CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Educational psychologist Kathleen Gallagher, an expert on early childhood interventions, will give a lecture Nov. 9 at the University of Illinois, one in a series of events being planned to celebrate the Child Development Laboratory’s 75th anniversary.
Gallagher will speak at 7:30 p.m. in the Knight Auditorium of Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana.
Gallagher’s talk, titled “Transformative Early Childhood Education: What it Means and What It Takes,” will explore the importance of high-quality early care and education programs, and the ways in which children, their families and communities benefit. She also will address how communities and higher education institutions can take the lead in educating and supporting those who teach and care for young children.
Gallagher is a professor of early childhood education at the University of Nebraska, Kearney. Her recent research includes interventions for toddlers with autism and their families, and a project in which she is developing resources that support the well-being of early childhood workers.
The lecture is sponsored by the Child Development Laboratory; the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences; the department of curriculum and instruction; and the department of special education.
The event at Spurlock Museum will include exhibits showing the early child care and education program’s evolution over the years. CDL opened in 1941 as a half-day program for preschoolers and was housed in the English Building until the current facility was constructed in 1955.
“When I arrived in 1990, CDL was a traditional half-day preschool model, and the only children who attended were children of faculty members,” said CDL director Brent McBride. “Very few instructors used the program for supporting observations or class projects. Very little research was being done here because it was such an atypical population. That’s one of the first things that we changed.”
Emeritus professor of curriculum and instruction Art Baroody has conducted research with children at CDL at least half a dozen times over the past two decades.
“CDL is an invaluable resource for a researcher interested in exploring developmental or educational questions with young children,” Baroody said. “I have learned much from working with CDL children, who are typically delightful, and the parents are exceptionally interested in having their children participate in research that might benefit them.”
CDL and its companion facility, the Early Child Development Lab, offer full-day programming for 160 children ages 6 weeks to 4 years.
CDL stratifies its enrollment along gender, ethnic and income lines, drawing 75 percent of its pupils from U. of I. faculty members, staff and student parents, and the remainder from families in the broader community. A scholarship program is available to help lower-income families with tuition.
“It is a very rich diverse environment for the kids. That makes it a much more attractive product to the academic community,” said McBride, who works with similar programs across the country. “When someone over in the School of Social Work wants to send a group of students to observe children, they can rest assured that they’re probably going to see what they’d see in the community population, as well.”
About 3,000 U. of I. students visit CDL and ECDL each academic year to observe and interact with the children as part of their coursework in early childhood education, psychology, social work and other majors.
Music education professor Donna Gallo, who teaches a fall semester class that includes students from a variety of majors, brought her students to the facilities to observe infants’ and young children’s responses to music and to teach.
“For our music students, interacting with very young children is really far removed from what they do on a regular basis,” Gallo said. “I wanted my students to have various experiences with children and understand how they make music and play together spontaneously, with and without adult initiation. CDL was a perfect place for that. The kids were outstanding – they were so responsive, and I think it helped diminish some of the anxiety about working with young children that some of our music students experience.”
As many as three generations of some families have been CDL alumni, McBride said. CDL’s notable alumni include National Public Radio journalist Jeremy Hobson, writer and political commentator George Will and Champaign real estate developer Peter Fox.
“Children who were students here in the early 1990s are now sending their own kids to us,” said McBride, who is a professor of human development and family studies, and of nutritional sciences at the university. “We hope to make it to 100 years. We have a bright future here.”
An open house for CDL alumni is being planned in the spring, along with an open house for faculty members. A database that is being compiled to invite CDL alumni to the event contains the names of about 2,500 students, going as far back as the 1950s, McBride said.