Beyond the Headlines

Expert Analysis on Early Childhood Research and News

Stay informed with the latest child development news and insights from our early childhood experts.

Check back often for timely analysis, thoughtful commentary and expert perspectives on the early childhood research and stories shaping the field today.

26 results.

Author

Amanda Hooke Perez, MSW

Senior Advocacy Manager

Babies need every voice. It doesn’t matter if you have never spoken to a policymaker or signed your name to a petition, right now, babies need your passion, your unique experience, and your support. That is powerful, and that is enough.

HHS proposes sweeping Head Start changes
K-12 Dive, August 2026
What the article says:

The Department of Health and Human Services has proposed a sweeping rewrite of Head Start’s federal standards, with big implications for the well-being of our littlest learners. The proposal would eliminate federal requirements around areas including class size and teacher-child ratios, curriculum implementation and some staffing and transportation practices.

It would also lower the cap on administrative costs from 15% to 5%, remove some restrictions on suspension and expulsion, reduce health services and family support services, and require instruction to be in English. HHS argues the changes could save $2.2 billion, largely through reduced services and staffing, and create 236,000 additional Head Start slots.

Amanda’s thoughts:

What concerns me most about these proposed changes is that we know what babies and families need to thrive — and we have research showing that these supports make a difference. Weakening the standards that help provide those supports risks moving us in the wrong direction.

Head Start and Early Head Start have never been just child care. They are CHILD DEVELOPMENT programs.

Poverty gets under the skin. The impacts on children slip in with missed meals or missed medical appointments, with the stress of a family whose bills are piling up, and with child care that is affordable enough to fit somewhere in a family’s tight budget but provides low-quality care for children. What makes Head Start and Early Head Start so powerful is their comprehensive, two-generation approach, connecting early learning with health, mental health and family supports and beginning, for some families, during pregnancy.

The research tells us those early supports matter. For example, in a landmark longitudinal study, babies and families who participated in prenatal services in Early Head Start showed the strongest patterns of impact. Why? Because prenatal care for a mom, including relationships that cut the isolation of pregnancy, impacts the health and well-being of a baby. Those prenatal services can help strengthen the people, relationships, stability and environments babies depend on from their very first days. They are one powerful protective factor among many at risk in this rewrite.

I’m also deeply concerned about what happens when we remove a strong national floor for quality of child care and early learning services. The proposal would eliminate federal requirements in areas including teacher-child ratios and class sizes, leaving more decisions to state standards. But those federal standards are what separate basic child care from child development. For every baby or toddler added to one early educator’s workload, that is another baby to keep safe, fed and diapered, another baby to build relationships with and support learning. Undermining that ratio undermines the safety, health, well-being and early learning of babies.

Rules for ratios and group sizes vary significantly from state to state and already fall short of national recommendations.

Babies need more access to Head Start and Early Head Start, for sure. But it’s unclear this rule would accomplish that—and any increase in slots cannot come at the expense of the very program we’re seeking to expand. We can’t build a child care system by dismantling the proven program that babies need.
Author

Jenifer Goldman Fraser PhD, MPH

Director, Research and Evaluation, Safe Babies

Now more than ever, context-driven program evaluation and research is critical if real world systems are to better address the developmental needs of very young children and meaningfully support their families.

Getting in the Door but Not Staying: The Limits of Mandating Referral From Child Welfare to Early Intervention
Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Science Direct, July 2026
What the study says:

An important new study examining child welfare referrals to Early Intervention in Massachusetts highlights the gap between making a referral and successfully connecting a child and their family to services.

Researchers examined the implementation of federal policy requiring infants and toddlers involved with child welfare to be referred to Part C Early Intervention (EI) services. After Massachusetts implemented the mandate, referrals to EI increased substantially, from about 10% of children to approximately 55%. There was also a three-fold increase in the proportion of child-welfare involved babies and toddlers with an Individualized Family Service Plan.

Yet the increase in referrals did not translate into greater service engagement – with the proportion of children who were assessed, determined eligible, and served declining from 46% to 30% after implementation. There was a striking gap between referral and intake, with close to 50% of children never receiving a developmental assessment, meaning their needs were never identified and addressed.

This study also found that child welfare and Early Intervention programs with shared catchment areas had stronger referral and engagement, a finding that points to the importance of simplifying and streamlining cross-system collaboration whenever possible.

