̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - LEGO Foundation

Gardeners and carpenters: the ‘skill’ of parenting

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Nov 2018 09:20:41 +0000

Professors Claire Hughes and Paul Ramchandani have spent their adult lives studying children. Both are fascinated by the complicated jigsaw of early child development. “Such a lot happens in pregnancy and the first few years of life: the child’s brain and physical development, the acquisition of new skills and knowledge, it’s utterly transforming,” says Ramchandani, Cambridge’s first LEGO Professor of Play.

But while we know much about what goes on, we understand far less about how the outside world shapes this transformation – knowledge we need as parents, practitioners and policymakers to provide environments that help children thrive.

It’s clear, for instance, that our mothers, fathers and families affect our lives and the people we become, but has understanding the importance of parent–child relationships led to modern-day parenting approaches that stifle rather than help a child to flourish?

“Think carpenters and gardeners,” says Hughes, referring to a book by American psychologist Alison Gopnik published in 2016. “Gopnik’s theory is that parents who behave like carpenters mould their child by a deliberate, organised and focused influence on their development; those who behave like gardeners create a safe, nurtured and free environment that helps their child to shape themself.”

Hughes’ work looks at how parents talk to children in their early years and what this means for how children develop some of the most crucial skills of their lives. Since she began her academic career as an undergraduate in Cambridge 30 years ago, her focus has shifted from clinical groups, including children with autism, to studying social influences on two key psychological constructs – theory of mind and executive function.

Psychologists use the term theory of mind, or mind reading, to describe awareness that other people have thoughts, feelings, intentions and desires. Most children develop theory of mind around the age of four. “Without it you can’t joke, you can’t lie, you can’t get sarcasm – the many social things that hinge on what others say and mean to say,” she says.

As a result, theory of mind is pivotal to children’s ability to interact and form social relationships, but it doesn’t act alone. Along with theory of mind comes executive function – all those higher-order thinking skills such as planning, adapting plans when situations change and working memory.

“These two things go hand in glove,” explains Hughes, whose research is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. “You need good executive function to acquire a theory of mind, because how we process information from others depends on being able to keep track of information and shift attention, and we know that poor executive function often leads to behavioural problems, which can in turn affect children’s ability to learn from social situations.”

By following a group of 117 children from toddlerhood to adolescence, and developing a new battery of tests – including an innovative ‘silent film’ task based on Harold Lloyd’s 1923 comedy Safety Last!, developed with one of her former students, Dr Rory Devine – Hughes has been able to gain a deeper understanding of how family environments shape young children’s theory of mind.

Her studies show that how parents talk to toddlers – in particular the extent to which they use words such as ‘think’, ‘believe’, ‘understand’ and other so-called ‘mental state talk’ – predicts how well children do at the silent film task when they reach the age of ten.

One of her new studies, which involves more than 400 first-time families in the UK, USA and Netherlands, aims to tease out differences in the way that fathers and mothers talk to their children. “We’re filming children at home at four, 12 and 24 months and we are now following them up at nursery at the age of three,” says Hughes. “It’s a big study, producing very rich data, and we’re using some interesting technology – including a device that’s like a talk pedometer – to get at children’s linguistic environments.”

Such detailed, long-term studies could, she hopes, lead to simple and effective tools to help parents foster their children’s theory of mind skills. Together with Professors Lynne Murray and Peter Cooper at the ̽��ֱ�� of Reading, Hughes is testing a South African intervention based on reading picture books, something that’s on the decline within UK families.

“It’s been a revelation to me to see how hard some parents find it to read a picture book. Some literally just read what’s on the page, and if there are no words they just show the picture,” she says. “ ̽��ֱ��South African study shows that in ten weeks you can take parents who aren’t very good at this type of reading and show them how to get their child involved.”

Testing new interventions is also central to Ramchandani’s research, not least because as well as an academic he’s also a practising psychiatrist. “I come from a medical background where you want to learn stuff so that you can do something about it,” he says.

He’s currently leading a randomised controlled trial with parents from London, Peterborough, Oxford and Hertfordshire to see if video feedback is a viable way of promoting positive child development. Over six sessions, parents are filmed playing with their toddler and the videos are then used to help parents notice – and respond appropriately to – their child’s communication.

One of his long-standing areas of interest is the role fathers play in the lives of their young children, something he feels has often been overlooked. “There are obvious reasons for this – mothers are more often the primary carers and theories that have dominated psychology have revolved around the mother–child relationship – plus, over the past 30 years, most research on children’s relationships with parents has focused on mothers,” says Ramchandani.

Before arriving in Cambridge in early 2018, he conducted the first major study of depression in fathers, which revealed that paternal – as well as maternal – depression has an impact on child outcomes.

