the
length of a course called “Brain development in the Early Years”, where this course does
exactly what the aim of this research is and then asks a group of 45 students how they felt the
change in syllabus would help them in their future practice. These students were enrolled in
the University of South Australia. This change in syllabus contends towards the addition of
neurology findings into the syllabus to see how the brain activity of a child fares when they
experience stress from their external environment. The data for this study was collected
through online discussion where the students enrolled in the course would write their
evaluation of the content taught to them, and how they think that it would be beneficial for
them to use this way of integrating two principles to help a child. After the length of the
course, majority of the students had said that the course was able to strengthen their capacity
in being able to discuss the length of the child’s development to their families in order to
better assist them in helping in the process. They also believe that when parents are able to
have stable and supportive relationships with their child’s caregivers, they are better able to
understand the information that is being provided to them. Limitations of this study were

2CHILD DEVELOPMENT
found to be the fact that even though the students made their evaluation for the course saying
that it provided good information on how to engage with children’s early development, there
is no way to know for sure if these students will have the same perception during their own
practice. The authors of this paper conclude that the awareness of neuroscience will benefit
and enrich the understanding of a child’s early development, and it will also help in having
better communication channels with the parents to ensure a wholesome diagnosis of the child.
Perry, D. F., & Conners‐Burrow, N. (2016). Addressing early adversity through mental
health consultation in early childhood settings. Family Relations, 65(1), 24-36.
The aim of this study to examine what impact early mental health consultations will have
on children that are exposed to adversity at a very young age. This research also analyses
what effect early intervention may have on the young children being able to calculate their
reactions to the early stressors in their life, in a way that it won’t negatively affect their
mental health and future development. It has been identified in the study that a majority of
the population of young children have grown up in homes that can be technically
characterised as being one that exudes stressors onto the child in their early development,
most of which come from families in poverty and also households that have only a single-
parents around. The research method for this study was based on previous literature related to
these topics and the results relevant to the current topic were chosen to be evaluated. For
example, to examine the success of caregivers contribution to children, the first scenario for
which information was collected was related to treating children who are in foster care. The
next example highlighted the difference that lays between examining kids in different
situation, so the second one chosen for this study was caregivers helping children, along with
their parents, during their in-home visits. Since parents are present in the second scenario, the
authors note that it then becomes more helpful if the caregivers are able to support the
parenting skills in the family that they are visiting. Additionally, this home visit enabled the

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caregivers to be able to emphasize on the safety requirement of the home relating to the
particular child and ensures that the parents have someone who they can turn to in order to
get some answers about their child’s behaviour. The study does not state limitations of the
study that was done, but talks about some of the limitations that may arise from the whole
process of counselling a child during their early development. Some of these limitations
include the fact that the existing programs need to expand across all aspects of early mental
health care for young children because there are children present in all types of systems such
as, foster care, juvenile prison, abusive households, poverty households and much more. The
authors conclude that it is possible to make positive changes in the life of a young child
development if the caregivers are interjecting at the right time and in the most effective and
efficient way that would ensure that everyone around the child is also aware of what needs to
be done and how the child needs to be handled.