This review examines the extant Australian literature on process quality in ECEC, which is understood as children's actual experience within a childcare setting such as interactions between educators and children. A thematic analysis of empirical evidence from the 21 qualified articles reveals key characteristics of ECEC process quality studies,…

In this study, we compared how sustainability, children's agency, and play are addressed in preschool curricula in Sweden and Turkey. Content analysis was used to analyse, interpret, and compare the content. The findings indicated that sustainability is explicitly integrated into the Swedish curriculum but only partly mentioned in the Turkish…

Math and executive functioning (EF) skills are thought to be tightly linked in early childhood. To facilitate our understanding of this link in early childhood, here we present a meta-analysis of over 1,000 different correlation values between EF and math measures in early childhood (4-6yrs). The overall average EF-Math relation was r = 0.350, 95%…

Early childhood education is regarded as key to help ensure long-term positive outcomes for children, and high-quality provision crucial for long-term developmental outcomes. However, how settings are inspected for the quality of their services varies substantially across countries. In England, the inspection body Ofsted has been heavily…

We evaluate impacts heterogeneity of an Early Childhood Intervention, with respect to the Educational Attainment Polygenic Score (EA4 PGS) constructed from DNA data based on GWAS weights from a European population. We find that the EA4 PGS is predictive of several measures of child development, mother's IQ and, to some extent, educational…

Background: Parental involvement is integral to the success of early childhood development (ECD) programmes. The onset of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the adoption of remote learning reshaped parental roles, values, and expectations in ECD. Parents assumed greater responsibility for their children's learning and development,…

Understanding childhood socialization across multiple world cultures is important for developing comprehensive and generalizable theories of developmental psychology. Studies suggest that Latin American children show markedly high levels of prosocial behavior. In this article, we theorize that this hyper-prosociality is supported by a particular…

This article examines Ibn Khaldun's educational philosophy through the lens of contemporary children's geographies. Drawing on his reflections in the "Muqaddimah," we analyze historical teaching practices in medieval North Africa and Muslim Spain, focusing on their implications for child development, spatial learning, and moral…

The development of divergent thinking (DT) in school-age children and adolescents has received considerable attention in the educational psychology literature since the 1970s. A body of research has outlined the existence of slumps (i.e., temporary declines) in this development with, however, conflicting findings concerning the magnitude and…

This research uses focus group methodology to examine how a specific subset of family childcare providers--those participating in a voluntary quality rating and improvement system and serving a high percentage of children receiving childcare subsidy--define quality. The study builds on the limited existing research about family childcare quality,…

Infants show shifting patterns of visual engagement to faces over the first years of life. To explore the adaptive implications of this engagement, we collected eye-tracking measures on cross-sectional samples of 10-25-month-old typically developing toddlers (TD;N = 28) and those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD;N = 54). Concurrent language…

This article introduces a developmental perspective on kindness. The central goal is to posit a new framework for the study of kindness and its development. From an ethical perspective, kindness can be considered a virtue. It reflects emotions, cognitions, and inner states that convey a particular gentleness and benevolence. These orientations can…

Transgender and nonbinary children and adolescents bear a disproportionate level of poor health, and adverse developmental and academic outcomes compared to their cisgender peers. In this article, I review evidence from recent research on minority stress and resilience among trans youth and advocate for two additional domains to be included when…

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…

The current paper investigates the structural validity of the Children's Concentration and Empathy Scale (CCES), which was designed based on Montessori's developmental theory to assess, using teacher ratings, the coherence of attention-related characteristics (concentration, empathy, and normalization) in children from 1.5 to 12 years old. The…