Jenifer’s take:

Getting a baby in the door is not the same as getting them the help they need.

Babies and toddlers involved in the child welfare system are at high risk for developmental delays. Early Intervention is a critical service that can ameliorate the negative effects of trauma during this sensitive period of rapid brain development, but a referral is only valuable if a family engages with those services.

The more than fivefold increase in referrals shows that policy mandates matter. But the decline in service engagement shows that policy cannot stop at referral. Identifying a need should be the beginning of the response, not the end of it. We need systems that collaborate and coordinate, with clear processes and relationships that allow professionals to solve problems together, and child welfare and Early Intervention professionals who understand how to support families in accessing those services.

Because when we work with families involved with child welfare, we cannot just ask, Was a referral made? We must also ask: How can we help this family understand the benefit of this service for their child and their family? What are the barriers and challenges this family is experiencing? How can we build a trusting relationship with the family, recognizing that fear and distrust of systems can prevent their engagement? How can we support a family getting to a service, if transportation is a barrier?

This gap between referral and engagement is exactly where the Safe Babies approach steps in to make the difference.

Community Coordinators build linkages across systems so that services are better aligned and coordinated for babies, toddlers, and their families – mobilizing cross-sector collaboration and uplifting the urgency of the very young child’s developmental needs. Family Team Meetings are a powerful vehicle for engaging families in collaborative proactive planning, providing a space where parents are supported and their voices are heard, so that barriers to service engagement are identified and addressed in a timely way. Active Community Teams take what families are experiencing and look upstream, identifying recurring gaps in referral pathways, services and community infrastructure that require broader solutions. The Safe Babies Core Components intentionally connect this work for the child and their family and across community partners.

Safe Babies evaluation findings reinforce the importance of supporting family engagement beyond the referral. For example, a multisite evaluation found that 83% or more of children identified as needing developmental screenings, Early Intervention services, or intervention to strengthen the parent-child relationship received those services within 60 days or fewer. Safe Babies research has also documented stronger collaboration across systems leading to greater streamlining of services and supports.

Considered together, this new study and our Safe Babies evaluation findings raise an important question for the field: What does it take to turn policy into practices that promote child and family health and well-being?

The study also reinforces that coordination cannot depend on individual professionals simply trying harder. Cross-system work requires a well-supported and stable workforce. The researchers refer to a recent survey of Part C EI programs that surfaced the challenge of workforce shortage, in terms of both qualified EI providers and EI program staff. Many states report that Part C EI funding is insufficient to meet the demand, and service gaps can especially affect rural or underserved areas due to limited resources. States blend federal Part C funds with state appropriations, local budgets and other sources so when states and localities are strapped, EI services can be underfunded.

Policy creates an expectation. Data tells us whether families experience the benefits the policy is intended to bring about. Funding, cross-system collaboration, and relationship-based support for families help make that expectation real.

For babies and toddlers, that distinction between policy and actual benefit is especially urgent. Development is happening every day. Our measure of success should not simply be whether we opened a door, but whether children and families were able to walk through it and receive the support they needed.
Author

Rahil Briggs, PsyD

National Director, HealthySteps

Rahil is the National Director of HealthySteps, a program of ZERO TO THREE that is working to transform the promise of pediatric care by ensuring families receive the support they need during the earliest years of a child’s life. Since 2018, she has led the program’s dramatic expansion to more than 350 sites nationwide, reaching approximately 523,000 children and families as of July 2025.
HealthySteps Comprehensive Services and Preventive Care: A Medicaid Claims Analysis
Science Direct, June 2026
What the study says:

A new study of children covered by Medicaid found that HealthySteps, a team-based pediatric primary care program, helped both babies and their mothers receive more recommended preventive care during a child’s first year of life. Researchers from NYU’s Health Evaluation & Analytics Lab and the HealthySteps National Office compared families who received HealthySteps comprehensive services with a matched group of similar families and found better HealthySteps families had more access to and engagement with health care and preventive screening and services.

Key findings include:
- Children received more preventive care, including well-child visits, developmental screenings, continuity with the same pediatric provider, and receipt of Early Intervention services.
- Mothers were more likely to receive important health services, including: postpartum care, maternal depression screening, and family planning services.
- The improvements were especially strong for Black and Hispanic children, suggesting HealthySteps may help reduce gaps in access to preventive care.
Rahil’s take:

This study reinforces something we’ve known for years: HealthySteps is a whole-family model that supports children and their caregivers during the earliest and most foundational years of life.

