English for Early Childhood Education
Vocabulary
Contents
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| Accessibility | Noun | Refers to the availability of child care when and where a family needs it. |
| Accommodation | Noun | Refers to adjustments or adaptations made in standards and assessment tools to allow children with Special Needs or English-Language Learners to demonstrate their knowledge and skills. Accommodations help provide children with equal access to education by meeting the child's individual learning needs and capabilities. For example, a test could be adapted for a child with attention issues by granting extra time or could be administered to a non-English speaker in the child's native language. Accommodation addresses how the child is expected to learn and demonstrate learning, not what a child is expected to learn. |
| Accreditation | Noun | A process through which child care programs voluntarily meet specific standards to receive endorsement from a professional agency. |
| Adult-Child Ratio | Noun | Refers to the number of qualified adult caregivers relative to the number of children in a child care program. In determining the regulatory adult-to-child ratio, the ages of children served are also considered. In high Quality programs, there is typically a low adult-child/staff-child ratio. |
| Affordability | Noun | The degree to which the price of child care is a reasonable or feasible family expense. States maintain different definitions of "affordable" child care, taking various factors into consideration, such as family income, child care Market Rates, and Subsidy acceptance, among others. |
| After-School Program | Noun | Programs serving school age children and older when they are not in school. Sometimes called Out-of-School Time (OST) programs, after school programs may provide a broad range of services and supports such as mentoring, academic support, youth development, arts, sports and other forms of recreation. |
| Approaches to Learning | Noun | Refers to the ways in which children learn, including children's openness and curiosity to tasks and challenges, task persistence, imagination, attentiveness, and cognitive learning style. |
| At Risk | Adjective | A term used to describe children who are considered to have a higher probability of non-optimal Child Development and learning. |
| Attachment | Noun | The emotional and psychological bond between a child and adult, typically a parent or caregiver, that contributes to the child’s sense of security and safety. It is believed that secure attachment leads to psychological well-being and Resilience throughout the child's lifetime and is considered a key predictor of positive Child Development and learning. |
| Best Practices | Noun | A term used to denote the "best" ways of delivering services, supports or information to achieve desired outcomes as determined by research or experience. |
| Bilingual | Noun | Refers to an individual who can speak two languages with similar or equal proficiency. |
| Blended Funding | Noun | A Financing Strategy that combines funding sources to pay for an integrated set of program services to a group of children. With blended funding, costs do not have to be allocated and tracked by the individual funding source. |
| Braided Funding | Noun | A Financing Strategy used to coordinate funds from two or more sources to support the total cost of integrated services for individual children. With braided funding, costs must be attributed and tracked by the particular funding stream. Cost allocation methods are required to assure that there are no duplicate funding of service costs and that each funding source is charged its fair share of program and administrative costs. |
| Career Ladder/Lattice | Noun | A metaphor, often accompanied by a pictorial representation, for job or career progression. Career ladders/lattices typically includes descriptions of the required skills, Credentials and degrees required to advance one's career or move from one related position to another. |
| Career Pathway | Noun | A progression of educational qualifications, Credentials and training that build upon one another and enable early childhood practitioners to advance in their careers. Career pathways can be flexible, with multiple entry and exit points, to allow the Workforce, made up of diverse learners and non-traditional students, to acquire the necessary career-related skills and knowledge. Career pathways allow individuals to move along or within a Career Ladder/Lattice. |
| Centre Based Child Care | Noun | Child care provided in non-residential group settings, such as within public or private schools, churches, preschools, day care centres, or nursery schools. |
| Certification (Staff) | Noun | The process by which an individual or institution attests to or is shown to have met a prescribed standard or set of standards. |
| Child Care Access | Noun | Refers to the ability for families to find quality Child Care Arrangements that satisfy their preferences, with reasonable effort and at an affordable price. |
| Child Care Arrangement | Noun | Refers to any combination of non-parental child care providers and/or settings that families use for their children, often while family members are at work. Child care arrangements vary widely based on a family's unique needs and circumstances. Arrangements might include: Centre-Based Child Care, Family/home-based Child Care, Informal Child Care, full-day Head Start or Pre-Kindergarten programs at local CBOs, Drop-in Child Care, etc. Many families will also utilize After-School Programs and services so that their child care arrangements can accommodate their work schedules. |
| Child Care Assistance | Noun | Any public or private financial assistance intended to lower the cost of child care for families. |
| Child Care Availability | Noun | Refers to whether Quality child care is accessible and available to families at a reasonable cost and using reasonable effort. |
| Child Care Desert | Noun | A geographical area where there is an inadequate supply of high Quality, affordable, and accessible child care options. |
