Early Childhood Global Inequalities

ECE Around the world

For Part one of this week’s blog assignment, my first step was to choose a place that also spoke English so we would be able to effectively communicate.  I chose England and Australia as I know those two definitely speak English.  I started my search by searching England Early Childhood Associations.  I then found the British Association of Early Childhood Education.  I looked around to see if I could contact their staff or board by email and was unable to find anything but the general contact us page.  I searched through their trainers and found several of them so I then goggled by their names.  I found several that had their own websites.  I have contacted two of them and now am waiting to hear back from them.  The second place I searched was Early Childhood Australia.  I have also contacted two people with this organization.

For part two of this blog, the organization I chose to study was Early Childhood Australia. The first thing that caught my eye was all the resources and articles they have available.  It reminds me of NAEYC.  I also figure that since I will hopefully be using someone from there for my contacts it would make sense to use that site as my research topic.

I am really looking forward to learning about other places around the world and how they are committed to the field of early childhood.

http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/

My Supports

My most needed support most mornings is coffee.  You may laugh at this but I have a 14 month son who had never slept through the night.  He is up three, four, seven times a night.  He is now getting his molars and now it’s worse.  I have learned to function on very little sleep.  I start my coffee before I get in the shower and pour my big travel mug right before I walk out the door 45 minutes later.  Without I do not think I could function and make it through the day.  I did not really drink coffee much before I had my son.  I never had a problem with my daughter.

My emotional supports through the day are my family.  I get hugs and kisses from my daughter and son when I get them up and when I leave for work.  I get good morning and good by kisses from my husband as well.  He also tells me to have a good day and to have a safe drive to work.  On my way to work I usually talk to my mom every morning.  In the afternoon I pick my children up from our home care provider and I am usually greeted with smiles, hugs, and excitement.  When we get home the kids go play and I make dinner.  Then my husband gets home and we talk about our day and sit down as a family to have dinner.  We talk and listen to each other whenever we need each other.  He is my main emotional support.  Life would be very difficult without having these three involved. 

At work I have several people in my department that are there to help support me to complete my job functions.  I have my supervisor who helps guide me, my office partner that helps me locate files and information, our secretary that helps me reserve rooms for training, and several others in the department that help me with other tasks.  I also have selected individuals at agencies that we work closely with that are there to help me as well when I need guidance or direction with finding trainers or scheduling training. 

The Other main support I have in my day is my I-Phone.  It is my alarm clock to get up in the morning without it I would never get up.  I use various apps in it for email, Facebook, internet, even Walden’s site to do homework.  I also use apps to keep my grocery list, to do list, appointment calendar, set birthday reminders, set my DVR to record a show or movie.  It is a very much needed support  night when my children do not want to go to sleep and I can go on You Tube and play the Pajanimals song Lullaby and it calms them right down.  If I play it a few times they generally will be asleep in no time.

The challenge I chose to imagine would be not having my family.  I am 32 and I have never once lived alone.  I cannot imagine not having someone to wake up with in the morning, come home to or have them come home to me in the evening, or say good night to before bed, even if it’s just a roommate.  I think I would need a great deal of extended family support and friend support.  I would need something in my life to keep my occupied and not be bored pondering the “what ifs”.  I would defiantly need a close group of friends to ensure a healthy social life.  I also believe I would become a workaholic and be there long hours writing and finding training. 

I think supports I would have if I didn't have my family would be that I am actively involved with my church.  I would probably become more involved and volunteer more in the community.  My other supports would be that I love doing crafts such as scrapbooking, sewing, and DIY projects.  I would have a very creative house and have awesome Christmas presents for my friends and family. 

I cannot imagine my life without my husband and kids now.  Life would be very boring but I am not sure how that would be, now that I do not have to worry about it.  I would have lived my life never knowing how it would be without them and imagining myself with having a husband and children someday.  

My Connection To Play

“Play is the only way the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold.” ~ Joseph Chilton Pearce (author)

“The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things.” ~ Plato (Greek philosopher)

“Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning…They have to play with what they know to be true in order to find out more, and then they can use what they learn in new forms of play.” ~ Fred Rogers (Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood)

“Play builds the kind of free-and-easy, try-it-out, do-it-yourself character that our future needs.” ~ James L. Hymes Jr. (child development specialist, author)

http://www.childsplaymagazine.com/Quotes/index.htm


Some of the things that represent my childhood play

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Growing up we were always playing outside.  There was a tree in our yard that we were always climbing and playing in.  It wasn't big enough to build a real tree fort in, but we still made it our tree fort either way.



We spent a great deal of time out in the woods.  My grandparents lived right along the woods line.  We would go and explore all the time.  As a family we took may trips out to the woods, spent time camping, hunting, and fishing.  I am a full blooded outdoor girl and love it!



My favorite toys were my pound puppies, Cabbage Patch Kid  and my barbies.


My parents were always encouraging us to go outside and play.  We were kicked out of the house all the time to go play.  We had a neighborhood full of children so there was always someone to play with.  We had a small town in a great wilderness area so there was a great deal of play opportunities   I have an older brother who I played with a lot.  My at my grandparents house they had a great deal of toys and things to play with.  My mom was also very good about playing with us all the time.  I remember many days of playing barbies with her.  My brother on the other hand  G.I. Joe seemed to always be on the attack of Barbie.  I don't know how that girl ever lived.