It illustrates the power of dyadic care. Families often come to the pediatrician focused on their baby’s needs, but those visits are also an opportunity to ask, ‘How are you doing?’ This study shows that when a HealthySteps Specialist is part of the care team, mothers are more likely to receive postpartum care, depression screening, and family planning services, alongside the preventive care their child needs.

When caregivers have the support they need, they’re better able to respond to their baby’s cues, build strong relationships, and foster healthy development from the very beginning.

Pediatric primary care is the only near-universal touchpoint for families with babies and toddlers, before they enter the school system. And it’s a frequent touchpoint, with at least 12 well-child visits in the first three years of a child’s life. It’s a unique opportunity to build trust with families, to better understand and identify challenges or concerns, and to provide the guidance and resources they want and need to provide their children with the best start possible.

The findings also matter because they highlight HealthySteps’ ability to make a difference for families who too often face greater barriers to care. Every family deserves the opportunity to thrive, and this research demonstrates that bringing developmental and behavioral health expertise into pediatric primary care makes a meaningful difference by ensuring children and their families receive timely, transformative care.
Author

Allie Schneider

Policy Research Analyst

Allie Schneider brings more than six years of experience in research, advocacy and public policy focused on early childhood, family well-being and the systems that help young children thrive. She is passionate about using storytelling and data visualization to translate research into actionable policy solutions that support children and families. Before joining ZERO TO THREE, Allie served as a Research Analyst on the Early Childhood Policy team at the Center for American Progress, where she developed a child care and early learning data dashboard and conducted research on early learning, the social determinants of health, family economic stability and the impacts of extreme heat and climate change on young children. She also served as a Southern Education Leadership Initiative Fellow at the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, where she led a statewide survey of school superintendents and authored a report on district needs and experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Allie earned a BS in Cognitive Science with distinction from Yale University, and performed research in Yale’s Social Cognitive Development Lab and Infant and Child Development Labs, sparking her interest in translating developmental science into policies and practices that improve outcomes for babies, young children and families.
America’s Licensed Child Care Deserts
Center for American Progress, June 2026
What the report says:

This Center for American Progress report highlights the widespread shortage of licensed child care across the United States and the impact these shortages have on families and children’s development.

Key findings:
- Nearly half of America’s children under 6 (46%) live in a child care desert, meaning they are living in areas where there are either no licensed child care supply or at least three children for every licensed slot.
- Deserts are particularly pronounced for low- and middle-income families, Latine communities, and families living in rural areas.
- Child care supply varies widely by state and congressional district, from approximately 5% of young children living in a child care desert in Washington, D.C. to 96% of children in Alaska.
- Head Start deserts are nearly universal, and Head Start programs are especially scarce in rural communities.
- These shortages have major implications for labor force participation, household income, maternal well-being, and child development during a critical developmental window.
Allie’s take:

This report makes clear that child care deserts are not just an inconvenience for families, they are a serious barrier to healthy child development and family well-being. When families cannot find stable, high-quality child care, children miss out on an opportunity for positive early learning experiences and the consistent relationships and routines that help them feel safe, build self-regulation, and learn how to navigate the world around them.

What stands out in this report is how deeply these shortages affect specific communities. Families across income levels struggle to find care, but lower-income families are far more likely to fall through the cracks entirely and be unable to find a program at all. Majority-Hispanic and Latino communities have the highest rates of child care deserts, and this analysis highlights particularly severe shortages in rural communities that have only become more limited in recent years. And those challenges are especially acute for families with infants and toddlers, for whom care is both hardest to find and most expensive.

The reality is that families are being asked to navigate an impossible situation. Parents are often returning to work just weeks after a baby is born because the United States still lacks universal paid leave, yet in many communities there are simply no infant care slots available. In some places, waitlists are so long that families join them and wait months or even years for an opening.

For many families, accessing high-quality child care that meets their needs is even more challenging than these estimates suggest. Communities across the country continue to face provider closures, workforce shortages, rising costs, and shrinking availability, leaving families with even fewer options for stable care. Many also encounter barriers finding care that meets their specific needs, including specialized services for children with disabilities, care during nontraditional work hours, or programs that reflect their language and cultural preferences.

