Behavioral flexibility--the ability to tailor motor actions to changing body-environment relations--is critical for functional movement. Navigating the everyday environment requires the ability to generate a wide repertoire of actions, select the appropriate action for the current situation, and implement it quickly and accurately. We used a new,…

Infants start to use a spoon for self-feeding at the end of the first year of life, but usually do not use unfamiliar tools to solve problems before the age of 2 years. We investigated to what extent 18-month-old infants who are familiar with using a spoon for self-feeding are able to generalize this tool-use ability to retrieve a distant object.…

Purpose: This case series documents developmental changes over time and in response to a novel intervention, Sitting Together and Reaching to Play (START-Play), in children with early-life seizures. Methods: Thirteen children with early-life seizures were included from a subset of participants in the START-Play multisite, randomized controlled…

Background: Children with motor delays are at increased risk for delayed means-end problem-solving (MEPS) performance. Objectives: To evaluate children with motor delays: 1) the impact of motor delay severity and MEPS mastery timing on developmental trajectories of MEPS; and 2) the effectiveness of Sitting Together And Reaching To Play…

Toddlers' sleep difficulties have mainly been investigated from the mother's point of view, despite the fact that paternal implication seems to influence young children's sleep quality. This qualitative study aims to better understand how fathers experience toddlers' sleep difficulties by examining their sleep-related cognitions and strategies…

Purpose: This study tested whether the Sitting Together and Reaching to Play (START-Play) physical therapy intervention indirectly impacts cognition through changes in perceptual-motor skills in infants with motor delays. Methods: Participants were 50 infants with motor delays randomly assigned to START-Play plus Usual Care Early Intervention…

In this study, we propose that infant social cognition may 'bootstrap' the successive development of domain-general cognition in line with the cultural intelligence hypothesis. Using a longitudinal design, 6-month-old infants (N = 118) were assessed on two basic social cognitive tasks targeting the abilities to share attention with others and…

Aims: Children with neuromotor delays are at risk for reaching and object exploration impairments, which may negatively affect their cognitive development and daily activity performance. This study evaluated the effectiveness of the Sitting Together And Reaching To Play (START-Play) intervention on reaching-related exploratory behaviors in…

Aim: There is a lack of evidence-based tools for measuring problem-solving in young children with motor delays. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the construct validity and responsiveness of the Assessment of Problem-Solving in Play. Methods: 125 young children (10.72, SD 2.62 months) with mild, moderate, and severe motor delays were…

Engaging, focusing, and persisting in the completion of tasks are among the skills needed for school success. Tracking whether a child is learning cognitive problem-solving skills is essential in knowing if they are acquiring skills important for development and school readiness; and if not, how they are responding to early intervention. Use of…

This study examined verbal and non-verbal features of mother-infant shared book reading in Australia during the first year of life and explored the relationship between these features and infant cognition. Mother-infant dyads were observed in this cross-sectional study reading an unfamiliar book in a laboratory setting when infants were aged 6…

Spatial play in early childhood is associated with a variety of spatial and cognitive skills. However, these associations are often derived from studies in which different tasks are used across different age ranges, leaving open the question of how children's natural behaviors during spatial play develop from infancy into the early preschool…

Purpose: To evaluate the validity, reliability, and sensitivity of the novel Means-End Problem-Solving Assessment Tool (MEPSAT). Methods: Children with typical development and those with motor delay were assessed throughout the first 2 years of life using the MEPSAT. MEPSAT scores were validated against the cognitive and motor subscales of the…

Background: Invention and mastery learning approaches differ in their foundational educational paradigms, proposed mechanisms of learning, and potential impacts on learning outcomes. They also differ in their resource requirements. We explored the relative effects of 'invent and problem-solve, followed by instruction' (PS-I) learning compared to…

Engaging, focusing, and persisting in the completion of tasks are among the skills needed for school success. Tracking whether a child is learning cognitive problem-solving skills is essential in knowing if they are acquiring skills important for development and school readiness; and if not, how they are responding to early intervention. Use of…