I definitely think that play has changed over time.  With technology we have have seen a decrease in active play in children.  I see it in my three year old.  She loves playing on my phone and computer.  However she would still rather play outside on her swing set   We go out as much as we can.  It is hard to get them outside as much as I would like because we don't have a fence and when there is so much to do around the house and to get dinner done, its hard to find the time.  I do not think children are encouraged as much to play as they were in the past.  Family schedules are busy and its easier to turn on the TV or give a child a phone while the parents are taking care of what they need to do.  I do think play has changed that there has been a shift in the gender stereotyping of play.  Boys are now not driven away from playing with dolls, girls are playing with the boys with trucks, and other genderized toys.

I played a great deal as a child.  I still continue to play as an adult.  My husband and I are adventurous.  We like to camp, take out our ATV's, hike, and anything else in the great outdoors.  We like theme parks, going to the regular park, zoo, museums, and having fun.  We play frequently   Now that we have children  play is a huge part of our life.  I have tea parties and play dress up with my daughter.  We color, paint, and do arts and crafts all the time.  I dance and sing with both of my children   My son is now getting into playing with others so we are including him in our games and adventures.  I do not think that I will ever loose the drive to play.  I am ready for the children to be old enough to take them to the theme parks as they both are fearless. Soon we can take them hiking more than just the local parks, they already love to go camping, and would love to get them a mini ATV when they are big enough.  I think play will always be a large part of our lives.

Relationship Reflection

Relationships are a critical part of life.  We build various types of them throughout our life.  Some come and go, while others are lifelong.  My closest relationships I have are with my husband and my children. They are the love of my life.  I have been with my husband for ten years (wow that's the first I just realized that) and have been married five as of two weeks ago.  I cannot imagine my life without him.  He is my world, my best friend, and makes me laugh like nobody ever has.  I still get butterflies in my stomach every time I see him walk into a room.   My children are the reason I live.  They are my special miracles that I would not trade the world for. 

I also have very close ones with both my parents and my brother and his wife.  These are the relationships that are lifelong.  I have a great deal of family, some I am close with, others more acquaintance at the local family wedding or graduation, as well as most of my family as Facebook friends.I have a super close relationship with my mom, she is one of my best friends.  She is my rock when I need her, and has always been loving and supportive.  We talk or text at least once a day and that's a low number.  

  I have a handful of very close friends that I can count on one hand that have lasted through the years. Four specifically.  One I have known since kindergarten, and the rest since junior high.  Three of them I consider my best friends.To keep these relationships continuing it takes effort on both parts.  Thankfully with technology today it is much easier than it was 20 years ago when we all live around the country.  With computers and text messages it allows us to post comments on the Facebook page or send a text message at our convince.  Frequently it will be a specific show or song that I see or hear that reminds me of them and makes me smile.  So then I just text them a "Hi, How are ya?" message.  We go through periods of time that we may not talk for six months or longer, but then out of the blue one calls the other and its like we saw each other yesterday.  We can laugh, smile, joke, hang out, and do all kinds of things together and it just has a quaint cozy feel to it, no matter what we are engaged in.  

My small group of close friends, I know will be there for me when ever I need them.  I can call them with any issues I have and they will always be there.  The same goes right back.  They can come to me with anything and I will always be here to help them.  We have become more like sisters and I consider them my family than we are friends.  I don't think family should have to mean blood related as they are more involved in my life than some of my family.  

I have learned from relationships in the past that there are a lot of people that want to take from a relationship and not want to give nearly as much in the relationship.  Many of them come off to be one sided even when its been ongoing for a while, it may just come to realization.  Both sides have to be vested equally into the relationship and not just when its convenient.  I had one specifically that I just stopped putting the effort in and then a year later she called and asked what happened.  So I told her, she was never there when I needed her and everything was always about her.  She was a friend for convince and that's not what I was looking for.  I haven't heard from her since.  I can honestly say I don't miss her.  

I think my relationships I have and in my life will help me with my professional relationships as I know how to maintain professional boundaries.  I understand that when I have new staff, as I am going to in the spring when I open my center, that good working relationships are not automatic.  I have a crazy smart mouth that can get taken the wrong way.  I am not prim and proper, but I know when to be professional when I need to be.  I know that relationships take work and effort from both sides.  

Change the first five years....

This is one of the most powerful videos of the impact of early childhood education

Change the First Five Years, You Change Everything

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X2WsAZSp9A

Notable quotes worth remembering

Notable Quotes Worth Remembering



Truly wonderful the mind of a child is.

YODA, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

The family is both the fundamental unit of society as well as the root of culture. It ... is a perpetual source of encouragement, advocacy, assurance, and emotional refueling that empowers a child to venture with confidence into the greater world and to become all that he can be.

MARIANNE E. NEIFERT, Dr. Mom's Parenting Guide

Children need models more than they need critics.

JOSEPH JOUBERT, Pensées

Children are the brightest treasures we bring forth into this world, but too large a percentage of the population continues to treat them as inconveniences and nuisances, when they're not treating them as possessions or toys.

CHARLES DE LINT, The Onion Girl

There is more in the education of children than the everlasting iteration of the word "don't!"

AUSTIN O'MALLEY, Keystones of Thought

Always end the name of your child with a vowel, so that when you yell the name will carry.

BILL COSBY, Fatherhood

Nothing you do for a child is ever wasted.