We know that young children develop through repetition, predictability, and responsive relationships. High-quality child care settings give children daily opportunities to practice communication, follow routines, manage emotions, and learn expectations alongside trusted adults. Those experiences are foundational to healthy development, especially during the earliest years of life, when children’s brains are developing most rapidly.

We need to stop thinking about child care as just a workforce support and recognize it for what it truly is: a public good that is a critical developmental support for our youngest generation. Investments in an affordable, accessible, high-quality child care system with diverse options that meet families’ needs and preferences are investments in children’s long-term health, learning, relationships, and future success.
Author

Mike Sherman PsyD

Director of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Strategy and Coordination

"All development occurs in the context of relationships. This applies to everything human... the development of babies, parents, professionals, practices, programs and policies.”

Patterns of Brain-Wide Associations Reflect Socioeconomics
Science, June 2026

What the report says:

A recent study published in the journal Science (Marek, et al., 2026) shows a meaningful relationship between socioeconomic factors and brain development in 9- and 10-year-old children. This analysis of more than 2,300 children demonstrated that social drivers of health (SDOH) are correlated with brain differences showing up on MRI scans.

Mike’s response:

The findings reinforce what infant and early childhood professionals have long understood: healthy brain development is shaped not only by biology, but also by the environments in which children and families live. While this study identifies measurable brain differences in children at ages 9 and 10, the roots of these outcomes begin much earlier, during pregnancy, infancy, and the first years of life.

By age 3, a child’s brain has grown to about 80% of its adult size. During this remarkable period, infants’ brains form more than 1 million new neural connections every second, laying the foundation for lifelong learning, health, and well-being. The experiences and conditions children encounter in these earliest years become biologically embedded, shaping development long before differences appear on a brain scan.

Notably, the study found that socioeconomic factors such as family income, neighborhood opportunity, and access to resources were more strongly associated with brain development than other factors examined. Researchers also identified stress and sleep as likely pathways through which these conditions affect children’s developing brains. These findings reinforce the importance of ensuring that all families have the support they need during the earliest years of life.

That is why investments during pregnancy and the first three years are so critical. Evidence-based supports like Safe Babies, HealthySteps, home visiting, early intervention, high-quality child care, paid family leave, and infant and early childhood mental health services help families thrive during the years that matter most.

Because the social and economic conditions that influence brain development are shaped by public policy, policymakers at local, state, and federal levels have a powerful opportunity to act. Continued investments in programs such as Medicaid, Early Head Start, perinatal, maternal mental health initiatives, and paid family leave can help ensure families have the resources they need during the most developmentally sensitive years of life.

Infancy and early childhood is not simply a social issue; it is the most critical period for building the foundation of future educational success, economic productivity, and community well-being—the very foundations of a healthy and productive society.
Author

Rahil D. Briggs, PsyD

National Director, HealthySteps

"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men." - Frederick Douglass

Framework for Approaching Healthy Mental and Emotional Development in Pediatrics: Clinical Report
American Academy of Pediatrics, April 2026
What the report says:

This new American Academy of Pediatrics’ clinical report explains why mental and emotional health should be treated as a core aspect of pediatric care, not something addressed only after a diagnosis or crisis occurs. The report emphasizes that healthy mental and emotional development is just as essential as physical health, and that strong, supportive relationships are central to helping children thrive.

It outlines a “stepped” approach that includes promoting wellness, identifying concerns early, partnering with families, and connecting children to additional supports when needed. The report was also recently highlighted in Parents magazine, which focused on the importance of supporting children’s emotional well-being from the start.

Rahil’s response:

The report clearly recognizes that healthy mental and emotional development is foundational to overall child health, not separate from it. That is core to the HealthySteps model, where support for a child’s social-emotional development begins from birth and is woven directly into pediatric primary care, alongside support for physical and cognitive development.

The report’s focus on prevention and early support is especially important. It is a common misconception that babies and toddlers are resilient, in part because they cannot clearly express how they are feeling. But decades of research tell us that this is actually the most important time to get it right, to put in place family supports that foster healthy development and set children up for success.

We also appreciate the report’s emphasis on identifying concerns along a continuum and on partnering closely with families—and that it cites HealthySteps as an example of a program that does so successfully. As a team-based approach, HealthySteps Specialists work alongside pediatric providers to talk with families about child development, behavior, parenting, and early learning during well-child visits and beyond, helping normalize conversations about emotional well-being from the very beginning. Parents often say that, with HealthySteps, they’re not alone.