| Child Care Provider | Noun | An organization or individual that provides early care and education services. |
| Child Care Slots | Noun | The number of openings that a child care setting has available as dictated by its Licensed Capacity. Child care slots may be filled or unfilled. |
| Child Care Supply and Demand | Noun | Refers to the total number of Child Care Slots available in a given area relative to the aggregate of families' needs and preferences for child care. |
| Child Development | Noun | The process by which children acquire skills in the areas of social, emotional, intellectual, speech and language, and physical development, including fine and gross motor skills. Developmental stages describe the expected, sequential order of gaining skills and competencies that children typically acquire. |
| Coaching | Noun | A relationship-based process led by an expert with specialized knowledge and adult learning Competencies that is designed to build capacity for or enhance specific professional dispositions, skills and behaviours. Coaching is typically offered to teaching and administrative staff, either by in-house or outside coaches, and focuses on goal-setting and achievement. |
| Community-Based Child Care/Community-Based Organization (CBO) | Noun | A non-profit organization that provides educational or related services to children and families within their local community. CBOs that provide child care may be associated with faith-based organizations or other non-profit organizations. |
| Competencies [refers to Workforce Knowledge or Core Competencies] | Noun | Refers to the range of knowledge and observable skills that early childhood practitioners need to provide effective services to children and families. Competencies, sometimes referred to as "core competencies," are typically linked with states' early learning guidelines and provide a framework for Professional Development at various career stages. |
| Comprehensive Services | Noun | An array of coordinated services that meet the holistic needs of children and families enrolled in a given program, from health and developmental screenings to family literacy trainings and parent education. |
| Consultation | Noun | A collaborative, problem-solving process between an external consultant with specific expertise and adult learning Competencies and an individual or group. Consultation typically facilitates the assessment and resolution of an issue-specific concern, a program-/organizational-, staff-, or child-/family-related issue, or addresses a specific topic. |
| Continuity of Care | Noun | Refers to the provision of care to children by consistent caregivers in consistent environments over a period of time to ensure stable and nurturing environments. Research shows that maintaining continuity and limiting transitions in a child's first few years of life promotes the type of deep human connections that young children need for optimal early brain development, emotional regulation, and learning. |
| Co-payment (Co-Pay) | Noun | Payment for part of a subsidized service that is the responsibility of parents/family members. The co-payment amount may take a family's financial circumstances into consideration. |
| Cost of Care | Noun | The monetary cost of providing early care and education services. Major contributors to the cost of care include staff wages and salaries, benefits, rent, supplies, Professional Development and training. The cost of care can be different from the actual price of care charged by the provider. |
| Credentials | Noun | Academic degrees, licenses or certificates awarded to individuals who successfully complete state or national requirements to enter specialized roles in the early childhood Workforce. |
| Cultural Competence | Noun | A term that describes what happens when special knowledge about individuals and groups of people is incorporated into standards, policies, and practices. Cultural competence fosters an appreciation of families and their unique backgrounds and has been shown to increase the quality and effectiveness of services to children. |
| Curriculum | Noun | A written plan that includes goals for children's development and learning; the experiences through which they will achieve the goals; what staff and parents should do to help children achieve the goals; and the materials needed to support the implementation of the curriculum. |
| Developmental Domains | Noun | Refers to the five domains of Child Development: Physical, the development and growth of the child's body, muscles, and senses; Social, how the child relates, plays and talks to others; Emotional, the child's awareness of self, how the child feels about himself, expression of feelings and how he helps care for himself; Cognitive, the way children think, reason, solve problems, and understand and use language and; Adaptive/Self-help, how children adapt to their environments. Developmental domains are interrelated; what happens in one domain influences development in the other domains. |
| Developmental Milestones | Noun | A set of functional skills or age-specific tasks that experts agree most children should be able to do within a certain age range. Milestones enable families and professionals to monitor a child's learning, behaviour, and development and can signal when there might be a developmental delay or cause for greater concern. |
| Developmental Outcomes | Noun | Describes the condition of a child's developmental health and life trajectory that can be impacted by determinants such as: family income and education level, access to health and child care services, choice of neighbourhood, social support networks, and genetics, among others. |
| Developmental Screening and Assessment | Noun | The practice of systematically measuring a child's development across multiple domains and looking for signs of developmental delays. Screening and assessment tools are typically administered by professionals in healthcare, community, or school settings with children and families and can consist of formal questionnaires or checklists that ask targeted questions about a child’s development. |