GARRISON KEILLOR, Leaving Home

If a child is given love, he becomes loving ... If he's helped when he needs help, he becomes helpful. And if he has been truly valued at home ... he grows up secure enough to look beyond himself to the welfare of others.

DR. JOYCE BROTHERS, Good Housekeeping, Aug. 2010



http://www.notable-quotes.com/c/children_quotes.html

Assessment Breakdown

I really like this site.  It breaks assessment down.

http://www.open.edu/openlearn/body-mind/childhood-youth/childhood-and-youth-studies/childhood/assessing-childrens-abilities

Tests, tasks and assessments

It is common for people to describe the tasks that developmental researchers use with children as ‘tests’, but this term is properly used only for tools such as the British Picture Vocabulary Scale or Raven’s Progressive Matrices which are published materials, with manuals and scoring directions.

These are usually only available to appropriately qualified psychologists, who have been registered with the test supplier, the two most important of these suppliers being the Psychological Corporation and Harcourt. These suppliers will only issue test materials to bona fide researchers and practitioners, under license agreements which restrict their use to specified circumstances such as testing children in schools to assess their educational needs or as part of an institutional based research project, for example.

Such standardised tests are only published after extensive periods of development to establish their validity (i.e. they measure what they claim to), their reliability (i.e. results are consistent) and to produce norms based on data gathered from carefully sampled appropriate populations.

Psychological tests are not necessarily paper and pencil, although many are; they may include the use of toys, as in the Test of Pretend Play or a variety of objects, such as cups, blocks, crayons and boxes, as in the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. Such tests are commonly called ‘psychometrics’ because they aim to provide a measurement (or metric) of some psychological function(s).

Standardised tests can include tasks that the child has to complete, such as naming a series of pictures of objects or placing a set of rods in a row of holes in a plastic strip, but the term ‘task’ is a much broader one and basically refers to any activity that requires a child’s active engagement with some materials. The tasks that developmental researchers use may sometimes appear simple, but they are usually the result of a lot of trial and error piloting with children to produce tasks that are good at revealing children’s abilities.

Assessment is a broader term that refers to the way that many clinicians and researchers will use one or more tests or tasks, and their own observations as well, to form a general impression of a child’s ability, state of mind or other psychological aspect. The so-called ‘clinical method’ as used by Piaget and other researchers favouring this style is similar, in that a standard task is used as a starting point for exploring a child’s understanding, for example, by asking additional probe questions after the child has completed the task.

How are standardised tests used?

To ensure that the results of developmental research are reliable, it is important to ensure that tasks are administered to children consistently, in a standard way. Otherwise, we can’t be sure that variations in the way the tasks have been presented by the researchers haven’t biased the results of some children in one way and in other ways for other children.

It’s also important that research results can be replicable, that is, if they are conducted by another researcher, with a new sample of children, the results will be at least comparable.

It’s to avoid such problems that researchers typically draw up ‘protocols’ for tasks that they wish to use in research and develop manuals so that administration can be ‘manualised’ (to borrow a term from clinical psychology), that is, to follow a procedure as laid out in a manual accompanying the task materials.

In research, because of the practice of writing up results for publication, and so that other people can collect comparable data, it is especially important to be precise about how long a researcher should wait for a child to answer a question, for example, or how long a child should be given to get six pegs into six holes in a plastic strip.

Do tests provide the correct information about a child’s ability?

Although it is not always the case, a researcher is usually interested in using a child’s performance in a test or task to infer the child’s underlying ability or other psychological attribute. Thus, for example, the British Ability Scales are not intended to just measure how good a child is at answering the BAS questions and performing on the tasks in the scales, but is primarily aiming to give an indication of a child’s underlying abilities (i.e. their competence).

In spite of this aim, and all the careful psychometric development work that goes on to ensure that tests and tasks are indeed validly tapping into some underlying aspect of a child’s psychological functioning, it is nevertheless always true that a child’s performance will never give a 100% accurate measure of their competence. For one thing, children’s performance will vary day-to-day, due to factors like tiredness or alertness, the way that the tester relates to the child and many other factors.

It also is sometimes the case that the manualising of a test has the effect of the assessor not being able to probe further about a child’s ability to answer a question even though they might suspect that the child knows the correct answer.

In such circumstances there is a compromise between being able to assess a child’s ability in relation to what other children of the same age do in exactly the same circumstances and providing an in depth assessment of one child’s abilities but not knowing how this relates to what other children are able to do in the same circumstances. 

The development of standardised tests

Much of developmental research is looking for differences between children in order to explore the factors that influence such variations. A task on which all children perform in exactly the same way, no matter what age they are or whatever their background, is unlikely to be of much interest to any researchers.

So one of the things that people designing tasks are concerned with is to make sure that children’s performance shows sufficient variation from one individual to another and sufficient variation between children of different ages.

An aspect that researchers have to bear in mind is to avoid what are called floor and ceiling effects. These effects arise when the developmental tasks do not allow sufficient range in children’s responses to differentiate between some of the children at the upper or lower extremes of performance.

Thus, if one in three children always scores 100% on a particular task, and another one in three scores 0%, then the task is only discriminating among the group getting scores between 1 and 99%, only one-third of the population. The ceiling effect is where a substantial number of children score at a maximum level, and hence it is not possible to distinguish between them in terms of their performance on the task. The floor effect refers to the group at the other end of the distribution, those children who all score 0% and hence cannot be distinguished between either.