It also means paying attention not only to more serious concerns, but to the very earliest signs, or “light pink flags,” that a child or family may need additional support. It means building trusted relationships with families over time, creating space for honest conversations, and connecting families with resources when needed.

Importantly, this kind of early, relationship-based support is not only better for children and families, it is also cost-effective. When families can access guidance, screening, and support early through team-based pediatric primary care, concerns can often be addressed before they become more serious and more expensive to treat later on.

Over the past three decades, HealthySteps has expanded to almost 400 pediatric practice sites across the country, reaching over half a million children and their families. That reach reflects a growing recognition that supporting children’s mental and emotional health early, through trusted relationships and everyday care and stronger systems that support them, helps improve outcomes for children and families—now and into the future.
Author

Sarah LeMoine

Senior Director, Professional Innovations

"An essential way to improve the quality of life for babies is to support the adults in their lives, who in turn, help them thrive."

Early Deception Survey (EDS): Children Aged 10–47 months
Science Direct, May 2026
What the survey says:

Through a parent-report tool designed to track how deceptive behaviors emerge in children from infancy through age 3, researchers found that many forms of simple deception, such as pretending not to hear, hiding things, denial, or making excuses, appeared much earlier than previously thought, with some parents reporting these behaviors as early as 8 to 10 months.

Across more than 700 children, the study found that deception develops gradually alongside social, language, and cognitive growth, and that most children demonstrated at least one deceptive behavior by around 2 years old. The researchers emphasize that these behaviors are a normal part of development and may reflect children learning social rules, testing boundaries, and developing early communication and self-regulation skills.

Sarah’s take:

This is the kind of finding that can feel surprising, even unsettling. But a closer look points to something familiar to anyone who spends time with babies and toddlers: young children are constantly testing how the world works, especially when it comes to people.

In these early years, children are paying close attention to patterns. They notice what happens when they hide an object, avoid a request, or give an unexpected response. These moments are less about intent and more about experimentation. Children are gathering information about cause and effect in social situations.

Researchers also found that these behaviors become more varied over time, tracking alongside growth in language, memory, and social understanding. A toddler who shakes their head “no” after breaking a rule is working with a very different set of skills than a preschooler who can invent a more elaborate explanation. The developmental path matters.

For families and caregivers, this reframes what can otherwise feel like challenging behavior. A child who insists “I didn’t do it” or suddenly seems not to hear a request is engaging in a kind of problem-solving. They are trying out strategies to manage a situation, often in the simplest way available to them.

These moments also sit squarely in the context of relationships. Children learn how to communicate, respond, and repair through repeated interactions with the adults in their lives. The study points to connections between what children experience and what they come to understand, reinforcing what we already know, that development does not happen in isolation.

There is no single script for how to respond, and approaches will vary across families and cultures. Still, a few principles hold up across contexts. Staying calm helps keep the focus on learning. Naming what you observe can ground the interaction in reality. Inviting children into problem-solving builds skills they will use later.

For example, when a child denies eating the cookie, a response might sound like, “I see crumbs on your hands. Let’s clean up and figure out what happened.” This keeps the interaction anchored in connection rather than escalation.

Over time, these everyday exchanges shape how children understand honesty, trust, and responsibility. The goal is not to eliminate these behaviors, but to guide children through them in ways that support their growing awareness of others.

The headline may focus on early “deception.” The deeper takeaway is about development in motion. These small, often frustrating moments are part of how children learn to navigate a complex social world, one interaction at a time. And that is the real story worth paying attention to.
Author

Rebecca Parlakian

Senior Director of Programs

By putting relationships at the heart of our work, we acknowledge the profound effect that others have on us (and that we have on others).

Digital Ecosystems, Children, and Adolescents: Technical Report
American Academy of Pediatrics, March 2026

What the report says:

The American Academy of Pediatrics’ report on digital ecosystems describes how today’s media environment is intentionally designed to capture and sustain user attention, with implications that begin early in childhood. The report emphasizes that children are growing up in a digital context shaped by algorithm-driven, highly engaging, and often fast-paced content that can influence attention, behavior, and development.