| Developmentally Appropriate | Adjective | Practices, behaviours, activities and settings that are adapted to match the age, characteristics and developmental progress of a specific group of children. Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) in early learning settings reflects knowledge of Child Development and an understanding of the unique personality, learning style and family background of each child. |
| Distance Learning | Noun | A mode of education and instruction in which teachers and students are not physically present with each other and communicate remotely. Distance education typically takes place online, where teachers and students interact by way of email, video or other means of communication. |
| Drop in/Short Term Child Care | Noun | A Child Care Arrangement that families may be able to use one time or while pursuing short term, non-employment related activities. Drop in care arrangements are often found in places like health spas, resort hotels, or other locations where family members are typically on the premises when services are provided or are otherwise accessible. |
| Dual Generation Strategies | Noun | An approach to stimulating young children's healthy development that includes promoting the capabilities and resources of parents, families or caregivers. These strategies generally link the provision of services for children, such as Quality child care, with services for their parents and entire families, such as employment counselling or housing assistance. |
| Dual Language Learners (DLL) | Noun | Refers to children under the age of five who have at least one parent or guardian that speaks a language other than English at home and who are mastering their native language while learning English simultaneously. |
| Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation | Noun | A strategic intervention geared towards building the capacity of early childhood staff, programs, families, and systems to prevent, identify, treat, and reduce the impact of mental health problems among children from birth to age six. In a child-focused consultation, the consultant may facilitate the development of an individualized plan for the child; In a classroom-focused consultation, the consultant may work with the teacher/caregiver to increase the level of Social-Emotional support for all the children in the class through observations, modelling, and sharing of resources and information; In a program-focused consultation, the consultant may help administrators address policies and procedures that benefit all children and adults in the program. |
| Early Childhood Special Education (ECSE) | Noun | Specialized instruction that is provided by trained early childhood Special Education professionals to young children with disabilities in various early childhood settings such as Preschool, child care, Prekindergarten and Head Start, among others. ECSE is mandated by the federal Part B of the IDEA. |
| Early Learning and Development Guidelines/Standards | Noun | A set of expectations, guidelines, or Developmental Milestones that describe what all children from birth until kindergarten entry should know and be able to do as well as their disposition toward learning. These standards/guidelines must be developmentally, linguistically, and culturally appropriate and cover all Developmental Domains. |
| Early Literacy | Noun | Refers to what children know about and are able to do as it relates to communication, language, reading, and writing before they can actually read and write. Children's experiences with conversation, books, print and stories (oral and written) all contribute to their early literacy skills. |
| Early Math/Numeracy | Noun | Refers to the foundations of mathematical reasoning that are acquired in early childhood, typically by way of number counting, measuring, sorting, noticing patterns and adding and subtracting numbers. |
| Educational Approach | Noun | Refers to the educational philosophy, method and/or pedagogical style adopted by early childhood providers. Examples of well-known and regarded educational approaches include Reggio-Emilia, Montessori and Head Start. |
| English Language Learner (ELL) | Noun | Refers to a child who is learning English and comes from a home or environment where the primary language is not English. ELLs are generally proficient in their own language but are usually unable to read, write, speak or understand English at a level comparable to their English proficient peers and native English speakers. |
| Evidence-Based Practice | Noun | A practice, regimen or service that is grounded in evidence and can demonstrate that it improves outcomes. Elements of evidence-based practice are standardized, replicable and effective within a given setting and for a particular group of participants. |
| Executive Function | Noun | A group of cognitive skills that contribute to the development of Self-Regulation. Executive function skills include: cognitive flexibility, the ability to switch attention between different rules; working memory, the ability to hold information in mind while working on a task; and inhibitory control, the ability to resist certain impulses in order to complete a goal. |
| Family (Parent) Engagement | Noun | Refers to an interactive process of relationship-building between early childhood professionals and families that is mutual, respectful, and responsive to the family’s language and culture. Engagement in the early years prepares families to support their children's learning throughout their school years and support parent/family-child relationships that are key to healthy Child Development, School Readiness, and well-being. |
| Family Child Care | Noun | Child care provided for one or more unrelated children in a provider's home setting. Most states have regulatory guidelines for family child care homes based on the number and ages of children they serve as well as the number of hours their business operates. |
