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Educational policies increasingly emphasise early childhood science engagement. As key influencers in children’s early learning, parents (n=85) attending a science workshop in three urban schools in Ireland were surveyed regarding their attitudes towards science. Seventy per cent of parents believed that science education should begin in the pre-school years, before the age of four. Despite high levels of education, at least half of the parents expressed some lack of confidence in talking about, and in doing science with, their young children. Parents who reported less confidence in doing science activities with their children also reported reduced frequency of activities for five out of the seven science learning opportunities listed. Mothers, compared to fathers, reported less confidence in doing science activities with their children. Findings indicate that parents’ confidence in science may impact early science experiences and highlight parents as a key support for increasing early science engagement.

Research has indicated differences in prosodic expression for infants-at-risk-of-autism spectrum disorders (ASD), and it has been proposed that caregiver speech to these infants may also be moderated prosodically. In typical development, the pitch range of maternal infant-directed speech (IDS) narrows and utterance intensity decreases with infant age, and similar patterns are evident in infant vocalizations. In this study, samples of English-speaking maternal and infant nonvegetative vocalizations produced during naturalistic interaction at ages 12 months and 18 months were analyzed to investigate this process in a group of infants-at-risk-of-ASD with their mothers and typically developing controls. Differences in the expression, developmental trajectory and synchrony of prosody were found for at-risk dyads compared with low-risk dyads. Possible explanations for these patterns and the implications for language development are explored.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that grandparents provide a substantial amount of childcare support to parents of infants in Ireland yet there has been little attention to the provision of grandparent childcare at policy level. Using nationally representative data on childcare provision in the Republic of Ireland, this study examined the prevalence of grandparent childcare provision for very young children, and associations between this choice of childcare and key infant, family, and community factors. Using archived data from the Infant Cohort of the Growing Up in Ireland study, descriptive data regarding use of grandparents as childcare providers were outlined. A series of bivariate analyses were then conducted to examine the independent association between a range of infant, family, and community variables and use of grandparent childcare. Finally, a multivariate analysis using binomial logistic regression was used to examine the association of each of these variables in a fully adjusted model. The results show that 38.6% of infants experienced non-parental childcare: 12.4% were looked after by grandparents, 15.7% by other home-based carers and 10.5% in childcare centres such as creches. Grandparents were the cheapest source of childcare but also provided fewer hours on average. Multivariate analysis indicated the importance of parental income, age, and education in choosing grandparental childcare, with younger, less well-off parents using grandparent childcare more than any other type of childcare. The findings suggest that, whether by choice or by economic pressure, grandparents represent a huge resource in terms of providing childcare for infants. Current childcare policy needs to be cognisant of the significant contribution of grandparents in helping families with young children participate in the labour force. Constraints on the amount of care grandparents are able to provide may have knock-on constraints for parents' participation in the labour force and earnings.