For young children, whose cognitive and self-regulation systems are still developing, this environment can make it harder to disengage from screens, sustain attention in non-digital contexts, and build foundational skills through real-world interaction. The report underscores that early and frequent exposure to these design features, especially without adult support, may shape habits, expectations, and developmental pathways over time.

Socioecological model of factors contributing to children’s digital media experiences.

Rebecca’s thoughts:

This research reinforces something we have long understood about early childhood development. Young children learn best through relationships. Screens can be a tool, but they are not a substitute for the back-and-forth interactions that build language, thinking, and emotional skills in the earliest years.

Most importantly, children need opportunities to practice resilience as they encounter normal stressors in daily life. It’s the block tower that fell, it’s waiting in line with a parent at the supermarket, it’s disappointment that the bakery is out of donuts with sprinkles on top. If children consistently use screen media to cope with these everyday annoyances and stressors, they may not get the practice they need to develop skills like grit, resilience, and regulation that they’ll need later on in school and life.

What is especially striking is taking a moment to consider not just how much media young children are using, but what kind. Much of children’s media time is now spent with short-form entertainment content which is increasingly consumed on mobile devices, often used alone or as part of daily routines. That matters. Research tells us that both the media content and how it’s delivered will shape child outcomes. Educational content, used together with a caregiver, can support learning. But fast-paced, short-form entertainment (noneducational) media used solo does not offer those same benefits. In fact, short-form media (like “AI slop”) can be of shockingly low quality and expose children to content and ads that are not age-appropriate at best, and disturbing or harmful at worst. Overall, high screen use can easily crowd out the kinds of play and interaction that young children need most.

As Dr. Jenny Radesky explains in our recent article, the attention economy adds an important layer to this conversation. Many of today’s digital experiences are designed to capture and hold attention so that viewers stay with a video long enough to receive an ad. The goal is not to support development. Young children are specifically vulnerable to this type of content. Their brains are wiring based on early experiences. If they are consistently exposed to short-form media content, that can mean more fragmented attention, more difficulty with self-regulation, and fewer opportunities for sustained, meaningful interaction. Supporting families today means helping them navigate this environment with intention and balance, while keeping relationships at the center of early development.
Author

Katrina Coburn

Senior Manager of State Policy at ZERO TO THREE

Katrina supports states in advancing policies that promote the healthy development and well-being of infants and toddlers. She provides technical assistance and guidance to state leaders and advocates, with a focus on strengthening systems, building equitable partnerships, and translating policy into meaningful impact for young children and their families.

An Uneven Start 2026: Where Child Care Funding Falls Short—And Why It Matters
Child Care Aware of America, March 2026
What the report says:

Child care and early learning funding across the U.S. is highly uneven and still not enough, with states investing anywhere from less than $500 to more than $5,000 per child, and some contributing nothing beyond minimum federal requirements.

While some states have increased funding, the average is only about $1,700 per child, far below what is needed and still lower than K–12 spending levels. At the same time, families face average child care costs of over $13,000 per year, and the lack of affordable care costs the U.S. economy an estimated $172 billion annually.

Overall, the report shows a system under strain and calls for stronger, more coordinated public investment to better support children, families, and the workforce.

Katrina’s take:

The findings in this report (as well as recent analysis from First Focus on Children’s Babies in the Budget and Center for Early Learning Funding Equity’s Shortchanged Project) reinforce what families, providers, and communities have been experiencing for years: our early care and education system is not just underfunded, it is structurally imbalanced. When investment levels vary so widely by state, children’s access to quality care and learning depends more on geography than need, which is fundamentally inequitable.

At the same time, the fragmentation across our early care and learning systems makes these challenges even harder to address. Funding streams are spread across agencies, and connections to health, family supports, and other services are often limited. This not only complicates equitable service delivery, it also makes it difficult to collect and interpret clear data on funding and outcomes. Greater integration across systems, and stronger connections to comprehensive services, are essential to ensure all babies and families receive the quality experiences they deserve.

The United States is also out of step globally. Compared to peer nations, we invest far less in babies and young children, not only in early care and learning, but in the broader systems that support family well-being, including health and economic stability. This report makes clear that the consequences of that underinvestment show up everywhere: in high costs for families, low wages for educators, and limited access to quality care.

What is particularly striking is that even the highest levels of state investment in early childhood still fall below what most states spend on K–12 education. That gap sends a clear signal about our priorities, despite decades of research showing that the earliest years are the most critical for development and long-term outcomes.

