UNC School of Education

>> Wasik, Barbara

Combining her expertise in psychology and education, Barbara Hanna Wasik is a national leader in developing interventions for children who are at risk of school failure. These interventions address early childhood education, children's cognitive development, home visiting, family literacy, early literacy development, children’s social and emotional development and social problem solving. Her work is based on an ecological framework that recognizes the interactions of the environment with personal characteristics in influencing behavior. This conceptual model affected her decision to work with children in school and home settings and with the adults in their lives, both parents and teachers. Her early work focused on children in elementary school, for which she developed classroom and school-based interventions as well as methodology for observing children and teachers. She has also conducted a longitudinal descriptive investigation of children from kindergarten to third grade, examining the predictive role of social status and achievement in kindergarten with children’s later social and academic competence.

Wasik’s school-based research with children demonstrating academic and social difficulties led her to examine interventions at the preschool level. She has collaborated with colleagues at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG) to design and conduct Project CARE, a model early intervention program for young children at risk for school failure. Using randomized clinical trials, this study compared outcomes for children in a center-based intervention with outcomes for children in a home-based family intervention. Along with the Abecedarian Project, which was conducted earlier at FPG, Project CARE was designated by the American Psychological Association as one of the five outstanding early childhood research programs in the country. Wasik also served as co-developer for curriculum in the national Infant Health and Development Project, a project designed to enhance the school success of low birth-weight children. She is currently involved in the longitudinal follow up of young adults who participated in either Project CARE or the Abecedarian Project.

Wasik is principal investigator of a $3.5 million grant, Partners for Literacy Curriculum, which addresses children’s language, early literacy skills and social development. Part of the national experimental study of Even Start Family Literacy Programs, the curriculum includes extensive materials for helping classroom teachers, for creating parent partnerships and for conducting parenting education and home visiting.

Wasik co-authored Home Visiting: Procedures for Helping Families and edited the Handbook on Family Literacy. She also participated in writing the National Academy of Sciences book, Eager to Learn: Educating Our Preschoolers. Her work is published in professional journals that span the disciplines of psychology, education and health.