“This study got me thinking about the family constellation, about how mothers and fathers influence children, and how children influence parents too, which led to my interest in play as one aspect of those relationships.”

Since then, he’s studied the way fathers play with their babies and found that when fathers were more physically and emotionally engaged, children did better behaviourally and cognitively. “It’s striking to see how different fathers can have very different styles of interacting with their babies, even though they are very young, with some getting stuck in and leading the play, and others watching and following their child’s lead more”.

Ramchandani is Director of Cambridge’s Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning, and with the team will be looking at an even wider field of play – studying its role in learning and social development, and finding the best way of measuring playfulness itself.

“Healthy child development is a fascinating and complicated picture: a jigsaw comprising fathers, mothers, siblings and the wider world, and involving language, play, physical and psychological health and more,” adds Ramchandani. “By getting a clearer picture of how it works, we have the best chance of helping to improve children’s lives around the world.”

Inset image: read more about our research on the topic of children in the ̽��ֱ��'s research magazine; download a pdf; view on Issuu.

Wanting your child to have the best chance in life is natural for any parent. But by focusing too much on the ‘skill’ of parenting, are we losing sight of things that matter more – how we talk to and play with children? Cambridge researchers are examining how parents can best help their children in their early years through nurturing rather than shaping.

Healthy child development is a fascinating and complicated picture. By getting a clearer picture of how it works, we have the best chance of helping to improve children’s lives around the world

Paul Ramchandani

Sushobhan Badhai

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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World-leading academic appointed to lead play research centre

pbh25 — Thu, 25 May 2017 23:01:00 +0000

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge has appointed a world-leading researcher as the first LEGO Professor of Play in Education, Development and Learning.

̽��ֱ��Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL) was established in 2015 with a £4 million grant from the LEGO Foundation that also funded the leadership role that will be taken up by Professor Paul Ramchandani.

Having spent the past 15 years pursuing research focused on child development Ramchandani, who currently leads the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Research Unit at Imperial College, London, will take up his role at PEDAL in January next year.

Professor Geoff Hayward, Head of the Faculty of Education, said: “Professor Ramchandani has an outstanding research record of international stature. He has the vision, leadership, experience and enthusiasm that PEDAL needs, and we are delighted that he is joining us. This is an exciting area of research which we feel will throw new light on the importance of play in early education.”

PEDAL is examining the importance of play in education globally to produce research which supports excellence in education so that children are equipped with 21st century skills like problem solving, team work and self-control.

̽��ֱ��work of the centre, based at the ̽��ֱ��’s Faculty of Education, is currently focused on three strands of research:

Establishing a long-term study of the features of home and school that promote children’s playfulness, and the outcomes of early play experience for learning and emotional well-being
Developing an understanding of the underlying brain processes involved in play, and how to measure playfulness
Devising and evaluating play-based teaching approaches

Part of the Professor’s role heading up the centre will involve translating the research into hard evidence for international and national bodies as they produce policy around children’s right to play.

Professor Ramchandani said: “I am delighted to be taking up this role at Cambridge, and working with those at PEDAL on the challenge of finding the best evidence on where play fits in children’s development and education and how that can be used to give children the best start in life.

“Everyone has an opinion about what role play should have in early education and there is some wonderful research, but there are also big gaps in our knowledge. We need the best evidence possible in order to inform the vital decisions that are made about children’s education and development and I look forward to taking that work forward together with colleagues at Cambridge.”

Professor Anna Vignoles, acting head of PEDAL until Ramchandani takes up the new post, said: “ ̽��ֱ��value of play is relatively under-researched. You have people who are claiming that it enhances learning, that it’s important, that it’s good for children’s wellbeing. All of that might be true, but actually there’s remarkably little evidence for that. ̽��ֱ��aim of the PEDAL centre is to conduct rigorous research into the importance of play and how playful learning can be used to improve students’ outcomes.”

Bo Stjerne Thomsen, Global Head of Research, the LEGO Foundation said: “There is a great need for establishing play as a central arena for learning and development in the minds and actions of those influencing children’s lives. PEDAL’s research is hugely important in that regard, and we’re excited that Professor Ramchandani will be taking the helm and join the efforts to underscore the importance of children’s learning through play.”

LEGO^® Professor of Play in Education, Development and Learning announced.

We need the best evidence possible in order to inform the vital decisions that are made about children’s education and development and I look forward to taking that work forward together with colleagues at Cambridge.