As policymakers make decisions during federal and state budget cycles, this is a pivotal moment. Flat funding or cuts will only deepen the existing cracks in the system. Instead, we should be thinking about how to make sustained, strategic investments that lower costs for families, stabilize the workforce, and expand access to quality care.

Babies and young children cannot wait. If we are serious about strengthening our economy and supporting families, early care and education must be treated as essential infrastructure and funded accordingly.
Author

Katrina Macasaet

Senior PD Manager, Professional Innovations

The everyday routines of early childhood educators are like pebbles dropped into still water – seemingly small yet creating boundless ripples of learning and possibility that shape the lives of young children.
New Research on Babies’ Understanding of Others’ Motor Actions
I-LABS, March 2026
About the study:

Researchers studied 12-month-old infants to understand whether babies use their own motor systems to interpret other people’s actions. Infants watched an adult reach toward objects using either a whole hand grasp or a precision finger grasp. In one condition, babies’ hands were free, and in another, their fingers were gently constrained to limit certain grasping movements.

The researchers measured where infants looked to see whether they anticipated the adult’s goal. They found that limiting babies’ hand movements changed how they processed the action, particularly for infants with stronger fine motor skills. The findings suggest that infants use their own motor experiences to help make sense of what they see others do.

Katrina’s take:

This research suggests that infants use their own motor systems as additional data to help make sense of what they see others do.

It reinforces several key principles about early brain development:
- Learning is a physical activity just as much as it is a mental process. Babies do not learn only through observation. They learn through movement and action.
- Practicing fine motor skills supports social understanding. Skills like grasping, pinching and manipulating small objects help babies interpret the goal of other people’s actions.
- Gross motor development lays the foundation and supports other developmental domains. Sitting, reaching, crawling and coordinated arm movements expand babies’ opportunities to explore, observe, and practice goal directed action.
- Developmental domains are interconnected. Movement, perception, cognition and social understanding are building together.
- Motor development is not separate from brain development. It is one of the engines that drives it.
Ideas for making everyday routines powerful brain building opportunities:
- During meals, offer opportunity for babies to practice self-feeding. It strengthens fine motor coordination while also strengthening attention and problem solving skills.
- During floor play, offer toys or materials just beyond a baby’s reach to encourage reaching, rolling, crawling, and pulling up. Supporting large muscle development for gross motor skills that expands babies’ ability to engage with people and objects.
- Offering toys of different sizes and textures builds both fine motor control and curiosity.
- Slowing down. Intentionally demonstrating your own actions help babies see how hand shapes match objects and goals.
- Narrating what you are doing connects movement to language and meaning.
- Simple moments such as stacking blocks, picking up cereal pieces, climbing onto a cushion, or turning the pages of a book are strengthening both the body and the brain.
The takeaway is clear. Supporting both gross and fine motor development is not just about physical milestones. It strengthens the neural systems that help babies understand others, anticipate actions, and make sense of their social world.
Author

Sarah LeMoine

Senior Director, Professional Innovations

"An essential way to improve the quality of life for babies is to support the adults in their lives, who in turn, help them thrive."

Early Childhood Education Workforce Surveys

NAEYC | February 2026

What the surveys say:

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) workforce survey of early childhood educators highlights a system under mounting financial and operational strain. Rising operating costs are driving tuition increases and contributing to program instability, even as a majority of leaders reported under-enrollment and greater family financial insecurity.

2,741 program leaders were asked: “Over the past year have the following facility and staff-related aspects of your program increased, decreased or stayed the same?” “I don’t know” and “N/A” responses not include, thus some rows do not sum to 100%.

These pressures are not limited to center-based programs. The National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC) Annual Survey reports that 71 percent of family child care providers work 50 or more hours per week, nearly half work more than 60 hours, and 35 percent report take-home pay below $10 per hour after expenses, underscoring the fragile business model across settings.

In 2025, a large share of respondents report working well beyond standard fulltime hours each week.

While more than half of program leaders in NAEYC’s survey raised wages in 2025, attention to compensation has not been sufficient to stem staff turnover or ease recruitment challenges. Nearly a quarter (22 percent) of educators reported they are considering leaving the field within the next year, with many citing better wages and benefits as key factors.

