Across geographically diverse samples, engagement in stimulating activities with young children is considered an important element of parenting that promotes cognitive, behavioral, and social-emotional development. Indicators of stimulation activities are often summed, based on the assumption that more stimulation is better and that different…

Across psychology, there is increasing recognition that the experiences of children from minoritized racial and ethnic groups are underrepresented. Research on prosocial behavior exemplifies this systemic bias. This paper suggests that measures of prosocial behavior should be revised to be more culturally equitable, in order to reflect the…

Children's early skills are strong predictors of later learning outcomes. Research aiming to disentangle the causal effects of early skills from unmeasured, stable characteristics related to learning throughout development demonstrates that unmeasured confounders explain a large portion of the effects of early skills previously identified. To…

Observed genetic associations with educational attainment may be due to direct or indirect genetic influences. Recent work highlights "genetic nurture," the potential effect of parents' genetics on their child's educational outcomes via rearing environments. To date, few mediating childhood environments have been tested. We used a large…

Parental engagement in stimulating activities and support in both formal and informal learning environments are important for early childhood development. However, little is known about how parental mental health and beliefs about early childhood development shape such investments. We draw on a sample of young children and their primary caregiver…

Depression is a major global health concern, especially among mothers of young children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). While various risk and protective factors have been well-established, the role of fathers in potentially mitigating maternal depression remains understudied. This study aimed to investigate the association between…

Fine motor skills enable children to make precise and coordinated movements with their hands and support their ability to engage in everyday activities and learning experiences. In a longitudinal study of 1,058 4-year-old children in rural Pakistan (n = 488 girls), we examined how prior and concurrent levels of home stimulation relate to change in…

The COVID-19 pandemic led to extended school closures globally. Access to remote learning opportunities during this time was vastly unequal within and across countries. Higher-quality early childhood education (ECE) can improve later academic outcomes, but longer-term effects during crises are unknown. This study provides the first experimental…

Many young children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) face heightened risk for experiencing environmental adversity, which is linked with poorer develop- mental outcomes. Children's stress physiology can shed light on why children are differentially susceptible to adversity. However, no known studies have examined whether links between…

We examine the contributions of the environmental context on cognitive development in a representative sample of children (24-59 month-olds) in Nicaragua. Multivariate regression models revealed that children who experienced high levels of structure in the home, encountered more social interaction, and were enrolled in early education programs,…

The assessment of psychosocial strengths in children and adolescents has predominately focused on the measurement of single traits and constructs, such as grit (Christopoulou, Lakioti, Pezirkianidis, Karakasidou, & Stalikas, 2018), optimism (Oberle, Guhn, Gadermann, Thomson, & Schonert-Reichl, 2018), hope (Pedrotti, 2018), and gratitude…

Children from under-resourced communities regularly enter formal schooling lagging behind their peers. These deficits in areas such as language development, reading readiness, and even in the kind of spatial skills that predict later mathematical knowledge, may persist throughout their lifespan. To address such gaps, policymakers have focused…