Professor Paul Ramchandani

Ed Schipul

Play

Further information:

Professor Paul Ramchandani:

Ramchandani is currently Professor of Child and Adolescent Mental Health at Imperial College. He also works as a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist in the NHS with CNWL NHS Foundation Trust. He undertook his medical studies in Southampton before obtaining a degree in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He then completed training in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and obtained a DPhil from Oxford ̽��ֱ�� in 2005.
Ramchandani’s research is focussed on early child development and particularly on the prevention of emotional and behavioural problems in the early years of life.

PEDAL:

̽��ֱ��guiding focus of the centre’s work is to develop substantial and compelling research concerned with the role of play and playfulness in young children’s learning and development, and the potential of play-based approaches within educational contexts. ̽��ֱ��kinds of skills and accomplishments that are widely recognised as being vital components of 21st century educational provision, including critical thinking, problem-solving, interpersonal abilities, emotional resilience and creativity, have all been linked theoretically and empirically to playfulness and playful learning.

PEDAL Research Strands:

What is play?

Play is a very difficult concept to pin down scientifically, and many different definitions and measures of play are in use in education and in research. This makes it difficult to rigorously evaluate claims that have been made about the role of play in children’s social development. Two projects within the PEDAL centre examine play scientifically and help us understand the nature of play in early childhood.

̽��ֱ��Children’s Relationships with Peers through Play (CHIRPP) project, overseen by Dr Jenny Gibson and Dr Elian Fink investigates how play could support children to develop the social skills needed to learn and flourish at school. This project aims to establish a framework for measuring play taking into account different perspectives of play, including those of children, parents, teachers and observations of actual play interactions between peers at school. We are also measuring other aspects of child development relating to social skills (such as language and emotional understanding). By doing this we can establish whether or not play makes an independent contribution to social skills and school readiness during the first years of formal schooling. CHIRPP follows children over the first three years of primary school from Reception to Year 2. This enables researchers to test their predictions about how play may contribute to social development in the longer term. So far, over 240 children have taken part in this study. Our preliminary findings from reception-aged children indicate there is indeed an association between play and social development; however we will need to use the follow-up data to work out the nature of any causal associations.

In addition to CHIRPP, Dr Jenny Gibson’s HOPSCoTCh project (Hi-tech Observation of Play and Social Communication Trajectories in Children) comes at understanding play from another angle. This project is designed to help us understand more about children’s behaviour in school playgrounds. Use of GPS technology to track children’s social and physical activity at playtime provides data to help understand how children use their physical space and interact with each other during outdoor play.

How does play develop?

PEDAL is developing a longitudinal study of playfulness, which will begin with children at birth (and perhaps even before) and follow them through to early adulthood. We hope this will make a significant contribution to advance our understanding of the development of playful behaviours as well as their impact on later life.

Behind such a long-term research project is an extensive literature review of previous studies, as well as analysis of existing data collected by other longitudinal research projects. For example, the team has carried out a systematic review of studies of play in early childhood, concentrating specifically on the way play has been measured. Also, since parent-child interactions are crucial in early life, PEDAL has developed a scale to measure how playful are parents with their babies, observing both mums and dads interacting with their infants at 4 and 14 months of age. Understanding how to measure playful behaviours and observing them from birth throughout childhood will help us unpack the role of play on children’s wider development.

This research strand will be developed by the new Professor of Play, working alongside Dr Marisol Basilio and colleagues in the Department of Psychology.

Is there a role for play in schools?

Dr Sara Baker and Dr Audrey Kittredge are developing and testing playful approaches to teaching in early childhood classrooms, based on current research from the field of cognitive developmental psychology and applied in practice by working alongside a team of teachers.

Acknowledging there is a growing demand for children to master ‘21st century skills’ (to be independent, creative thinkers and problem solvers, as well as good collaborators and communicators), Sara and Audrey’s research is exploring how schools can foster these skills, and whether a more playful environment and approach to teaching leads to better learning outcomes.

Though these ‘21st century skills’ are relevant to any discipline, Sara and Audrey’s research focuses on flexible problem solving in early years science learning, and it is intended that once the research program is complete, a professional development programme for teachers will be developed to share key findings and enhance the repertoire of teaching approaches that primary school teachers require.

PEDAL Hub

PEDAL Hub is a free online, searchable database of the most current and authoritative play research as well as other relevant materials and media. Led by Dr Melissa Scarpate, PEDAL Hub will be launched in the autumn of 2017.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Play matters! New centre will examine role of playfulness in learning

pbh25 — Thu, 22 Oct 2015 08:08:59 +0000

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the LEGO Foundation will examine the role of playfulness in learning through a new centre and associated professorship.

̽��ֱ��Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL) has been established with a £4 million grant from the LEGO Foundation which will also fund the leadership role of the LEGO Professorship of Play in Education, Development and Learning.