An example of why this may be important is given by a case in which an intervention to improve the reading ability of poor readers might fail to show effects because the test used to assess reading ability has a marked floor effect. Thus, children whose reading ability genuinely improved as a result of the intervention might still score at or around zero because the test does not discriminate well between poor readers, although it may discriminate well between average and better than average readers.

Testing, Context and Language

Writing in Children's Minds, Margaret Donaldson suggested that when children are faced with tasks set them by researchers, they find such tasks much easier if they make some sort of human sense. In the ‘Three Mountains’ task, it can be seen that a child’s performance on a task cannot be easily separated from the context in which the task is located. Modern ideas of situated cognition (such as those put forward by WJ Clancey in the article Situated cognition: how representations are created and given meaning) stress this point.

In addition, it is easy to assume that children understand language in the same way as adults and thus they will find it as easy to follow instructions or to respond to questions as adults do. However, it often seems that children will place more reliance on non-verbal cues or the context of the question than would adults. In the assessment of conservation the context of the question can have a powerful effect

These factors can affect the validity of the assessment, and affect the relation between competence and performance. Good standardised tests attempt to avoid these problems.

Cultural appropriateness and ecological validity

A crucial consideration for the development and use of tests, tasks and assessments is raised by the recognition that cognitive development does not take place independent of its cultural context (as observed in N Warren's 1979 cultural variation and commonality in cognitive development), and that other aspects of development, social, emotional and even perceptual, are also dependent on the nature of children’s environments.

Recognising these issues, it is clearly critical that developmental research should ensure that the language, materials, setting and other aspects of data collection from children are appropriate to their cultural backgrounds. This is a difficult issue as tests are often designed to be administered in a specific way. However, in some circumstances particular tests work across different cultures.

P R Dasen's Are cognitive processes universal? pointed out that an African village child, given a short plastic tube and a chain of paper clips, who has never seen such things before, nevertheless makes exactly the same actions as a child in Paris, trying to pass the chain through the tube. So, clearly, we must not make assumptions about cultural specificity or universality without testing out whether they are justified or not.

A general term that sums this up is ecological validity. This points to the need to examine whether what is being asked of a child in a psychological task is valid for their ecology, in other words, their social and cultural milieu. To do so means stepping outside our own cultural and social frame and doing our best to overcome the tendency to ethnocentrism, that is, believing that the world as we experience it is a primary reference point and that other ways of being and seeing are deviations or aberrations from our own.

It is salutary to recognise that even something that seems so basic as the idea of a competition in which there are a winner and losers is an alien idea in some cultures, for example the Inuit of North America, where striving is valued greatly above winning.

Hence the response of an Inuit child in a psychological assessment that asks whether a child who has won a game is happy, might validly be that they are unhappy, based on the underlying premise that satisfaction comes from trying hard, not from winning. Would that Inuit child be any less ‘emotionally intelligent’ than a British child who says ‘of course the winner’s happy, because they won, and they didn’t even have to try very hard’?

References

Clancey, W. J. (1994) Situated cognition: how representations are created and given meaning, in Lewis, R. and Mendelsohn, P., (eds)Lessons from Learning, pp. 231-242, Amsterdam, North Holland.

Dasen, P. R. (1977) Are cognitive processes universal? A contribution to cross-cultural Piagetian psychology, in Warren, N. (ed.),Studies in Cross-cultural Psychology, vol. 1, pp. 155-201, London, Academic Press.

Donaldson, M. and Lloyd, P. (1974) Sentences and situations: children’s judgments of match and mismatch, in Bresson F. (ed.)Problèmes Actuels en Psycholinguistique, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France.

Donaldson, M. (1978) Children’s Minds, London, Fontana.

Warren, N. (1979) Cultural variation and commonality in cognitive development, in Oates, J. (ed) Early Cognitive Development, London, Croom Helm.

Assessment

I think that children should be assessed to look for delays that they do need interventions and services for.  However I feel that we do need to think of the whole child.  This includes not just what they can do academically with identifying letters, shapes, and numbers, but how well they are physically, socially, and emotionally developing.  We should assess how they learn, what works best in regards to the area of multiple intelligence, where they are strongest in the various levels and where are they weakest for being able to learn to the best of their abilities.  If we can identify their strongest areas and methods of learning then this would help them through their academic career as we know children do not all learn through the same methods and at the same level.

China has several assessments they use on their children.  Chidlrne can enter formal schooling at the age of six, some delayed until seven, and some children who are experimental areas can begin at age five.  They complete term assessments such as semester finals to assess their skills, end of the year assessments, and assessments at the completion of primary school to determine their level for advancing to middle school.  At the completion of middle school the children must take examinations based on local requirements and standards to determine if they advance to high school.  Some of these tests are based on collegiate requirements and some are designed by the government and local agencies. 

Specific assessments are based on literacy as China has a strong emphasis on making their country literate after a great history of having a very illiterate country.  The assessment includes being able to read Chinese characters, reading and comprehension, calculations, and practical reading. 

