Growing Up with NIH:
An Overview of the CFRS Longitudinal Study
CONTENTS
- Dedication
- Contact Information
- I. Background and Introduction
- II. Study Protocol and Research Aims
- III. Reports of Findings
DEDICATION
This summary of the longitudinal research being conducted by Child & Family Research, N.I.C.H.D., N.I.H., is dedicated to the many hundreds of families who have participated in the study. Without their interest and investment of time, this work could not be done. Many of you have participated at repeated intervals, and over a period of 18 years! Your perseverance and belief in the ultimate value of this research has been critical to our success. Through your participation, you have made genuine contributions to science. You have generously adjusted schedules and plans to accommodate us, and have welcomed us into your homes. Most importantly, you have shared yourselves - your family life, personal beliefs and behaviors. Thank you for allowing us to learn from you in many different ways. We hope that it has been interesting and fun for you. It surely has been and continues to be for us. Thank you. We are eternally grateful!
This booklet is also dedicated to the dozens of staff members who have coded the videotapes and scored the questionnaires collected throughout the course of the study. This has been a monumental job, requiring tens of thousands of hours of exacting work. Your perseverance, tenacity, and commitment to reaping the riches of the raw data have been remarkable. The job of "translating" videotaped interaction sequences and written responses into the numerical data that can be analyzed to reveal patterns of functioning in families is difficult work that occurs in the research "trenches." Only when that work is done can we move to the "high ground" of understanding. Thanks to all who have contributed to this effort and continue to do so. You're the best!
And, finally, a special thank you to Marianne Heslington for her charming cover design. It captures the spirit of the work in a special way!
CONTACT INFORMATION
To share comments or request further information, please contact:
Joan Suwalsky, Research Psychologist
Child and Family Research (C.F.R.), N.I.C.H.D., N.I.H.
Rockledge I, Suite 8030
6705 Rockledge Drive
Bethesda, MD 20892-7971
Phone: 301-496-6876
FAX: 301-496-2766
Email: suwalskj@mail.nih.gov
I. Background and Introduction
A. What are the N.I.H. and the N.I.C.H.D.?
The National Institutes of Health (N.I.H.) is a federally-funded research institution, located in Bethesda, MD. It is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). The N.I.H. conducts basic research in the biomedical field. It is made up of 27 different Institutes, each of which focuses on a specific area of health.
One of these Institutes is the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (N.I.C.H.D.) which was founded in 1962. The N.I.C.H.D. focuses on issues affecting the growth and development of children, starting from conception and continuing throughout childhood and adolescence.
The N.I.C.H.D. studies many different facets of children's health---including the factors in a child's life and environment that influence how s/he thrives. For the past four decades, the N.I.C.H.D. has supported research aimed at bettering the lives of children in the United States, and by extension, children and families around the world. We are proud to be a part of this long-standing and significant effort.
For more information, please visit these websites:
Nat'l Inst. of Child Health and Human Development: http://www.nichd.nih.gov/
National Institutes of Health (N.I.H.): http://www.nih.gov/
U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services (DHHS): http://www.os.dhhs.gov/
B. What is the C.F.R.?
Each Institute at the N.I.H. is subdivided into research groups called Branches. Each Branch is further divided into laboratories. Our group, Child and Family Research (C.F.R.), with which you have been involved, is located in a Branch called the Laboratory of Comparative Ethology (LCE). Comparative ethology means the study of behavior across different species of animals. The LCE has a total of three laboratories: two of which study primates, and our laboratory, which studies human families.
The staff of the C.F.R. is made up of developmental and clinical scientists. Dr. Marc H. Bornstein heads up the group of approximately 30 scientists, who range from those at the doctoral level to those who have just graduated from college. All are trained in the study of children's behavior, with a special emphasis on how to conduct research studies. Many of the younger scientists leave the laboratory to continue their graduate education in this field after spending a year or two with us. Other, more senior members have been with the laboratory since it was founded in 1987.
Dr. Bornstein received his doctorate in psychology from Yale University. Before coming to N.I.H. in 1987, he taught at Princeton University and New York University. He is a world-renowned expert in the study of parenting and child development across cultures. He has published hundreds of research articles in the field's leading journals, collaborated on approximately 100 book chapters, and authored or edited dozens of books including advanced textbooks for developmental science and his five-volume Handbook of Parenting. He has served on the editorial boards of dozens of journals and has earned numerous honors and appointments to leadership positions in the field.