The NAFCC report further notes that most family child care providers operate as sole proprietors without access to employer-sponsored health insurance, paid leave, or retirement benefits, and that the workforce skews older, raising additional concerns about long-term supply and succession.

This chart pulls from two survey questions directed at program leaders. “Over the past year, have the following staff-related aspects of your program increased, decreased, or stayed the same?” and “Compared to this time last year, have you experienced more or less difficulty with any of the following aspects of your program?”

Program leaders also reported public funding stagnating or declining relative to need, and more than half of leaders reported that families had withdrawn due to lost subsidies or being unable to afford tuition. Another 57 percent said their trust in institutions has dropped over the last year. Subsidy rates frequently fail to cover the true cost of delivering quality care, forcing program leaders into difficult tradeoffs that affect both program sustainability and family affordability.

Sarah’s take:

This data reflects a system under sustained structural strain. Programs are absorbing higher operating costs without a corresponding increase in reliable public investment. When leaders raise tuition to remain viable, families struggle to afford care, enrollment becomes unstable, and workforce challenges intensify. Nearly one in four educators considering leaving the field is not simply a workforce issue. It is a warning about overall system stability. Family child care programs report similar pressures, including razor thin margins, fluctuating enrollment, and difficulty covering basic expenses despite long hours. Many communities are seeing more programs close than open, further limiting supply.

From a policy standpoint, this reinforces a long-standing reality: the child care system cannot, on its own, deliver affordability for families, fair compensation for educators, and high-quality experiences for children. Without sustained public investment aligned to the true cost of quality, programs will remain fragile and educator attrition will continue. Family child care educators, many operating as sole proprietors without benefits or administrative infrastructure, face even greater vulnerability. Strengthening compensation strategies, reforming subsidy rates using cost-of-quality methodologies, and committing to predictable, long-term funding are essential to building a stable and equitable system.

These surveys confirm what educators and leaders have navigated for years: a workforce model stretched beyond sustainable limits. Staffing shortages mean remaining teachers absorb additional responsibilities while managing their own financial uncertainty. Leaders face constant tradeoffs between affordability, compensation, and quality within a financing structure not designed for stability. In family child care, business risk and household income are directly linked, so enrollment dips or delayed subsidies immediately affect family stability.

Over time, this strain accelerates burnout and pushes committed educators out of the profession. Burnout is not a resilience gap. It is a system design failure. If we want stability for children and families, we must build a financing structure that treats early educators as professionals, with compensation and supports aligned to the true cost and value of their work.
Author

Mike Sherman PsyD

Director of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Strategy and Coordination

"All development occurs in the context of relationships. This applies to everything human... the development of babies, parents, professionals, practices, programs and policies.”

Childhood Trauma Doesn’t Have to Be a Lifelong Curse

New York Times | January 2026

What the article says:

While older research such as the landmark 1998 ACE study showed that childhood trauma can have significant long-term health and mental health consequences, more recent science and community practice highlight that trauma does not inevitably define a child’s life. Researchers and practitioners are identifying ways to mitigate the harmful effects of early adversity by fostering positive relationships, supportive environments, and resilience-building experiences. These approaches, now being applied by educators, health care providers, and community groups, shift the focus from trauma as a lifelong burden to trauma as a challenge that can be addressed through intentional support and healing-oriented interventions.

Mike’s take:

This article captures an important evolution in the science. The 1998 Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study showed a clear dose-response relationship between early adversity and later risks such as heart disease, depression, and substance use. We now understand much more about the biology behind that link, including how chronic stress can disrupt developing brain architecture and alter stress-response systems when children lack consistent, buffering relationships.

At the same time, newer research makes clear that adversity is not destiny. The same science that shows how toxic stress can harm development also shows how protective relationships can buffer those effects. Stable, responsive caregiving helps regulate a child’s stress response system, supports healthy brain development, and reduces long-term risk. Studies also demonstrate that positive childhood experiences, trauma-informed early education, and accessible infant and early childhood mental health services can strengthen resilience and improve outcomes.

At ZERO TO THREE, we emphasize this dual message: early adversity matters, and early relationships matter just as much. When policies and systems invest in supporting parents, expanding access to high-quality early care, and embedding trauma-responsive practices in pediatric and community settings, we are not just responding to trauma, we are actively shaping healthier developmental trajectories. The science gives us both urgency and hope.