Zhang, Juwei, 2004.  China’s Skill Assessment System.  Institute of Population and Labor Economics

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EDUCATION/Resources/278200-1126210664195/1636971-1126210694253/China_Skills_Assessment.pdf

Childhood Stress

Several families I know have been affected by war.  The families have all had their fathers deployed with having small children.  The impact on the chidlrne varied with the ages of the children.  When the children were young with the father deployed, it led to more melt downs and tantrums in the first few months, especially if the daily routines were interrupted or changed.  After a while things improved.  When the father returned after being gone roughly a year, it took a little while for them to warm back up to them if they were very young.  The families that had children in elementary school, several had noticed changes in attitude, behavior, and academics of the children.  As time went on the families became more unified and close as the toll of dad being gone started affecting them.  The older children of one family joined into military children support groups and this really helped them cope with the fears and issues they had of their dad being gone.  The boys of one family stepped up to lead the role of the man of the house while dad was gone as well. 

Africa houses 70% of adults and 80% of all the children in the world that have AIDS.  With that many people suffering from the disease there are many stressors that are placed upon the children.  The first is that many children are losing their parents to the disease.  If not losing or lost one, they are often losing both.  Then they are either orphaned or taken in by family members, who often also being affected by the disease.  The children are losing other family members and friends to the disease that can also cause stress.  When children lose a parent not only is the emotional loss of a parent but they are also now at a much higher risk for poverty, if not already there, or going further into poverty if it was the bread winner that has passed in the long run. Some places actually give families a government stipend when a life is lost.  Other stressors placed upon the children are that they are now responsible for the agricultural family responsibilities.  This includes both tending to the livestock and the crops.  Many children have not yet had to learn this responsibility yet. Some countries have implemented extension programs to help these children learn the skills needed to care for the animals and grow the crops.  Education and protection is the best way to help these children cope with the loss of their loved ones and to protect themselves in the future. 

http://www.thebody.com/content/art795.html

I love this site!

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Throughout history we have seen epidemics wipe out mass quantities of populations.  With the discovery of medicines that can help prevent and control diseases such as polio, pertussis, measles, flu and now even chicken pox.  We see in countries such as those in Africa where diseases are still abundant but are not in countries with advanced medicine.  With the use of vaccines throughout the last few hundred years we have been able to almost eliminate many of the inhibiting diseases that were common.  It is critical for parents to continue to immunize their children and continue eliminating such diseases.  As times have changed and suspect of conditions such as Autism being linked to the MMR vaccine, it has caused controversy over teh benefits of the immunizations.  It seems to be that the prevention of such death from disease would be a much better outcome that possibilities of developing autism (which was denounced as falsified documents and tainted studies).  We need to continue immunizing all children and adults around the world to to help eliminate deadly diseases.  I cannot imagine risking my children's health for them to develop one of the horrid diseases due to my choice of not immunizing them.  


This information will impact my future work by incorporating the importance of immunizations in my training that I provide to my staff.  My staff will then be well informed and be able to pass this information on to the parents in our program.  If we can encourage just one parent to immunize their children, we could be saving a life.  

Why Immunize?
For Parents

Why immunize our children? Sometimes we are confused by the messages in the media. First we are assured that, thanks to vaccines, some diseases are almost gone from the U.S. But we are also warned to immunize our children, ourselves as adults, and the elderly.

Diseases are becoming rare due to vaccinations.

It's true, some diseases (like polio and diphtheria) are becoming very rare in the U.S. Of course, they are becoming rare largely because we have been vaccinating against them. But it is still reasonable to ask whether it's really worthwhile to keep vaccinating.

It's much like bailing out a boat with a slow leak. When we started bailing, the boat was filled with water. But we have been bailing fast and hard, and now it is almost dry. We could say, "Good. The boat is dry now, so we can throw away the bucket and relax." But the leak hasn't stopped. Before long we'd notice a little water seeping in, and soon it might be back up to the same level as when we started.

Keep immunizing until disease is eliminated.

Unless we can "stop the leak" (eliminate the disease), it is important to keep immunizing. Even if there are only a few cases of disease today, if we take away the protection given by vaccination, more and more people will be infected and will spread disease to others. Soon we will undo the progress we have made over the years.

Japan reduced pertussis vaccinations, and an epidemic occurred.

In 1974, Japan had a successful pertussis (whooping cough) vaccination program, with nearly 80% of Japanese children vaccinated. That year only 393 cases of pertussis were reported in the entire country, and there were no deaths from pertussis. But then rumors began to spread that pertussis vaccination was no longer needed and that the vaccine was not safe, and by 1976 only 10% of infants were getting vaccinated. In 1979 Japan suffered a major pertussis epidemic, with more than 13,000 cases of whooping cough and 41 deaths. In 1981 the government began vaccinating with acellular pertussis vaccine, and the number of pertussis cases dropped again.

What if we stopped vaccinating?

So what would happen if we stopped vaccinating here? Diseases that are almost unknown would stage a comeback. Before long we would see epidemics of diseases that are nearly under control today. More children would get sick and more would die.

We vaccinate to protect our future.

We don't vaccinate just to protect our children. We also vaccinate to protect our grandchildren and their grandchildren. With one disease, smallpox, we "stopped the leak" in the boat by eradicating the disease. Our children don't have to get smallpox shots any more because the disease no longer exists. If we keep vaccinating now, parents in the future may be able to trust that diseases like polio and meningitis won't infect, cripple, or kill children. Vaccinations are one of the best ways to put an end to the serious effects of certain diseases. 

