Research that Benefits Children and Families—Uplifting Stories

I’m not sure whether or not this fits into the category of ‘uplifting stories’.  Still, I am very glad to see that Dr. Andrew Wakefield has finally admitted that his study linking autism to childhood vaccines was a fraud.  The ‘results’ of that bogus British study have really done long-lasting damage to public health in the UK and the US.

     One of my duties as a preschool director is making sure all of the children in our care have the recommended (in many cases, required) vaccines. Ever since Dr. Wakefield’s ‘findings’ became well known, many of our parents have been hesitant to get their children vaccinated. The fear of possibly causing Autism has led some to leave their children unvaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella. “Vaccination rates dropped sharply in Britain after its publication, falling as low as 80% by 2004. Measles cases have gone up sharply in the ensuing years. In the United States, more cases of measles were reported in 2008 than in any other year since 1997, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention” (Retracted autism study, 2011). This is a dangerous situation - it wouldn’t take much for previously controlled, life-threatening diseases to begin spreading again- with devastating consequences.

I hope all of those parents who did not vaccinate their children because of Dr Wakefield’s claims will now rethink that decision. Here is the link to the CNN artcle:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/autism.vaccines/index.html

Retracted autism study an 'elaborate fraud,' british journal finds. (2011). CNN Health, Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/autism.vaccines/index.html

Building Research Competencies

The topic I decided to research is the value of play time as a scheduled component of the school day in public school systems.  My interest in this topic is both personal and professional. I live in Gloucester, Ma, the oldest fishing community in the United States. People here depend on making a sustainable living from the ocean. Due to serious government over-regulation and fishing quotas, my town is suffering financially. As more and more budget cuts become necessary, our city leaders begin looking at what can be eliminated from school programs. Sadly (but predictably), our local public school administrators seem to feel that play time takes up valuable teaching time.
I broke this general topic up into three subtopics:
I'd like to see if I can find studies that show the benefit of play in the school day.

·         What areas of development are enhanced by daily play?

·         Are children who experience daily play better students?

·         Does daily childhood play decrease the incidence of adult obesity?

I am a little bit confused about a final topic for research because I think all three sub-topics combined are relevant to the question re: benefit of playtime at school. However, at this time I believe I will concentrate on "children who experience daily play are better students" .Would love to get any advice/input from fellow students on this! Thanks!

Anyway, right off the bat I can see that I am going to have trouble sifting through the scads of stuff on the internet to find relevant information for my research. In chapter 2 of our textbook, the authors pointed out that this tends to be an area of difficulty for many beginning researchers. Whew!