̽��ֱ��move reflects the well-established links between the ̽��ֱ��, the Foundation and the wider LEGO family. ̽��ֱ��centre will examine the importance of play in education globally with an aim to produce research which supports excellence in education so that children are equipped with 21st Century skills like problem solving, team work and self-control.

PEDAL acting director Dr David Whitebread said: “Play opportunities for children living in modern urban environments are increasingly curtailed, within their homes, communities and schooling. At the same time, play remains a relatively under-researched area within developmental science, with many fundamental questions still unanswered. An invigorated research effort in this area will constitute a significant contribution to understandings about the importance of play and the development, internationally, of high quality education, particularly in the area of early childhood.”

CEO of the LEGO Foundation, Hanne Rasmussen said: “We welcome the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s decision to establish the PEDAL Centre. At the LEGO Foundation, we are committed to promoting the important link between play and learning and to ensuring the value of play is understood and acted upon across society. With PEDAL, understanding the contribution that play makes to child development is recognised as a critical issue.”

̽��ֱ��LEGO Foundation funding allows for the permanent endowment of a professorship and the cost of support and research staff for an initial three year period. During this period, the work of the centre, based at the ̽��ֱ��’s Faculty of Education, will be focused on three strands of research:

- Establishing a long term study of the features of home and school which promote children's playfulness, and the outcomes of early play experience for learning and emotional well-being

- Developing an understanding of the underlying brain processes involved in play, and how to measure playfulness

- Devising and evaluating play-based teaching approaches

Rasmussen adds: “Millions of children are receiving a sub-standard education which means that even though they attend school, they get left behind in the development of skills that are essential in the 21st century. Quality in learning means not just great test scores, but also building the skills that underpin learning throughout a lifetime. Our collaboration with the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge is about investigating play-based quality learning so that we can put a stake in the ground for development of skills in the future of learning.”

̽��ֱ��LEGO Foundation and ̽��ֱ�� have a history of collaboration. A playful writing project called PLaNS is a recent example. ̽��ֱ��research involved looking at how writing in a playful way, using LEGO bricks, can help in the teaching environment.

“ ̽��ֱ��early results of this collaboration are very positive and it is good to see that our work with the Foundation is already starting to yield results. Looking at how play works is increasingly important as international bodies like the United Nations and European Union have now begun to develop policies concerned with children’s right to play. What has been lacking is hard evidence to base their policies on and researching play is inherently tricky. We are looking forward to seeing the result of the research carried out at PEDAL,” said Dr Whitebread.

Three post-doctoral Research Associates are being appointed, each of whom will be assigned to one of the research strands. ̽��ֱ��grant also provides for studentships for two PhD students per year over the first three years.

Cambridge launched a £2 billion fundraising campaign on October 16th, also announcing that more than £530 million has been raised towards that total. ̽��ֱ��campaign for the ̽��ֱ�� and Colleges of Cambridge will focus on the ̽��ֱ��’s impact on the world. Through it, Cambridge is working with philanthropists to address major global problems. ̽��ֱ��generous grant from the Lego Foundation is the latest example of this, joining gifts to support Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s research, and to support engineering innovation and design.

Other examples of LEGO and ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge interactions include the use of LEGO bricks by the Department of Engineering which allows for a large degree of play, experimentation and freedom in its teaching and research programmes. In 2012 the ̽��ֱ��’s Fitzwilliam Museum, with the aid of an engineering student, used LEGO bricks to help save a delicate Egyptian mummy case.

Carousel image from homepage: Kids at play by Emilien Etienne.

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the LEGO Foundation launch new research centre and professorship.

With PEDAL, understanding the contribution that play makes to child development is recognised as a critical issue.

Hanne Rasmussen, CEO of the LEGO Foundation

More information:

About PEDAL: ̽��ֱ��guiding focus of the centre’s work is to develop substantial and compelling research concerned with the role of play and playfulness in young children’s learning and development, and the potential of play-based approaches within educational contexts. ̽��ֱ��kinds of skills and accomplishments that are widely recognised as being vital components of 21st century educational provision, including critical thinking, problem-solving, interpersonal abilities, emotional resilience and creativity, have all been linked theoretically and empirically to playfulness and playful learning.
About the LEGO Foundation: ̽��ֱ��LEGO Foundation shares the mission of the LEGO Group: to inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow. ̽��ֱ��Foundation is dedicated to building a future where learning through play empowers children to become creative, engaged, lifelong learners. Its work is about re-defining play and re-imagining learning. In collaboration with thought leaders, influencers, educators and parents the LEGO Foundation aims to equip, inspire and activate champions for play: www.LEGOfoundation.com.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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