Category: Articles

In the late 1960’s, researchers began to investigate how to identify children at risk for failure to thrive, abuse or neglect. In 1971, Dr. Barnard, scientific consultant to NCAST, initiated research that brought the ecology of early child development closer to the level of clinical practice by developing methods for assessing behaviors of children and parents. She identified environmental factors that are critical to a child’s well-being and demonstrated the importance of parent-child interaction as a predictor of later cognitive and language development.