Children have repeatedly been shown to selectively prefer to learn from previously accurate informants rather than those who have been inaccurate in the past. However, the stability of individual differences in performance on such tasks has yet to be studied. We presented preschoolers with two identical selective learning tasks conducted one week…

Purpose: Many observations and anecdotes have suggested that individuals with Down syndrome (DS) love music, specifically moving to music. The purpose of this study, with the assumption that the music makes people with DS dance showing more movement than general public's, is to observe the change in movement patterns of people with DS while they…

Currently, the most widely used direct assessment of motivation orientation for preschoolers has little to no research on its reliability and validity. This study examined the test-retest reliability and concurrent and predictive validity of this direct assessment. Results highlight potential limitations of this measure in capturing motivation…

The purpose of this exploratory study was to evaluate the functional relation between initial sound awareness instruction and increased initial sound segmentation skill in children with hearing loss. Two preschool children with hearing loss participated in this multiple probe design single subject study. The children participated individually in…

A simple "expression" account of the relation between executive function (EF) and children's developing theory of mind (ToM) has difficulty accounting for the generality of the changes occurring in children's mental-state understanding during the preschool years. The current study of preschool children (N = 43) showed that EF--especially…

The effects of language on symbolic functioning were examined using the "boxes task," a new symbolic understanding task based on DeLoache's model task. Children ("N" = 32; ages 2;4--3;8) observed an object being hidden in a stack of four boxes and were then asked to retrieve a similar object in the same location from a set of…

Research Findings: Effects on children's school readiness were evaluated for 2 interventions focused on improving teacher-student interactions (coursework, coaching) implemented sequentially across 2 years. Teachers from public prekindergarten programs in 10 locations were assigned randomly to treatment or control conditions in each year.…

The current study examined whether Head Start children who experienced a high-quality preschool intervention, "Exceptional Coaching for Early Language and Literacy" ("ExCELL"), as three-year-olds began the subsequent pre-kindergarten (or four-year-old) year with stronger language and literacy skills than same-age peers who…

Research Findings: The importance of self-regulation for children's successful academic performance has led to greatly increased interest in this topic in recent years. However, less is known about the interrelations among self-regulatory processes across different contexts. The present study investigated the structure of self-regulation in young…

Research Findings: This study examined whether approaches to learning moderate the association between home literacy environment and English receptive vocabulary development. The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (2003 cohort) was used for analysis. Latent growth curve modeling was utilized to test a quadratic model of English…

This study investigated the relationship between emotional responses and reading performance in middle-school students. Although a large number of prior studies have investigated the relationship between emotion and reading, those studies have concentrated primarily on relatively static and distal measures of emotion. In this research, we measured…

The purpose of this review was to update previous reviews on factors related to students' responsiveness to early literacy intervention. The 14 studies in this synthesis used experimental designs, provided small-group or one-on-one reading interventions, and analyzed factors related to responsiveness to those interventions. Participants were…

This study evaluated whether the Targeted Reading Intervention (TRI), a classroom teacher professional development program delivered through webcam technology literacy coaching, could provide rural classroom teachers with the instructional skills to help struggling readers progress rapidly in early reading. Fifteen rural schools were randomly…

This exploratory study investigated how 2 years of a coaching-based language and literacy intervention were linked to Head Start teachers' classroom environments and instructional interactions, as well as to the vocabulary, alphabet, and sound awareness learning of their preschool students. In total, 16 Head Start teachers participated in the…

There is an increasing support from international organizations and the research community for stepping beyond infant or child mortality as the most common child level social indicator and progressing towards an international measure of child development. The Early Development Instrument (EDI) is a teacher-completed measure of children's…