| Family Literacy | Noun | Refers to a continuum of programs that support literacy for all family members. Family literacy programs are designed to help families overcome inter-generational cycles of illiteracy and poverty by providing integrated early childhood education, adult literacy, and parenting education in a unified program. |
| Financing Strategies | Noun | Refers to funding mechanisms and approaches that support early care and education services. Strategies typically include Blended Funded, Braided Funding and Layered Funding. |
| Fine Motor Skills | Noun | Actions that require control of the small muscles of the body to achieve skilfulness. Examples of fine motor skills include drawing, cutting with scissors, handwriting, and playing a musical instrument. |
| Global Quality | Noun | Refers to the totality of features in an early childhood setting that affect children's development. Global quality encompasses children's' interactions with caregivers and other children as well as characteristics of the setting's physical space, furnishings and materials. |
| Gross Motor Skills | Noun | A child's development of large muscle movement and control. Examples of gross motor skills include crawling, running, and jumping. |
| Home Language | Noun | The primary language that a child speaks at home. |
| Home-Based Child Care | Noun | Child care provided in a caregiver's home setting. Home-based child care may be regulated or unregulated, paid or unpaid, listed or unlisted. Narrower terms for specific home-based Child Care Arrangements might include Family Child Care, Informal Child Care and Family, Friend and Neighbour Care. |
| Home-Visiting Programmes | Noun | Programmes that aim to improve child outcomes by helping high-risk parents who are pregnant or have young children to enhance their parenting skills. Most home visiting programmes match trained professionals and/or paraprofessionals with families to provide a variety of services in families' home settings. Examples of home visiting services can include health check-ups, developmental screenings, referrals, parenting advice, and guidance with navigating community services. |
| In-Service Training | Noun | Refers to Professional Development that occurs outside of a credentialing program that early childhood Providers take to enhance their skills and remain current regarding knowledge and practices in the field. A certain number of in-service training hours are typically required for early childhood professionals to maintain early childhood-related Certifications. |
| Inclusion | Noun | The principle of enabling all children, regardless of their diverse backgrounds or abilities, to participate actively in natural settings within their learning environments and larger communities. |
| Income Eligibility | Noun | Refers to one's ability to qualify for a program or service based on household income and related criteria, like family size. |
| Informal Child Care | Noun | A term used to describe child care provided by relatives, friends, and neighbours in the child's own home or in another home, often in unregulated settings. |
| Kindergarten Transition | Noun | Refers to a process or milestone in which a child moves from a Preschool setting to kindergarten. |
| Learning Disability | Noun | A general term that includes specific kinds of learning problems or impairments that affect one's ability to learn and use certain skills. |
| Limited English Speaking/Limited English Proficiency (LEP) | Noun | Individuals who speak a language other than English as their first language and have limited comprehension, and ability to speak, read or write in English. |
| Linguistic Competence | Noun | The ability of an organization and its staff to communicate effectively with, and provide information to, people who may have limited English skills, low literacy, or disabilities. |
| Market Rate | Noun | The typical listed price for child care in a given geographic area. Market rates will vary due to factors such as location, types of care setting, hours of operation, ages of children they serve, and other features of the providers, such as their educational background. |
| Mentoring | Noun | A form of Professional Development characterized by an ongoing relationship between a novice and an experienced teacher or provider to deliver personalized instruction and feedback. Mentoring is intended to increase an individual's personal or professional capacity, resulting in greater professional effectiveness. |
| Mixed/Multi-Age Grouping | Noun | Grouping children or students so that the chronological age span within a group is greater than one year. Multiple age grouping is most prevalent in Family or Home-based child care settings. |
| Modification | Noun | Refers to a strategy that changes or modifies what a child with Special Needs is expected to learn. For example, a child with a cognitive impairment may only be expected to learn and demonstrate comprehension of a portion of the material taught to a Typically Developing Child. Only children with IEPs are entitled to modifications. |
| Monitoring | Noun | The process used to enforce child care providers' compliance with licensing rules and regulations. States use "differential monitoring" as a regulatory method for determining the frequency or depth of monitoring based on an assessment of the child care facility's compliance history and other quality indicators. |
| Native Language | Noun | The language that a person learns at home as a child, typically from a parent. Native language is sometimes referred to as one's "mother tongue" or Home Language. |
| Nursery Schools | Noun | Child care programs designed for children ages 3-5 that typically operate for fewer hours/day and days/week than other child care option and tend to have less regulatory oversight. |
| Out of School Time (OST) | Noun | Refers to time periods outside of regular school hours, such as before/after school, weekends, holidays, and summer breaks, in which school age children generally need child care and other types of programming and services. See related: After-School Program. |
