Raising healthy children: translating child development research into practice.

Child development research has a rich history of informing practices in families, schools, communities, and other contexts that shape children’s development and enhance their health and well being (Huston, 2008; Senn, 1975). Understanding developmental processes in typically and atypically developing children provides guidance on how to optimize positive development as well as how to prevent or minimize problematic outcomes. One of the most visible and well-known examples over the last few decades is the early childhood movement, including Head Start and related efforts to enhance early child development and school readiness (Shonkoff, 2010). Based on a convergence of solid evidence on diverse but related topics including normative cognitive, social, and emotional development, early brain plasticity, the shortand long-term impacts of early intervention, and cost–benefit analyses, early childhood programs have attained status as valued investments, both in the United States and internationally (Fox & Rutter, 2010; Heckman, 2006). The importance of grounding policy and practice in the scientific study of children’s development is consistent with the relatively new and rapidly evolving domain of translational research. Initially, this orientation emerged to increase the connection between the study of basic processes and their applications to health improvement and treatment in the field of medicine, characterized as connecting ‘‘bench to bedside’’ (Insel, 2005). This critical shift emphasizing the end usability of research on basic processes for health improvement became influential in other areas such as social psychology (Tashiro & Mortensen, 2006) and developmental psychopathology (Cicchetti & Toth, 2006). Within developmental studies, there has been increased focus on the connection between normative development, atypical development, and intervention, including the importance of understanding atypical development through a normative lens that can guide interventions (Cicchetti & Gunnar, 2009). Still, there is no uniform definition of translational research, although several common themes have emerged that are relevant for developmental science. These include: (a) the notion of a translational chain from basic research to program implementation and evaluation (Type 1 translation), culminating in bringing these findings to scale (Type 2 translation); (b) attention to the bidirectional nature of influence between research and practice that includes use-inspired basic research and allows for the timely application of research to address pressing human problems; (c) an emphasis on testing promising interventions in high-quality efficacy and effectiveness trials to document evidence-based practices under ideal and real-world conditions; and (d) an emphasis on how best to communicate scientific evidence to the public in order to enhance the utilization of knowledge while separating science from advocacy. In some regard, translational research is best understood as a way of thinking or an alternate paradigm that seeks to blend rather than dichotomize basic and applied research