Why Immunize?  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  2012. 

 http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/why.htm

What Would Happen If We Stopped Vaccinations?

In the U.S., vaccination programs have eliminated or significantly reduced many vaccine-preventable diseases. However, these diseases still exist and can once again become common—and deadly—if vaccination coverage does not continue at high levels.

On this page (Figures and Statistics Updated 2003):

• Introduction


• Measles


• Polio


• Type b (Hib) Meningitis


• Hepatitis B


• Pertussis (Whooping Cough)


• Pneumococcal


• Rubella (German Measles)


• Varicella (Chickenpox)


• Diphtheria


• Tetanus (Lockjaw)


• Mumps

Introduction

In the U.S., vaccines have reduced or eliminated many infectious diseases that once routinely killed or harmed many infants, children, and adults. However, the viruses and bacteria that cause vaccine-preventable disease and death still exist and can be passed on to people who are not protected by vaccines. Vaccine-preventable diseases have many social and economic costs: sick children miss school and can cause parents to lose time from work. These diseases also result in doctor's visits, hospitalizations, and even premature deaths.

Polio

Stopping vaccination against polio will leave people susceptible to infection with the polio virus. Polio virus causes acute paralysis that can lead to permanent physical disability and even death. Before polio vaccine was available, 13,000 to 20,000 cases of paralytic polio were reported each year in the United States. These annual epidemics of polio often left thousands of victims--mostly children--in braces, crutches, wheelchairs, and iron lungs. The effects were life-long. UPDATED April 2007

In 1988 the World Health Assembly unanimously agreed to eradicate polio worldwide. As a result of global polio eradication efforts, the number of cases reported globally has decreased from more than 350,000 cases in 125 countries in 1988 to 2,000 cases of polio in 17 countries in 2006, and only four countries remain endemic (Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, Pakistan). To date polio has been eliminated from the Western hemisphere, and the European and Western Pacific regions. Stopping vaccination before eradication is achieved would result in a resurgence of the disease in the United States and worldwide.

This section last updated April 2007.

Measles

Before measles immunization was available, nearly everyone in the U.S. got measles. An average of 450 measles-associated deaths were reported each year between 1953 and 1963.

In the U.S., up to 20 percent of persons with measles are hospitalized. Seventeen percent of measles cases have had one or more complications, such as ear infections, pneumonia, or diarrhea. Pneumonia is present in about six percent of cases and accounts for most of the measles deaths. Although less common, some persons with measles develop encephalitis (swelling of the lining of the brain), resulting in brain damage. 

As many as three of every 1,000 persons with measles will die in the U.S. In the developing world, the rate is much higher, with death occurring in about one of every 100 persons with measles.

Measles is one of the most infectious diseases in the world and is frequently imported into the U.S. In the period 1997-2000, most cases were associated with international visitors or U.S. residents who were exposed to the measles virus while traveling abroad. More than 90 percent of people who are not immune will get measles if they are exposed to the virus.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly 900,000 measles-related deaths occurred among persons in developing countries in 1999. In populations that are not immune to measles, measles spreads rapidly. If vaccinations were stopped, each year about 2.7 million measles deaths worldwide could be expected.

In the U.S., widespread use of measles vaccine has led to a greater than 99 percent reduction in measles compared with the pre-vaccine era. If we stopped immunization, measles would increase to pre-vaccine levels.

Haemophilus Influenzae Type b (Hib) Meningitis

Before Hib vaccine became available, Hib was the most common cause of bacterial meningitis in U.S. infants and children. Before the vaccine was developed, there were approximately 20,000 invasive Hib cases annually. Approximately two-thirds of the 20,000 cases were meningitis, and one-third were other life-threatening invasive Hib diseases such as bacteria in the blood, pneumonia, or inflammation of the epiglottis. About one of every 200 U.S. children under 5 years of age got an invasive Hib disease.Hib meningitis once killed 600 children each year and left many survivors with deafness, seizures, or mental retardation.

Since introduction of conjugate Hib vaccine in December 1987, the incidence of Hib has declined by 98 percent. From 1994-1998, fewer than 10 fatal cases of invasive Hib disease were reported each year.

This preventable disease was a common, devastating illness as recently as 1990; now, most pediatricians just finishing training have never seen a case. If we were to stop immunization, we would likely soon return to the pre-vaccine numbers of invasive Hib disease cases and deaths.

Pertussis (Whooping Cough)

Since the early 1980s, reported pertussis cases have been increasing, with peaks every 3-5 years; however, the number of reported cases remains much lower than levels seen in the pre-vaccine era. Compared with pertussis cases in other age groups, infants who are 6 months old or younger with pertussis experience the highest rate of hospitalization, pneumonia, seizures, encephalopathy (a degenerative disease of the brain) and death. From 2000 through 2008, 181 persons died from pertussis; 166 of these were less than six months old.

Before pertussis immunizations were available, nearly all children developed whooping cough. In the U.S., prior to pertussis immunization, between 150,000 and 260,000 cases of pertussis were reported each year, with up to 9,000 pertussis-related deaths.

Pertussis can be a severe illness, resulting in prolonged coughing spells that can last for many weeks. These spells can make it difficult for a person to eat, drink, and breathe. Because vomiting often occurs after a coughing spell, persons may lose weight and become dehydrated. In infants, it can also cause pneumonia and lead to brain damage, seizures, and mental retardation.