| Parent Involvement | Noun | Refers to active parent/family participation in a child’s care and education. To increase Parent Involvement, child care providers will typically identify projects, needs, and goals and let parents know how they can contribute. Parental involvement is often measured by metrics related to attendance at school meetings, events and parent-teacher conferences; or by volunteering or serving on a school committee. |
| Parenting Education | Noun | Instruction or information directed toward parents and families to increase effective parenting skills. |
| Peer-to-Peer Technical Assistance/TA | Noun | A form of Professional Development in which early care and education professionals work together, often with supervision from a professional instructor, to improve their caregiving and educational practices. |
| Play | Noun | Voluntary, intrinsically motivated activities commonly associated with pleasure and enjoyment, not for the purpose of meeting specific learning outcomes. Through play, young children engage and interact in the world around them, developing new Competencies across Developmental Domains. Types of play include dramatic/fantasy play, rough and tumble, and parallel and cooperative play, among others. |
| Pre-Kindergarten (Pre-K) | Noun | Programs designed for three- and four-year olds that focus on School Readiness. Though sometimes used interchangeably with “Preschool” and "Nursery School," Pre-K programs are typically government funded and stipulate compliance with quality and accountability standards that exceed regulatory requirements for other types of early learning settings (e.g., by requiring specific advanced qualifications for teachers). Pre-K programs are commonly operated in conjunction with public school districts, but also exist in various early education settings. |
| Pre-Service Education/Training | Noun | The education, training and/or professional experiences that a child care staff member may undergo prior to assuming a particular role or position within a child care program. |
| Preschool | Noun | Programs that provide early education and care to children before they enter kindergarten, typically from ages 2.5-5 years. Preschools may be publicly or privately operated and may receive public funds. |
| Process Quality | Noun | Refers to the features of an early childhood setting related to caregiver-child interactions that affect children's development. |
| Professional Development (PD) | Noun | Refers to a continuum of learning and support activities designed to prepare individuals for work with, and on behalf of, young children and their families, as well as ongoing experiences to enhance this work. Professional development encompasses education, training, and Technical Assistance (TA), which leads to improvements in the knowledge, skills, practices, and dispositions of early education professionals. |
| Protective Factors | Noun | Refers to characteristics that reduce the impact of Risk Factors on children's learning and development. Protective factors can exist at the family, child and community level, such as attending high quality early childhood programs and having strong Family Engagement. |
| Quality | Noun | The characteristics of learning environments that promote the physical, social, emotional and cognitive development of young children. High quality programs typically exceed state regulatory requirements, utilizing Developmentally Appropriate curricula and prioritizing adequate teacher and administrative qualifications, ongoing Professional Development, and Family Engagement strategies, among others qualities. |
| Quality Initiatives | Noun | Refers to projects designed to increase the quality and availability of early care and education programs and services. CCDF provides funding for some quality initiatives, including Child Care Resource and Referral services for parents; training, PD and wage enhancements for staff; and facility improvement and Accreditation for child care programs. |
| Redetermination Period | Noun | The period of time that a family can receive assistance before having to re-establish that they are still eligible for a benefit (e.g., a child care Subsidy). |
| Regulated Child Care | Noun | Child care facilities and homes that are required to comply with either a state's regulatory system or another system of regulation. There is considerable state variation in the characteristics of the homes and facilities that must comply with regulations, as well as in the regulations themselves. |
| Relative Child Care | Noun | Child care provided by extended family members either in the child's home or at a relative's home. |
| Resilience | Noun | Refers to children’s ability to cope and develop in positive ways when faced with setbacks, hardships or adversity. Resilience in children can be fostered at the individual, family and community level. |
| Respite Child Care | Noun | Child care services, typically provided to vulnerable families, that offer temporary relief, improve family stability, and reduce the risk of abuse or neglect. Respite child care can be planned or offered during emergencies or times of crisis. |
| Retention (Staff) | Noun | Refers to the ability of programs to retain their employees over time. Staff retention is a well-documented problem in early childhood programs that affects program quality |
| Risk Factors | Noun | Refers to circumstances that increase a child's susceptibility to a wide range of negative outcomes and experiences. Risk factors for low school readiness may include parental/family characteristics such as low socioeconomic status and education, children's characteristics, such as whether the child has Special Needs, or community conditions and experiences, such as whether the child has access to high Quality early care and education. |
| Scaffolding | Noun | Refers to a method of teaching new concepts that typically involves leveraging skills and knowledge that children already have. An example of scaffolding might involve asking leading questions to allow a child to come to the correct conclusion or outcome on his or her own. |
