Exciting news - recent findings about VIP were recently featured in a New York Times column by Dr. Perri Klass! Click here to read more!

Lots of things have been happening here with Video Interaction Project! We have been steadily working on expanding to more locations so that VIP can reach more children in NYC and across the country.  A few months ago, we VIP started up at Hurley Medical Center in Flint, Michigan – since then, 100 families have joined!  Next up – we will be starting VIP soon at the Children’s Aid Society medical center in Harlem in NYC! More information coming soon!!

This has been a busy and productive time, and we have also continued to be engaged in research about VIP and child development more broadly.  This week, we published some of our strongest findings to date in the peer-reviewed scientific journal, Pediatrics!

Our newest findings:
In this study, we looked at 450 children and parents who joined the study at NYC Health+Hospitals/ Bellevue as newborns and have been followed until they were four and a half years old, right before they were about to start school.  Some children in this study took part in VIP as babies, from when they were newborns until they turned three years old (‘VIP 0-3’).  Other children took part in VIP instead when they were preschool aged, from when they were three years old until four and a half (‘VIP 3-5’).  Still others participated in VIP the entire time, from when they were newborns up through preschool when they were four and half.  Finally, there were other children who did not participate in VIP at all.

At age four and a half, children who had been in VIP showed reductions in behaviors that could become problematic when the children start school – for example, attention problems, hyperactivity, and aggression. 

Impressively, these findings at four and a half years of age were present even for children who took part in VIP only when they were babies and then stopped when they turned three, meaning that the changes in behavior lasted for at least a year and a half after the program ended!  Also, children who started VIP when they were babies and continued as preschoolers had the largest reductions in problematic behaviors – both VIP 0-3 and VIP 3-5 separately contributed to these changes in behavior.

Take home message? VIP during infancy or during preschool years helps to reduce problematic behaviors before kids start school, with even larger benefits seen for kids in VIP from infancy through preschool!

Want to know more? Learn about our research here! Or check out this clip of Dr. Alan Mendelsohn on NYC's CBS Evening News!

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2018/04/09/health-watch-reading-attention-deficit-disorder-dr-alan-mendelsohn-add/

As we know at VIP, the crisis in Flint has to do with so much more than water.  In a recent article on the Hill, world-renowned developmental psychologist, Dr. Sandra Waxman, discusses how important and valuable it is to have high-quality early-childhood programs available to families in under-served communities like Flint.  As she says, the most effective programs are ones that, like VIP, begin early and involve coordinated and integrated support.  Through VIP, pediatric clinics help to provide parents with support and guidance beginning shortly after birth, and though the integrated City's First Readers network, VIP families become even more connected to other literacy resources in their communities.  

​Check out the link below to read Dr. Waxman's post:

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/269765-providing-flints-children-with-the-services-they-deserved

Dr. Alan Mendelsohn was recently interviewed for the radio by CBS's Steve Kathan!  Listen to the clip here to hear an overview of VIP:

Yesterday, Drs. Adriana Weisleder and Alan Mendelsohn and team published a study about the benefits of VIP on socioemotional development in low-income toddlers.


This study has been featured on several news outlets.  Check out the stories here:

NPR: http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/01/27/464552087/teaching-parenting-skills-at-doctor-visits-helps-childrens-behavior

NICHD: https://www.nichd.nih.gov/news/releases/Pages/012816-VIP.aspx

NYU Langone Medical Center: http://nyulangone.org/press-releases/new-programs-help-prepare-low-income-children-for-school-success
 

The American Academy of Pediatrics has officially endorsed City's First Readers!

The VIP Team, along with AAP President-elect Dr. Benard Dreyer, NYC Council Member Stephen Levin, and the other City's First Readers partner programs took to City Hall today to announce the AAP's endorsement of City's First Readers:

http://stephenlevin33.tumblr.com/post/121687785127/american-academy-of-pediatrics-endorses-new
​

VIP has been featured in a video and news article on NY1 News!  Check it out here:

http://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/health-and-medicine/2015/04/6/vip-talk-sessions-help-boost-brain-development.html

Para español: http://www.ny1noticias.com/nyc/twc-ny1-noticias/salud/2015/04/7/c-mo-mejorar-la-interacci-n-con-tu-hijo-para-estimular-su-imaginaci-n.html

VIP is excited to announce that we are one of 8 partner programs in a new city-wide early literacy initiative: City's First Readers.

City's First Readers brings together early literacy programs from different settings across the city: heathcare (VIP and Reach Out and Read), the community (Literacy Inc., New York Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library, and Queens Public Library), home visitation (Parent Child Home Program), and early child education (JumpStart).

This $1.5 million New York City Council initiative began in July 2014 and was spearheaded by Council Members Stephen Levin and Antonio Reynoso.

Read more: 
http://childrenofbellevue.org/2014/11/13/citys-readers/

http://www.brooklyneagle.com/articles/2014/11/13/city%E2%80%99s-first-readers-program-fight-nyc%E2%80%99s-early-literacy-crisis

Our project director, Dr. Adriana Weisleder, was in the spotlight on a radio show produced by Latino USA.  You can listen to the show here:
 
http://latinousa.org/2014/09/26/bridging-word-gap/
​

VIP has been featured on the Joan Ganz Cooney Center blog (Sesame Workshop).  Read about it here:
 
http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/2014/06/23/pediatricians-use-video-tools-to-help-children-get-ready-to-read/