Being school-ready when transitioning to the primary school system has been associated with favourable outcomes during schooling and adult life. While children living in socio-economically disadvantaged areas may be at a higher risk of being less school-ready, research in the area has highlighted that not all children experience such a delay. This…

The behaviours associated with the attachment disorders (ADs) appear to overlap substantially with those linked to the autism spectrum (AS). Given the similarities between the two conditions this article urges caution when drawing conclusions concerning the likely aetiology of presenting difficulties in any particular case. Attention is drawn to…

The first year of a child's life has been considered important in shaping their cognitive development. The research literature has identified area-based socio-economic disadvantage as a possible risk factor for cognitive development but has suggested that various factors may facilitate children's resilience to socio-economic disadvantage. This…

Parental sensitivity and nurturance are important mechanisms for establishing biological, emotional, and social functioning in childhood. Sensitive, nurturing care is most critical during the first three years of life, when attachment relationships form and parental care shapes foundational neural and physiological systems, with lifelong…

The current study examined the influence of multiple factors on individual differences in empathy; namely, attachment, negative emotionality, and emotion regulation. A total of 63 mothers completed the Attachment Q-set and questionnaires about their children's empathy, negative emotionality, and emotion regulation when children were 3 years old.…

Children in foster care have experienced significant trauma due to the loss of primary attachment figures and the circumstances associated with that loss. Children who have suffered trauma generally present with cognitive, social, physical, and emotional vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities are often expressed in the P-12 academic setting…

Neuroscientists have long believed that there are sensitive periods in development during which the effects of experience play a critical role. And developmental psychologists have argued for the importance of early experience in the first years of life as being critical for brain and behavioral development. Most of the neuroscience research…

This study aims to investigate the association between the mental state talk of mothers and their preadolescent children, with the hypothesis that an intergenerational transmission of mentalizing abilities may extend beyond early childhood. The participants were 41 mother-preadolescent child nonclinical dyads. The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI)…

While associations between exposure to marital conflict and child development have been documented extensively in middle childhood and adolescence, few studies have examined the developmental consequences of conflict exposure in infancy. Moreover, those that have examined marital conflict in infancy tended to focus on consequences of conflict…

This study uses a nationally representative sample of 9-month-old infants and their families from the Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) study to investigate if reading to infants is associated with higher scores on contemporaneous indicators of cognitive development independently of other language-based interactions between parent and infant, such as…

The purpose of this pilot study was to explore families of international adoption experiences within the schools. Qualitative methodology and grounded theory procedures were used to analyze data collected from semi-structured interviews conducted with three mothers who had adopted 8 children from orphanages in China. The concept of lack of…

This study examined activative fathering observed during father--child interactions in the family home, focusing on the relation between activative fathering at children aged four and children's behaviour dysregulation and sociability at children aged five. One hundred twenty-seven families participated in the study. Activative fathering was…

Objective: Research on the neurobiology of parenting has defined "biobehavioral synchrony," the coordination of biological and behavioral responses between parent and child, as a central process underpinning mammalian bond formation. Bi-parental rearing, typically observed in monogamous species, is similarly thought to draw on mechanisms of…

This review integrates theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence of a sense of school belonging (SOSB) to highlight its importance in understanding the inclusion efficacy research for pupils with special educational needs (SEN). Specifically, it examines the role of a SOSB on pupils' cognitive, affective, behavioural and social developmental…

Research Findings: This study investigates the effect of the early home environment on self-regulation in preschoolers, and how self-regulation relates to later school achievement, while taking into account family resources. Participants were part of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's Study of Early Child Care and Youth…