Visit Child and Family Research (C.F.R.) online at: http://www.cfr.nichd.nih.gov
C. What research does the C.F.R. conduct?
The fact that the C.F.R. has existed for 17 years, with stability of leadership, consistency of staff, and continuity of funding greatly enhances our ability to conduct meaningful research. The overall goals of research in the C.F.R. are to describe, analyze, and assess the capabilities and proclivities of developing children. These include: genetic characteristics; physiological functioning; perceptual and cognitive abilities; emotional, social, and interactional styles; the nature and consequences for children and parents of family development; and children's exposure to and interactions with their physical surroundings.
Our project designs are cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental as well as intra-cultural and cross-cultural. It is a relatively rare opportunity to be able to follow the same children for many years (longitudinal design). But this type of research is very valuable because it helps us understand how children grow and families change over time.
Studies that are carried out at one time or one age (cross-sectional design) also have enormous value, as do studies that are experimental in nature. In an experimental design, certain variables that are being studied are systematically introduced to the participants and responses to them are measured and compared. By contrast, cross-sectional and longitudinal studies often investigate the experiences of children and families as they naturally occur, without adding experimental manipulations.
Being able to conduct all types of research is a major strength of our program. Often, what is learned in one type of study enhances or builds on the findings in another type. For example, cross-sectional or longitudinal studies of babies in two types of daycare might identify ways in which the two types of experience differ. To better understand these observed differences, an experimental study might then be designed to introduce those factors to babies in a controlled fashion, so that their impact can be more precisely measured.
II. Study Protocol and Research Aims
A. What is the longitudinal study of child and adolescent development?
Although there are several different lines of research being carried out in the C.F.R., the one that your family has been involved in is a longitudinal study of normative development in children and families. We are studying the course of development from infancy through adolescence in children who were healthy at birth and who were born into intact families. To date, the general design of this study has included data collection in infancy (5 months), toddlerhood (20 months), the preschool period (48 months), childhood (10 years), and early adolescence (14 years). Follow-up data collections in late adolescence (at the time of graduation from high school) and early adulthood (age 20) are planned. Notably, this study is considered one of the most extensive longitudinal and cross-cultural data collections of child development ever conducted.
B. Who are the families in this study?
Over 1200 families in the United States and in 16 foreign countries (Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, England, France, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Norway, Peru, South Korea) have participated, at various ages, in this study. The participants from each country differ, depending on the research questions being addressed in each one. For example, families living in the city and on the kibbutz were recruited in Israel. In Belgium, families where children were growing up speaking one versus two languages were selected. In the United States, we recruited families with firstborns and secondborns, adoptive families, adolescent mothers, and mothers using different types of childcare, among others. We have also enrolled families in the U.S. representing different immigrant groups including Japanese American, Korean American, and families from several South American countries.
Importantly, all participants are volunteers---who respond to recruitment efforts and then decide that they want to enroll. This is desirable because it means that everyone who participates does so willingly, without any pressure, because they are interested in the type of knowledge that our research will yield. It also means, however, that none of our samples of families is completely representative of all families. This "self-selection" poses some limitations on how we can generalize from the findings of our studies. We must carefully describe our groups of families so that the consumers of our research know exactly who contributed information to each study. We can never claim that the patterns of development that we identify across our samples will apply to all children and families everywhere. This same restriction applies to most research in the field of child development; still, studies using "self-selected" samples make vital contributions to the field.
In any scientific area, knowledge is gathered incrementally, over time and across studies. No single investigation yields final answers. It is when multiple studies, carried out with different groups of families, yield similar (convergent) results, that a valid and reliable "big picture" begins to emerge. Our work, like that of scientists around the world, contributes to a larger---and constantly growing-body of knowledge and understanding about all facets of family life. A single study, which can take a very long time to do, is just a tiny piece of the puzzle. Individual studies (puzzle pieces) that are well-constructed, defined, and more differentiated, come together to reveal a clearer final picture. These careful, well-executed studies are harder and more time-consuming to conduct. Scientific research is an ongoing process; it is never complete. This is at once the frustration, the challenge, and the ultimate reward of our work.
C. What do we measure and how do we measure it?
In each cultural sample, children were seen at the same ages, and comparable information was collected. This allows us to study families within each culture, but we also to compare families across cultures.
