Young children between birth and age eight are quickly developing across many different levels. From learning how to crawl, walk and later run to gaining abilities such as self-control and social skills, the early child period offers a wealth of research paper topics. Beginning students of early childhood such as high school students and those just starting college may want to opt for a basic developmental research domain topic. This may include a broad theme such as ages and stages of typical development. More advanced students may want to tackle an in-depth topic that includes specific or higher level ideas. These developmental domain themes may focus on a specific area of development and age, such as the emotional development of children ages 24 to 36 months, cognitive changes between the ages of three and five years of age or patterns of gross motor development in the first year of life.
Child development and early education theories abound in the academic community. Choosing a research paper topic that focuses on one, or several, of these theories can help the writer/student to discover new insights as to the nature of the young child, expectations for learning and typical and non-typical growth patterns. Students new to the early childhood field may want to start their research with popular, well known or accepted theories such as Piaget's stages of cognitive development, Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory or Vygotsky's sociocultural theory. As students progress and build more knowledge and understanding of the early childhood period, research paper topics may include comparisons of different developmental/educational theories, critique of theoretical perspectives or newer/ post-modern theories and their connection to early childhood.
The culture and community that a young child grows into plays a vital role in shaping development and learning. The influences and impacts of culture on the early childhood period of time is a research topic that may include a wide array of themes and concepts. These include multi-cultural early childhood classrooms, family and community culture and schooling, language development, cultural traditions or teaching your children of different cultures. Topics can cover broad or general themed categories or look at a specific classroom, student or case involving the interconnections between culture and education or development.
There is little debate that early childhood education in the form of preschool or center based learning has positive effects on the young child. Whether it is learning pre-literacy skills or developing basic mathematical abilities, these early opportunities can help children to excel in later academic environments. Research paper topics covering schooling and the early childhood period may include specific themes related to the ways in which preschool benefits the child's learning, positive instructional practices, socio-economic status and early education, literacy development in school or educational assessment tools in preschools. These topics allow the student/researcher to examine the links between schooling or an academic environment and the child's overall development as well as more specific aspects of growth and learning.