| School Age Child Care | Noun | Child care that takes place outside of regular school hours for children over the age of 5. |
| School Based Child Care | Noun | Child care programs that occur in school facilities. |
| School Readiness | Noun | A term to describe the skills, knowledge, and attitudes necessary to successfully transition to, and perform well in, the early school years. School readiness is typically determined based on children's developmental status and progress in the following five domains: language and literacy development, cognition and general knowledge, Approaches to Learning, physical well-being and motor development, and social and emotional development. |
| Self-Regulation | Noun | The ability to control one’s emotions, behaviours, and thought processes in order to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully. Examples of self-regulation in children include being able to wait a short time for something they want and calming oneself down after becoming upset. |
| Separation Anxiety | Noun | Anxiety or distress experienced by a child when separated from a primary caregiver or attachment figure. Separation anxiety typically starts around 8-12 months when infants/toddlers develop an understanding of object permanence (that things and people exist even when they're not present). |
| Sick/Ill Child Care | Noun | Non-medical child care services provided to a child with mild, temporary illnesses, that prevent them from attending regular child care programming. Sick Child Care is sometimes referred to as "mildly ill child care." |
| Social-Emotional Development | Noun | Refers to the development process whereby children learn to identify and understand their own feelings, accurately read and comprehend emotional states in others, manage and express strong emotions in constructive manners, regulate their behaviour, develop empathy for others, and establish and maintain relationships. |
| Special Education | Noun | Instruction that is designed to meet the unique needs of children who have identified learning differences or disabilities. To be eligible for special education services, the child's disability must adversely affect his or her educational performance and require specially designed instruction that cannot be addressed through general education classes alone, with or without individual accommodations. Per the IDEA, special education and related services are provided at no cost to families, and can include special instruction in the classroom, at home, in hospitals, or in other institutions or settings. |
| Special Needs | Noun | A term used to describe a child with an identified learning disability or physical or mental health condition requiring Special Education services, or other specialized services and supports. |
| Strength-based | Adjective | An approach to equity in early childhood education that focuses on, and is responsive to, children’s and families' unique strengths, diverse learning styles, interests, linguistic and cultural backgrounds, etc. |
| Subsidy | Noun | Private or public assistance that reduces the cost of child care for families. |
| Therapeutic Child Care | Noun | Services or programming geared towards At Risk children, such as those living in homeless shelters or victims of violence or neglect. Therapeutic child care is commonly an integrated component of a well-structured treatment program in which services are provided by professional and paraprofessional staff in a safe, nurturing, and stimulating environments. |
| Toxic Stress | Noun | A term to describe the kinds of negative experiences that can affect brain architecture and brain chemistry, particularly in a developing child. Examples include strong, frequent/chronic, and/or prolonged exposure to adversity such as physical or emotional abuse, neglect, violence, and/or the accumulated burdens of family economic hardship, without adequate adult support. |
| Two-Generation Programmes | Noun | Programmes that provide comprehensive services for both parents/families and children in order to simultaneously promote healthy child development and economic self-sufficiency. In two generation programmes, services such as job training, parent education and housing assistance are provided along with early education programmes. |
| Typically Developing Child | Noun | Refers to a child whose development follows a predictable or "normal" course. The acquisition of certain Developmental Milestones is often used to gauge such development. Typical development is the most appropriate way to describe a child who does not have Special Needs. |
| Vouchers and Contracts | Noun | Refers to forms or mechanisms of payment that income eligible families can use to help pay for child care. Vouchers are issued to eligible families to pay for any legal child care they select that accepts state payments—including unregulated Informal Family Child Care, Family-based Child Care and Centre-based Child Care. By contrast, contracts are pre-negotiated arrangements made between jurisdictions and child care centres and/or networks of family child care homes to provide subsidized care to blocks of eligible children that they enrol. |
| Work Requirements | Noun | Refers to the employment-related requirements upon which receipt of child care Subsidies or cash assistance is contingent. In order to qualify for subsidies, parents must typically be employed or enrolled in a training or education program. |
| Workforce | Noun | The broad range of individuals engaged in the care and education of young children. Members of the early childhood workforce may include teaching, caregiving and administrative staff, as well as consultants, learning specialists, and others that provide training and Technical Assistance to programs. |
| Workforce Registry | Noun | A system, usually electronic, where early childhood professionals keep track of career-related information and documentation such as their education and employment history, ongoing trainings and related professional development. |