Early childhood education and care (ECEC) -- the phase before primary education -- is increasingly acknowledged as providing the foundations for lifelong learning and development. This second edition of 'Key data on early childhood education and care in Europe' charts the progress made in the key quality areas identified in the Council…

Over the past thirty years, researchers have documented a remarkable growth in children's social understanding between toddlerhood and the early school years. However, it is still unclear why some children's awareness of others' thoughts and feelings lags so far behind that of their peers. Based on research that spans an extended developmental…

This study, with 26 normal hearing subjects, investigated the development of temporal resolution as a function of frequency region, using a modified masking period pattern model. Results indicated that temporal resolution improves with age, with improvement for low frequencies continuing beyond age 10 but high frequency improvement approaching…

There is increased interest by parents in communicating with their children about political violence. However, limited attention in the scholarly literature has focused on parent-child communication about war and terrorism. In response, the purpose of this study is to assess, within their respective ecological contexts, American and Northern Irish…

A sharp improvement in children's understanding of the role of visual perception and linguistic communication in knowledge functions was found between the ages of three and five years. (PCB)

In three experiments, children five- to 10-years-old were assessed on their comprehension of simple and compound comparatives using a picture-question answering task. Ability to use appropriate reference points increased with age on both the simple and compound comparative relations. (PCB)

Actual and theoretical cases are presented in which the Battelle Developmental Inventory was used in infant assessment. Age-related discontinuities reveal that, for children whose chronological age abuts one of the cut-off points between age categories, radically different summary scores can be obtained from one day to the next despite identical…

Examined relationships between three components of tasks used in developmental studies of attention--visual search, filtering, and priming--as measured in tasks performed by children and adults. (PCB)

Eighty normally hearing children (ages 4 to 8) judged the clarity of sentences that were systematically bandpass-filtered to increase intelligibility. Study of 10 subjects at each age found that children 5 years or older were able to make reliable clarity judgements using paired comparisons or category rating; however, the method of paired…

Six experiments were conducted to investigate the sensitivity of one- to four-year-olds to changes in perspective that are occluded from view. Results indicated relatively early sensitivity to proprioceptive cues for changes in perspective and somewhat later sensitivity to appropriate visual-environmental cues. (PCB)

Studies the development of early drawing in 129 Chinese children aged 7 to 12 and 118 English children aged 7 to 11. Results indicate that similarities are more apparent than differences in children's drawings. (RJC)

This study examined the acquisition of verb particles and prepositions in language-impaired, language-matched, and age-matched preschool children (total n=42). Results indicated that the use of verb particles constituted a particularly challenging task for the language-impaired subjects relative to both the age-matched and language-matched peers.…

This longitudinal study examined the effectiveness of two different assessment methodologies, low structured observation and structured elicitation tasks, to obtain communicative intents from 35 normal children at the sensorimotor stage of development (9-24 months). The two approaches appeared to vary depending on the age of the child and the…

Piaget's investigations of children's conceptions of time included a conclusion that young children (ages 4-8) equate greater velocity with longer duration. This study showed that older children (ages 10-12) do not equate faster velocity with longer duration when musical examples are used. (Author/RM)

Investigated the serial recall strategies of 96 children aged 5-8 years by applying a theoretical and methodological approach originally developed to investigate preschoolers' arithmetic strategies. Results indicated the use of multiple approaches for serial recall and adaptive strategy choices. (RJC)