News

Follow up research into child development at the Wolfson Research Institute

(27 May 2005)

Durham University’s Tees Valley Baby Study has received a follow up grant from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to continue its longitudinal study on child development.

The initial stage of the research, which is based Child Development Unit in the Wolfson Research Institute of Durham University’s Queens Campus Stockton, followed over 200 mothers with their babies from eight months to 2 years of age. Each child was seen three times: at 8 months, 14 months and 2 years old.

This new grant will allow the researchers to follow the same children from 3 and a half to 5 years old. In that time, the researchers will see each child on another three occasions: at 44 months, 50 months, and 60 months old.

The mothers come from a wide variety of social backgrounds and all live in the Tees Valley area.

The previous stages of the project looked at the children’s language and play development, and how these were influenced by children’s interactions with their mothers.

With the current grant, the researchers will be able to look further into the development of language and play in the preschool years and how this is influenced by children’s previous experiences in infancy.

This study is both unique and important because very little research done in child development at the moment follows such a large and diverse sample of people over such a long time period.

The current grant holders are Dr Elizabeth Meins (Durham University), Dr Charles Fennyhough (Durham University), Dr Marc de Rosnay (University of Cambridge: Centre for Family Research), Ms Bronia Arnott (Durham University) and Dr Lucia Vittorini (Sheffield Hallam University).

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For more information, please contact: Ms Bronia Arnott, Child Development Unit, Wolfson Research Institute, Tel: 0191 334 0444, e-mail: b.m.arnott@durham.ac.uk