Purpose: It is widely acknowledged that parental input plays an important role in typical language development. Less is known about the input provided to children with (suspected) developmental language disorder (DLD) or those at risk for DLD. These children may not benefit from parental input in the same way as their typically developing peers,…

Background and aims: Peer interaction difficulties are often elevated amongst children with language disorders, yet the mechanisms underlying these difficulties are unclear. Previous research indicates that poor conflict management, social withdrawal, emotion regulation difficulties, and reduced prosocial behavior may contribute to peer…

It is well established in Australian research and policy literature that children attending schools in regional, rural, and remote locations will benefit from access not only to experiences and interactions offered in their own communities but also to the sorts of experiences available to those in more populated areas of Australia as well. Virtual…

This study examines how 31 middle-school children conducted multimodal analyses of video games. Over four consecutive days, students played video games for 30 minutes and then wrote written reflections about the multimodal symbols within the game and how these symbols influenced their interpretation and decision-making processes during gameplay.…

This paper introduces the concept 'mutual experiences' to highlight how a researcher's sensory experiences may contribute to producing knowledge concerning children's bodily play in a natural environment. The article also demonstrates how photo-interviews can give a researcher virtual access to places and events where s/he cannot be present. The…

In this article we explore how digital play as conducted through various social media and online meeting platforms facilitated resiliency and confidence building in children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using day-in-the-life methodology and narrative inquiry, we disseminate and examine observations collected on children aged 2-10 during lockdown…

Background & aims: How can non-autistic adults facilitate social learning with children on the spectrum? A new theoretical understanding of autism is currently emerging that has made this question more relevant than ever. At the intersection of two growing research areas in the field of autism, the borderland that separates the experience of…

Visitors to public science festivals have a tremendous amount of free choice to decide how to navigate through the festival, as well as when, where, and how long to stop at an exhibit. This study examines how elementary-aged children individually or collaboratively engaged with festival exhibits at a public science festival in St. Petersburg,…

The present study examined features of sibling and friend dyads' connectedness (e.g., length and emotional tone of connected sequences) and the quality of the dyads' interactions during play from early to middle childhood. Forty-four families with a 4-year-old focal child were observed at Time 1 (T1) and again at Time 2 (T2) at age 7 in two…

Play is a universal activity that is an integral part of childhood experiences and aids in the development of important skills. While most children naturally engage in play, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) do not follow the typical pattern of play development and often exhibit delays in play skills. One of the defining characteristics…

We document the need to examine digital game play and app use as a context for cognitive development, particularly during middle childhood. We highlight this developmental period as 6- through 12-year olds comprise a large swath of the preadult population that plays and uses these media forms. Surprisingly, this age range remains understudied with…

Drawing on a relational ontology and scholarship of new literacies, we investigate the materiality and performativity of children's augmented storying in nature. Our study is situated in a Finnish primary school in which a novel, augmented reality application (MyAR Julle) was utilized as a digital storytelling tool for children (n = 62, aged 7-9),…

Children with disabilities, such as those with sensory processing differences or motor impairments, often have limited opportunities for community participation. Moreover, the degree to which caregivers perceive community spaces to be accessible and appropriate for their children can be a determining influence. This study evaluated caregiver…

Autistic children and adults who are non-verbal/minimally verbal or have an intellectual disability have often been excluded from Autism Spectrum Disorder research. Historical, practical and theoretical reasons for this exclusion continue to deter some researchers from work with this underserved population. We discuss why these reasons are neither…

Joint attention skills, broadly speaking, refer to the ability to share experiences and interests about objects and events with others in a social environment. Due to their impairment in joint attention skills, children with autism are usually facing communication challenges, for example, being reluctant to socialize and share items with others.…