The newer pertussis vaccine (acellular or DTaP) has been available for use in the United States since 1991 and has been recommended for exclusive use since 1998. These vaccines are effective and associated with fewer mild and moderate adverse reactions when compared with the older (whole-cell DTP) vaccines.

During the 1970s, widespread concerns about the safety of the older pertussis vaccine led to a rapid fall in immunization levels in the United Kingdom. More than 100,000 cases and 36 deaths due to pertussis were reported during an epidemic in the mid 1970s. In Japan, pertussis vaccination coverage fell from 80 percent in 1974 to 20 percent in 1979. An epidemic occurred in 1979, resulted in more than 13,000 cases and 41 deaths.

Pertussis cases occur throughout the world. If we stopped pertussis immunizations in the U.S., we would experience a massive resurgence of pertussis disease. A study* found that, in eight countries where immunization coverage was reduced, incidence rates of pertussis surged to 10 to 100 times the rates in countries where vaccination rates were sustained. 

*Reference for study: Gangarosa EJ, et al. Impact of anti-vaccine movements on pertussis control: the untold story. Lancet 1998;351:356-61.

This section last updated August 2010.

Pneumococcal

Before pneumococcal conjugate vaccine became available for children, pneumococcus caused 63,000 cases of invasive pneumococcal disease and 6,100 deaths in the U.S. each year. Many children who developed pneumococcal meningitis also developed long-term complications such as deafness or seizures. Since the vaccine was introduced, the incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease in children has been reduced by 75%. Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine also reduces spread of pneumococcus from children to adults. In 2003 alone, there were 30,000 fewer cases of invasive pneumococcal disease caused by strains included in the vaccine, including 20,000 fewer cases in children and adults too old to receive the vaccine. If we were to stop immunization, we would likely soon return to the pre-vaccine numbers of invasive pneumococcal disease cases and deaths.

This section last updated April 2007.

Rubella (German Measles)

While rubella is usually mild in children and adults, up to 90 percent of infants born to mothers infected with rubella during the first trimester of pregnancy will developcongenital rubella syndrome (CRS), resulting in heart defects, cataracts, mental retardation, and deafness.

In 1964-1965, before rubella immunization was used routinely in the U.S., there was an epidemic of rubella that resulted in an estimated 20,000 infants born with CRS, with 2,100 neonatal deaths and 11,250 miscarriages. Of the 20,000 infants born with CRS, 11,600 were deaf, 3,580 were blind, and 1,800 were mentally retarded.

Due to the widespread use of rubella vaccine, only six CRS cases were provisionally reported in the U.S. in 2000. Because many developing countries do not include rubella in the childhood immunization schedule, many of these cases occurred in foreign-born adults. Since 1996, greater than 50 percent of the reported rubella cases have been among adults. Since 1999, there have been 40 pregnant women infected with rubella.

If we stopped rubella immunization, immunity to rubella would decline and rubella would once again return, resulting in pregnant women becoming infected with rubella and then giving birth to infants with CRS.

Varicella (Chickenpox)

Prior to the licensing of the chickenpox vaccine in 1995, almost all persons in the United States had suffered from chickenpox by adulthood. Each year, the virus caused an estimated 4 million cases of chickenpox, 11,000 hospitalizations, and 100-150 deaths.

A highly contagious disease, chickenpox is usually mild but can be severe in some persons. Infants, adolescents and adults, pregnant women, and immunocompromised persons are at particular risk for serious complications including secondary bacterial infections, loss of fluids (dehydration), pneumonia, and central nervous system involvement. The availability of the chickenpox vaccine and its subsequent widespread use has had a major impact on reducing cases of chickenpox and related morbidity, hospitalizations, and deaths. In some areas, cases have decreased as much as 90% over prevaccination numbers.

If vaccination against chickenpox were to stop, the disease would eventually return to prevaccination rates, with virtually all susceptible persons becoming infected with the virus at some point in their lives.

This section last updated June 2011.

Hepatitis B

More than 2 billion persons worldwide have been infected with the hepatitis B virus at some time in their lives. Of these, 350 million are life-long carriers of the disease and can transmit the virus to others. One million of these people die each year from liver disease and liver cancer.

National studies have shown that about 12.5 million Americans have been infected with hepatitis B virus at some point in their lifetime. One and one quarter million Americans are estimated to have chronic (long-lasting) infection, of whom 20 percent to 30 percent acquired their infection in childhood. Chronic hepatitis B virus infection increases a person's risk for chronic liver disease, cirrhosis, and liver cancer. About 5,000 persons will die each year from hepatitis B-related liver disease resulting in over $700 million in medical and work loss costs.

The number of new infections per year has declined from an average of 450,000 in the 1980s to about 80,000 in 1999. The greatest decline has occurred among children and adolescents due to routine hepatitis B vaccination.

Infants and children who become infected with hepatitis B virus are at highest risk of developing lifelong infection, which often leads to death from liver disease (cirrhosis) and liver cancer. Approximately 25 percent of children who become infected with life-long hepatitis B virus would be expected to die of related liver disease as adults.

CDC estimates that one-third of the life-long hepatitis B virus infections in the United States resulted from infections occurring in infants and young children. About 16,000 - 20,000 hepatitis B antigen infected women give birth each year in the United States. It is estimated that 12,000 children born to hepatitis B virus infected mothers were infected each year before implementation of infant immunization programs. In addition, approximately 33,000 children (10 years of age and younger) of mothers who are not infected with hepatitis B virus were infected each year before routine recommendation of childhood hepatitis B vaccination.

