Development and Education of Children with (mild) motor, cognitive, and language disabilities

Programme leaders: prof.dr. P.P.M. Leseman and prof.dr. M.J. Jongmans

The program falls within what is internationally known as the area of ‘early childhood prevention’, including  ‘(preventative) early childhood care and education’. Following breakthroughs in the study of brain development, and the increasing awareness of the importance of early experiences, research concerned with children with motor, cognitive and/or language problems has shifted to investigating and influencing at much younger ages the pathways of atypical development, with an emphasis on the interplay of neurobiological development and the social contexts of development, in particular the family, the child care center, the pre- and primary school, and the wider cultural and sociolinguistic community. The program currently focuses on developmental trajectories in early childhood that underlie emerging cognitive, language, literacy, and math skills, combining longitudinal studies with experimental (training) interventions. With PhD projects on early motor development and spatial exploration as the basic starting point for development of executive functions (executive attention in particular), number sense, spatial cognition, and language, a core of basic research has been established that will yield insights for improving early childhood care, education, and family support. Other projects deepen the focus on executive functions, number sense and mathematics development in the early pre- and primary school period, or extend research into executive functions (especially verbal working memory) as related to language and literacy development in young low income Dutch and (bilingual) immigrant children. The profile of the research program as a centre of expertise for the study of basic and applied issues in (preventative) early childhood care and education was further strengthened by the granting of a major cohort study on these topics by NWO.