The study examined the contribution of reinforcement sensitivity to childhood personality at three levels of the hierarchical structure, mid-level traits, the Big Five and two higher-order factors, and the moderating role of sex and age in a sample of 3-18-year-olds. The canonical correlation analyses indicated that reinforcement sensitivity and…

This article draws on data from an ethnographic study that begins with the experiences of educational professionals doing the "work" of educationally supporting students with long-term health conditions in a paediatric health-care setting in Victoria, Australia. The study was conducted over the same period of time but separately from the…

Emotional cues contain important information about the intentions and feelings of others. Despite a wealth of research into children's understanding of facial signals of emotions, little research has investigated the developmental trajectory of interpreting affective cues in the voice. In this study, 48 children ranging between 5 and 10 years were…

Receptive language skills allow students to understand the meaning of words spoken to them. When students are unable to comprehend the majority of the words that are spoken to them, they do not have the ability to act on those words, follow given directions, build on prior knowledge, or construct adequate meaning. The inability to understand the…

The Rhode Island Early Learning Council (Council) is engaged in a multi-year planning process to build a coordinated early childhood system. An essential component of this system is access to appropriate early childhood higher education. To assist in this process, the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) at the University of…

Early child development is influenced by various genetic and environmental factors. This study aims to identify factors that affect the phonological awareness of preschool and first grade children. Based on a sample of 330 German-speaking children (mean age = 6.2 years) the following domains were evaluated: Parent factors, birth and pregnancy,…

Although there has been extensive research on children's moral knowledge about lying and truth-telling and their actual lie- or truth-telling behaviors, research to examine the relation between these two is extremely rare. This study examined one hundred and twenty 7-, 9-, and 11-year-olds' moral understanding of lies and their actual lying…

Recent theories on the evolution of language (e.g. Corballis, 2009) emphazise the interest of early manifestations of manual laterality and manual specialization in human infants. In the present study, left- and right-hand movements towards a midline object were observed in 24 infants aged 4 months in a constrained condition, in which the hands…

Hip-hop culture can be used as a conduit to enhanced cultural competence and practice skills through the individual and community empowerment framework. This framework is introduced as a tool for direct practice that allows social workers to understand the competing messages within hip-hop culture and how they may impact youths by promoting or…

We used longitudinal data from a birth cohort study, the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, to investigate the links between Head Start and school readiness in a large and diverse sample of urban children at age 5 (N = 2,803; 18 cities). We found that Head Start attendance was associated with enhanced cognitive ability and social…

This commentary endorses J. Kagan's (2008) conclusion that many of the most dramatic findings on early perceptual, cognitive, and social competencies are ambiguous. It supports his call for converging research operations to disambiguate findings from single paradigms and single response indices. The commentary also argues that early competencies…

The following article reflects on past theories and practices that still influence early childhood development and education today. The critical thoughts on how young children should be raised and educated by individuals such as John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Johann Pestalozzi, William Froebel, John Dewey and Maria Montessori and others are…

Wisconsin's adoption of the Common Core State Standards provides an excellent opportunity for Wisconsin school districts and communities to define expectations from birth through preparation for college and work. By aligning the existing Wisconsin Model Early Learning Standards with the Wisconsin Common Core State Standards, expectations can be…

The most rapid and significant phase of development occurs in the first three years of a child's life. The "Supporting Children from Birth to Three" series focuses on the care and support of the very youngest children. Each book takes a key aspect of working with this age group and gives clear and detailed explanations of relevant theories…

A growing body of research has focused on the role of play in young children's literacy development and early-literacy learning. In reviewing this research, the authors define the play-literacy nexus as that space where play, language, and emerging literacy behaviors converge and interact. They describe findings about the play-literacy nexus…