Diphtheria

Diphtheria is a serious disease caused by a bacterium. This germ produces a poisonous substance or toxin which frequently causes heart and nerve problems. The case fatality rate is 5 percent to 10 percent, with higher case-fatality rates (up to 20 percent) in the very young and the elderly.

In the 1920's, diphtheria was a major cause of illness and death for children in the U.S. In 1921, a total of 206,000 cases and 15,520 deaths were reported. With vaccine development in 1923, new cases of diphtheria began to fall in the U.S., until in 2001 only two cases were reported.

Although diphtheria is rare in the U.S., it appears that the bacteria continue to get passed among people. In 1996, 10 isolates of the bacteria were obtained from persons in an American Indian community in South Dakota, none of whom had classic diphtheria disease. There was one death reported in 2003 from clinical diphtheria in a 63 year old male who had never been vaccinated.

There are high rates of susceptibility among adults. Screening tests conducted since 1977 have shown that 41 percent to 84 percent of adults 60 and over lack protective levels of circulating antitoxin against diphtheria.

Although diphtheria is rare in the U.S., it is still a threat. Diphtheria is common in other parts of the world and with the increase in international travel, diphtheria and other infectious diseases are only a plane ride away. If we stopped immunization, the U.S. might experience a situation similar to the Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union. With the breakdown of the public health services in this area, diphtheria epidemics began in 1990, fueled primarily by persons who were not properly vaccinated. From 1990-1999, more than 150,000 cases and 5,000 deaths were reported.

Tetanus (Lockjaw)

Tetanus is a severe, often fatal disease. The bacteria that cause tetanus are widely distributed in soil and street dust, are found in the waste of many animals, and are very resistant to heat and germ-killing cleaners. From 1922-1926, there were an estimated 1,314 cases of tetanus per year in the U.S. In the late 1940's, the tetanus vaccine was introduced, and tetanus became a disease that was officially counted and tracked by public health officials. In 2000, only 41 cases of tetanus were reported in the U.S.

People who get tetanus suffer from stiffness and spasms of the muscles. The larynx (throat) can close causing breathing and eating difficulties, muscles spasms can cause fractures (breaks) of the spine and long bones, and some people go into a coma, and die. Approximately 20 percent of reported cases end in death.

Tetanus in the U.S. is primarily a disease of adults, but unvaccinated children and infants of unvaccinated mothers are also at risk for tetanus and neonatal tetanus, respectively. From 1995-1997, 33 percent of reported cases of tetanus occurred among persons 60 years of age or older and 60 percent occurred in patients greater than 40 years of age. The National Health Interview Survey found that in 1995, only 36 percent of adults 65 or older had received a tetanus vaccination during the preceding 10 years.

Worldwide, tetanus in newborn infants continues to be a huge problem. Every yeartetanus kills 300,000 newborns and 30,000 birth mothers who were not properly vaccinated. Even though the number of reported cases is low, an increased number of tetanus cases in younger persons has been observed recently in the U.S. among intravenous drug users, particularly heroin users.

Tetanus is infectious, but not contagious, so unlike other vaccine-preventable diseases, immunization by members of the community will not protect others from the disease. Because tetanus bacteria are widespread in the environment, tetanus can only be prevented by immunization. If vaccination against tetanus were stopped, persons of all ages in the U.S. would be susceptible to this serious disease.

Mumps

Before the mumps vaccine was introduced, mumps was a major cause of deafness in children, occurring in approximately 1 in 20,000 reported cases. Mumps is usually a mild viral disease. However, serious complications, such as inflammation of the brain (encephalitis) can occur rarely. Prior to mumps vaccine, mumps encephalitis was the leading cause of viral encephalitis in the United States, but is now rarely seen.

Serious side effects of mumps are more common among adults than children. Swelling of the testes is the most common side effect in males past the age of puberty, occurring in up to 37 percent of post-pubertal males who contract mumps. An increase in miscarriages has been found among women who develop mumps during the first trimester of pregnancy.

Before there was a vaccine against mumps, mumps was a very common disease in U.S. children, with as many as 300,000 cases reported every year.  After vaccine licensure in 1967, reports of mumps decreased rapidly. In 1986 and 1987, there was a resurgence of mumps with 12,848 cases reported in 1987. Since 1989, the incidence of mumps has declined, with 266 reported cases in 2001. This recent decrease is probably due to the fact that children have received a second dose of mumps vaccine (part of the two-dose schedule for measles, mumps, rubella or MMR).  Studies have shown that the effectiveness of mumps vaccine ranges from 73% to 91% after 1 dose and from 79% to 95% after 2 doses and that 2 doses are more effective than 1 dose.

We can not let our guard down against mumps. A 2006 outbreak among college students led to over 6500 cases and a 2009-10 outbreak in the tradition-observant Jewish community in 2 states led to over 3400 cases. Mumps is a communicable disease and while prolonged close contact among persons my facilitate transmission, maintenance of high 2-dose MMR vaccine coverage remains the most effective way to prevent and limit the size of mumps outbreaks.

What Would Happen if We Stopped Immunizing? Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  2012. 

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/whatifstop.htm