Infancy: 5 Months
In infancy, we conducted a naturalistic home observation of mother and infant in the home setting. Visits were an hour in length, and mothers were asked to go about their normal routine during that time. Typically, no one else was present during the visit. Our goal was to capture a "snapshot" of the mother-infant dyad and of the typical daily circumstances in which the baby was being reared. Even though the activities of individual mothers and babies varied widely, for each family the activities were typical; they were daily events in familiar surroundings. As a result, we are confident that the behavior that we observed was truly representative.
Toddlerhood: 20 Months
When the infants were toddlers, we again visited the family in the home setting. We attempted to maximize the probability that the babies would act naturally by seeing them in their familiar environment, but we wanted to be sure to collect comparable information from all families, so we conducted a more standardized visit, (i.e., it was the same for everyone rather than being naturalistic). We assessed symbolic functioning in the children in the areas of language development and play.
In both areas, children gradually develop the ability to deal with abstractions. In language, words and their combinations are symbols that take on meaning and are central to communication, thinking, and reasoning. In play, children move from exploratory behavior to pretense play and, in this way, manipulate ideas and emotions through their play. Both areas are important windows on how children's minds are developing.
Preschool Period: 48 Months
At age 4, we broadened our data collection to include measures of a variety of aptitudes that all children possess to varying degrees. The notion of "multiple intelligences" was proposed by Dr. Howard Gardner at Harvard University. According to this theory, successful human functioning depends on a person contributing to the needs of the social group in which he or she is living. All people have strengths, and these areas of skill vary considerably among individuals.
Instead of thinking of "intelligence" as that which is measured by traditional I.Q. tests, Dr. Gardner proposed that there are a number of different types of intelligence, all of which are equally important for people's productivity, success, and well-being. These are: linguistic intelligence (writer, orator, journalist), logical mathematical intelligence (scientist, mathematician), musical intelligence (singer, violinist), spatial intelligence (geographer, surgeon, architect), bodily-kinesthetic intelligence (athlete, dancer, craftsman), interpersonal intelligence (teacher, politician, clergy), intrapersonal intelligence (self-awareness), and naturalist intelligence (biologist, farmer, fisherman). During a visit to our laboratory, we assessed a variety of these areas of functioning in the 4-year-old children.
Childhood: 10 Years
The next data collection occurred when the children were 10 years old. The middle childhood years (ages 6-12) are a time of major transition in human development which results from both maturation and socially prescribed transitions. This can be seen in several realms including: cognitive competence and the growth of knowledge; social roles and relationships; increased vulnerability to stress; altered functions of the self; and self-regulation and social responsibility.
In addition to studying the child's language and cognitive abilities at this age, we added a wider variety of measures of social-emotional functioning, including: the child's attachment to both parents; behavioral adjustment; coping skills; capacities for empathy, emotional expressiveness, and prosocial behavior; relationships with peers; relationships with siblings; self-esteem; knowledge of sex typing; and temperament. Various aspects of the child's immediate social environment--marital adjustment, parenting behavior, sibling relationships, and overall family functioning-were also assessed. In addition to mothers and children, fathers and school-teachers were invited to participate, greatly enriching our view of the child's world.
Early Adolescence: 14 Years
The transition to adolescence constitutes another significant milestone in the development of children, evident in nearly all domains of functioning. Early adolescence is a time for forging new relationships with peers, defining and testing the limits of intimate relationships both with peers and with parents and siblings, and seeking to understand one's individual identity in the midst of these changing relationships.
During this period of development, changes in one domain are often associated with changes in one or more other domains. In the cognitive domain, thought processes and abilities undergo important structural changes as children approach the age of fourteen. It is during this time that children become capable of the more complex, abstract reasoning that constitutes the foundation of adult cognition.
At the same time, the body undergoes significant biological maturation with the onset of puberty beginning around age ten and accelerating throughout early adolescence. The combination of these developmental changes--the cognitive shift to abstraction and the physical growth spurts associated with puberty--has implications for children's social and emotional development during this period.
At age 14, the teen and mother visited our laboratory for one visit. They were asked to work on several tasks--together on some, independently on others-- and were also interviewed. Also, the teens, mothers,and fathers all completed questionnaires for us; these data forms assessed teen functioning, parent-child relationships, parental attitudes, and family functioning. By this stage, data collection had become very wide-reaching indeed!
