Reliable and valid assessment of parenting and child behaviors is critical for clinicians and researchers alike, and observational measures of parenting behaviors are often considered the gold standard for assessing parenting and parent-child interaction quality. The current study sought to evaluate the reliability and validity of the Coder…

As children develop conversational skills such as taking turns and openly listening to ideas, they often experience conflicts and inequity within collaborative dialogue for learning. Previous research suggests that increasing children's awareness about their own behaviors during collaboration may help them adjust their behaviors and become better…

The aim of this study was to develop a coding scheme that enables researchers and practitioners to conduct a detailed analysis of the communicative behavior of young children with significant cognitive and motor developmental delays. Currently, there is a paucity of methods to do conduct such an analysis. For the study, video observations of three…

In this ethnographic research, discovery of how preschool-aged children use play to wield their individual power in the outdoors is documented in a single classroom. Embedded as a participant-researcher and working from constructivist and critical theory orientations, the researcher seeks to understand how children use their play to construct the…

Measures of young children's social development are needed in the Multi-Tier System of Supports (MTSS) approach to early childhood. In 2004, we reported initial development of an observational measure of infants' and toddlers' social skills designed for early educators, the Early Social Indicator (ESI). Here, we report preliminary findings on the…

Measures of young children's social development are needed in the MultiTier System of Supports (MTSS) approach to early childhood. In 2004, we reported initial development of an observational measure of infants' and toddlers' social skills designed for early educators, the Early Social Indicator (ESI). Here, we report preliminary findings on the…

The authors ask if participating in an early-childhood theater production improves pretend play and cooperation among preschoolers. They examined play sessions immediately before and after productions of interactive earlychildhood performances at Imagination Stage, Inc. and measured children's engagement, cooperation, pretense, and misbehavior.…

The present study investigated the relationship between complexity of pretend play, initiation of pretense activities, and mental state utterances used during play. Children 3 to 4 years of age were videotaped while engaging in pretend play with a parent. The videotapes were coded according to mental state utterances (i.e. desire, emotion,…

Research Findings: Digital play is now commonplace in many young children's lives, but not in preschool settings. This situation is likely due to the fact that the existent literature seldom highlights what digital play looks like, the various ways it can be situated, and what young children do when they play together with digital devices in the…

This study examined siblings' knowledge about the teaching concept during naturalistic teaching contexts, wherein children's communicative interactions were used as a gateway to their social understanding (Turnbull, Carpendale, & Racine, 2009). Participants included 39 sibling dyads (older age group, M[subscript age] = 6;4; younger age group,…

Previous research has found that when children engage in social and moral transgressions, they take steps to either remedy or explain their behavior. However, no prior systematic investigation has examined the strategies children employ to 'correct' their behavior in future situations. The present study employed a domain theory lens to investigate…

This study looks at children's music making in a public setting designed for society writ large. Although known to most children in the city, the subway presents a unique environment, both structurally predictable yet sonically dynamic; it is in continuous transition. Adopting Winnicott's psychoanalytical perspective, we make a case for viewing…

The critical role of the second year of life in the development of empathy is well accepted by psychologists. However, the developmental trends of the different components of empathy and the potential factors underlying these components during this critical period remain unclear. Eighty-four Chinese toddlers in the second year of life participated…

Adopted persons face special challenges in the development of identity, as aspects of their histories may be unknown, making it difficult to construct a coherent narrative linking past, present, and future. Extensive literature on adjustment outcomes for adopted persons indicates an elevated risk for adjustment problems. In this study, a low-risk…

Infants' motor skill development triggers changes in parent-infant interactions, exploration, and play behaviors, particularly during periods of locomotor transitions. We investigated how these transitions reorganized infants' and mothers' explorations of spatial layouts. Thirteen infants and their mothers were followed biweekly from the age of 6…