This paper attempts to investigate the repetition of Relative Clauses (RCs) in Mandarin children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) (aged 4; 5 to 6; 0) and their typically developing (TD) peers. The results of a sentence repetition task indicate that Mandarin children with DLD perform significantly worse than both groups of TD children,…

Research Findings: Early elementary school is a crucial time for the development of executive functions, but less is known about the impact of parent-child narratives on executive function development in children of this age group. This study aims to investigate the influence of parental scaffolding styles in parent-child co-constructed narratives…

Purpose: The aims of this study were to investigate the occurrence of stuttering behavior across time and to evaluate the relationship between stuttering behavior and language ability in children with Down syndrome. Method: A national age cohort of Norwegian first graders with Down syndrome (N = 75) participated in the study. Speech samples from a…

Rejection by peers has devastating effects on children's social-cognitive development. As language difficulties have been found to be one of the underlying causes of peer rejection, the present study focused on the relation between these two variables. Specifically, this study was the first to test a hypothesized model connecting children's level…

Prior research has clearly established the substantial expected payoffs to investments in early childhood education. However, the ability to deliver early childhood programs differs across communities with access to high quality programing especially hard to establish in rural communities. We study one program, Early Steps to School Success, to…

Theory of Mind (ToM), as a relevant aspect in children's socio-cognitive development, has been widely studied. Some results have suggested that bilingual children have an advantage over their monolingual peers in development of ToM. However, there is less research regarding the predictive role of ToM in performance of oral and reading…

The purpose of this study is to examine the perceptions of kindergarten teachers concerning the skills that demonstrate the five components of readiness as organized by the National Education Goals Panel (NEGP) and to identify which skills kindergarten teachers believe are most important for students to be successful. In November 2023, 136…

Despite much research examining whether bilingual individuals demonstrate superior executive function (EF) skills compared to monolinguals, the purported bilingual advantage remains controversial. One potential reason for discrepant findings across studies examining the bilingual advantage is the difficulty in matching monolingual and bilingual…

Background: Early childhood is a formative period during which distinguishable development has projections of bearing desirable outcomes within an individual. Hence, physical, language, cognitive, emotional and social independence are healthy components of a typical child's development that early childhood development (ECD) educators deem…

Reading acquisition is based on a set of preliteracy skills that lay the foundation for future reading abilities. Phonological awareness--the ability to identify and manipulate the sound units of oral language--has been reported to play a central role in reading acquisition. However, current evidence is mixed with respect to its universal…

Our research focuses on developing elementary students' mental computation skills with the help of card games. Choosing this area of study was motivated by our personal experiences, namely, that mathematics programmes of study do not lay emphasis on this aspect; there are too few hours dedicated to developing this skill, and several mental…

This brief provides policymakers and practitioners with a comprehensive overview of the purpose, characteristics, uses, and types of Kindergarten Entry Assessments (KEAs). It emphasizes the importance of high-quality KEAs in guiding instructional practices and assessing developmental progress in young learners. It highlights that high-quality KEAs…

Second-language learners display poorer general language skills in the language used at school than their monolingual peers, which is a concern because general language skills (vocabulary, grammar, language expression, and comprehension) provide the foundation for later academic success. In a randomized controlled trial, we examined the efficacy…

The transition to early childhood education is important for all stakeholders. This study aimed to examine the expectations of teachers and parents whose children were starting school for the first time regarding themselves and each other during the preparation for and transition to school. Sixteen parents and eight teachers participated in the…

Observational studies comparing child outcomes in early care and education classrooms of differing quality are often confounded by between-child differences. A within-child design, tracking children across contexts, can identify the effects of quality with less confounding. An analysis of Australian children (N = 1128, mean age 5 years, 48%…