Research Findings: The purpose of this study was to examine mothers' sophisticated vocabulary while reminiscing with their preschool-aged children, and its relation to children's story comprehension. The study used a cross-lagged panel design in which all assessments were collected twice, 6 months apart. We also compared two methods of examining…

Research Findings: This study examined performance on self-regulatory tasks, in addition to individual characteristics including cognitive ability, receptive and expressive language skills, planning, and behaviour as contributing factors to early learning difficulties. Twenty-nine children born with ELBW and 30 comparison children at four years of…

This article examines similarities and differences in Chilean teachers' competences, which were organized into profiles, and the associations of these profiles with children's language development. Teacher-child interactions were assessed when the children were 12 (n=99) and 30 months old (n=73), using the Adult Sensitivity Scale, the Evaluation…

Shy children are less likely to interact with peers and teachers, ask questions, and participate in classroom activities. Children low in attention and inhibitory control also perform worse academically. Although research indicates children's relationships with teachers may be protective for children at risk for academic difficulties, less is…

Research Findings: A growing emphasis in the literature on children's self-regulation signals the need for increased understanding of the ways in which young children become active players in the acquisition of knowledge. In particular, self-regulation may be linked to subsequent academic achievement through greater engagement with the learning…

Research Findings: This study examined whether approaches to learning moderate the association between home literacy environment and English receptive vocabulary development. The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (2003 cohort) was used for analysis. Latent growth curve modeling was utilized to test a quadratic model of English…

Research Findings: The purpose of this study was to examine within-group individual differences in the code-related and oral language abilities of an economically stressed Spanish-speaking English language learner (ELL) preschool sample and to evaluate the predictive relationship of these differences to later listening comprehension. Latent class…

Research Findings: I examined the long-term association between the lexical and acoustic features of maternal utterances during book reading and the language skills of infants and children. Maternal utterances were collected from 22 mother-child dyads in picture book-reading episodes when children were ages 6-12 months and 5 years. Two aspects of…

Research Findings: Multitiered instructional frameworks are becoming a recommended approach for enhancing prevention and intervention efforts targeting early literacy and language skills. However, few studies to date have studied the feasibility of tiered oral language interventions before kindergarten; therefore, this pilot study explored the…

Early development is likely influenced by quality of early parenting and improvements or declines in quality over time. Little is known about how changes in different dimensions of parenting influence child outcomes, nor the relative sizes of associations when considering several aspects simultaneously. These questions are addressed in the Early…

This study examined the relation between language skills, gender, and relational/physical aggression. Language skills of 100 preschoolers were assessed with 3 standardized instruments. Relational/physical aggression was rated by the children's teachers. Results indicated that relational and physical aggression tended to increase as language scores…