Background: 'Speech sound disorder' is an umbrella term that encompasses dysarthria, articulation disorders, childhood apraxia of speech and phonological disorders. However, differential diagnosis between these disorders is a persistent challenge in speech pathology, as many diagnostic procedures use symptom clusters instead of identifying an…

In this commentary, Suess opines that comparing risk- and non-risk-groups, as is done in the study by Witting, Ruiz, and Ahnert (2016), is a favored approach in developmental psychopathology in order to learn more about underlying mechanisms of normal development, as well as developmental deviations. Witting and colleagues followed up this…

Early learning matters and can be strengthened and supported through contexts where children spend much of their time. Strong early learning experiences provide young children with opportunities to enjoy exploring their own interests and growing capabilities. Strong early learning also positively predicts well-being across a range of indicators in…

Parents, professionals, and policymakers agree that quality is crucial for early education. But precise, consistent, and valid definitions of quality have been elusive. In this article, Robert Pianta, Jason Downer, and Bridget Hamre tackle the questions of how to define quality, how to measure it, and how to ensure that more children experience…

Children's confidence in their own knowledge may influence their willingness to learn novel information from others. Twenty-four-month-old children's ("N" = 160) willingness to learn novel labels for either familiar or novel objects from an adult speaker was tested in 1 of 5 conditions: accurate, inaccurate, knowledgeable, ignorant, or…

This article considers the role of constructions of creativity in the classroom and their consequences for learning and, in particular, for the assessment of creativity. Definitions of creativity are examined to identify key implications for supporting the development of children's creativity within the classroom. The implications of assessing…

Every year, the World Bank's World Development Report (WDR) features a topic of central importance to global development. The 2018 WDR--"Learning to Realize Education's Promise"--is the first ever devoted entirely to education. And the time is right: education has long been critical to human welfare, but it is even more so in a time of…

In this paper, sung speech is used as a methodological tool to explore temporal variability in the timing of word-internal consonants and vowels. It is hypothesized that temporal variability/stability becomes clearer under the varying rhythmical conditions induced by song. This is explored cross-linguistically in German--a language that exhibits a…

Early intervention for children with behavioural difficulties can be effective in terms of outcomes for both the children and their families. Early intervention can save a child from long-term outcomes such as school failure, peer rejection and later offending. However, in terms of accurate assessment of young children's behavioural difficulties,…

The teaching of imitation skills is often the first step in interventions for young learners with intellectual disabilities. The main goal of this study was to determine the smallest detectable difference (SDD) at 95% confidence of the Preschool Imitation and Praxis Scale (PIPS) in preschoolers with intellectual disabilities. Two raters…

Specific Language Impairment (SLI) is understood to be a disorder that predominantly affects phonology, morphosyntax and/or lexical semantics. There is little conclusive evidence on whether children with SLI are challenged with regard to Gricean pragmatic maxims and on whether children with SLI are competent with the logical meaning of quantifying…

Newborn chicks were tested for their sensitivity to number vs. continuous physical extent of artificial objects they had been reared with soon after hatching. Because of the imprinting process, such objects were treated by chicks as social companions. We found that when the objects were similar, chicks faced with choices between 1 vs. 2 or 2 vs. 3…

Science educators have long been concerned with how formal schooling contributes to learners' capacities to engage with science after school. This article frames productive engagement as fundamentally about the coordination of claims with evidence, but such coordination requires a number of reasoning capabilities to evaluate the strength of…

A default mode network of brain regions is known to demonstrate coordinated activity during the resting state. While the default mode network is well characterized in adults, few investigations have focused upon its development. We scanned 9-13-year-old children with diffusion tensor imaging and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging.…

Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is an important risk factor in the development of children that can have a significant academic and social impact. This reinforces the need for its timely identification using appropriate assessment methods and accurate screening tests. The commonly used standardized motor test for the DCD identification…