Late Adolescence: High School Graduation
Late adolescence constitutes another significant period in development evident in nearly all domains of functioning. In addition to the continued growth and development of cognitive abilities and social networks, the late teen years mark the end of childhood proper as children finish their secondary school education and transition out of the home into the larger world. This period of "launching" is significant for all members of the family, and all relationships within the family undergo change and adjustment. Since a major goal of parenting and of children's development is to prepare the youngster for the transition to autonomous functioning, the data that have been collected (in infancy, toddlerhood, the preschool years, middle childhood, and early adolescence) in this longitudinal study will contribute to a rich understanding of the factors that are associated with successful transitions.
Information is collected from teen, mother, and father during the spring of the year that the teen graduates from high school. All data collection takes place online through a website that links with the NICHD database. Teens complete 4 sets of questionnaires, while mother and father each complete 2 sets, working from the comfort of their own homes.
D. What are we learning?
As you can see, this longitudinal, cross-cultural study is very extensive, and it is generating huge amounts of information. After a family is visited at a given point in time, the information collected from it must be "reduced," meaning that it must be coded, entered into the computer, organized, checked for missing answers, etc. Until all of this cleansing of the data occurs, the information cannot be submitted to statistical analysis.
Furthermore, data collected at a given point in time cannot be analyzed until all of the families in the study have been seen at that age. Once complete data from all participants at a given age was collected and reduced, statistical analysis occurs, leading to the writing and publication of a scientific report. Analysis can take months and the formal publication process can take up to a year. All of this is to say that there can be a very long hiatus between when a given family is seen and the publication of study results. As a particularly extreme example of how labor-intensive this study has been, each hour-long videotape of mother and infant at 5 months was coded 11 times using multiple behavioral indices. We estimate that coding of the U.S. sample alone took over 10,000 hours!
We are going to send you a series of reports, starting with the one included with this mailing, entitled "Mothers and Infants Around the World." These reports will summarize analyses that have been published, presented at professional meetings, or are in the process of being submitted for publication. Each report will contain references to the publications so that, if you wish, you can read those as well. We will include a coupon with each report that you can mail back to us for reprints if you wish to receive them. We hope, in this way, that we can effectively share with you the richness of the results of this very large investigation. It is our way of saying thank you, once again, for the invaluable role that your family has played in our work.
E. Whom does this study benefit and how?
The results of studies that are carried out at the National Institutes of Health belong to the American public, since N.I.H. is a federally funded institution. Though all research at N.I.H. is intended to benefit the public, the reports of studies are not typically shared with the public directly. Rather, they are shared with the scientific, medical, and academic communities through published reports, books, teaching, and talks given at scientific meetings. In this way, the knowledge gained from individual investigations flows into the general fund of knowledge in many fields.
The reports from this particular study that you have been participating in are usually published in highly respected journals in our field, such as Child Development, Developmental Psychology, and Parenting: Science and Practice. The results may also be published as monographs, books, or chapters in books designed for doctors, researchers, educators, or college and graduate students. The scientists in our laboratory also attend professional meetings every year, where we present our research to colleagues from across the United States and around the world.
So how does this information finally benefit the American public directly? Sometimes scientists at N.I.H. are directly involved in the public dissemination of information. Occasionally, for example, they are called to testify before Congress on issues related to their area of expertise. Some scientists are also involved in creating programs that attempt to translate the findings from research into programs for children and parents (for example, Head Start). Scientists are also routinely interviewed by newspapers, magazines, and television stations that are preparing articles and programs for the public to read and view.
Mostly, however, the "trickle-down" of information comes to the public through contact with doctors (for example, pediatricians), teachers (for example, childbirth preparation classes or an elementary school reading specialist), and the media (for example, books on child development written for parents and educational programs on TV such as Sesame Street). All of the knowledge of child development that is "out there" is based on research like the study that you have been taking part in, which is why the research is so important!
In the next phase of this investigation, our plan is to recontact the families when the high school graduate has his or her 21st birthday. In this stage of Emerging Adulthood, the young adult is confronting the challenges of choosing and preparing for a career, making a wider circle of friends, exploring intimate relationships, consolidating a coherent sense of self, and negotiating his or her role as a more self-sufficient, autonomous person. While parents often continue to play a significant role in supporting their son or daughter, especially if s/he is still in school, relationships in the family are being redefined. Young adults are gradually moving away from a primary affiliation with the family of origin and toward the attainment of full adult status.