There is growing evidence that cumulative exposure to highly responsive parenting styles throughout the early childhood period may provide a variety of important child benefits in terms of language, cognitive, social, and emotional development. We view maternal responsivity as a dynamic construct of central importance to the development of…

This article shares the story of Alex, a gifted child. Alex is clearly gifted when observed through one lens and yet obviously lagging when viewed from a different angle. He knew his letters at 20 months, but did not learn to tie his shoes until the middle of second grade. He taught himself to read just before his third birthday, but in third…

New knowledge from the rapidly growing field of neuroscience has important implications for our understanding of human behavior in the social environment, yet little of this knowledge has made its way into social work education. This article presents a model for integrating neuroscience into instruction on human development, the bio psychosocial…

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a content analysis model for assessing students' cognitive learning in asynchronous online discussions. It adopted a fully mixed methods design, in which qualitative and quantitative methods were employed sequentially for data analysis and interpretation. Specifically, the design was a…

As a result of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA; 1990), public school districts are required to provide appropriate services to preschool students who are at risk or who are experiencing developmental delays. These services are frequently offered in preschool programs for children with disabilities (PPCDs). PPCDs are generally…

Researchers have been able to link working memory to many important cognitive abilities throughout the life span. Two of the unanswered questions about working memory are what cognitive processes function during working memory task performance and how do these processes directly relate to intelligence? A recent model (Unsworth & Engle, 2006)…

Recent structural and functional imaging studies have provided evidence for continued development of brain regions involved in social cognition during adolescence. In this paper, we review this rapidly expanding area of neuroscience and describe models of neurocognitive development that have emerged recently. One implication of these models is…

Prodigies are individuals with exceptional mental abilities. How is it possible that some of these people mentally calculate exponentiations with high accuracy and speed? We examined CP, a mental calculation prodigy, and a control group of 11 normal calculators for moderate mental arithmetic tasks. CP has additionally been tested for exceptionally…

This paper discusses concepts of learning through "collaborative multimodal dialogue". It draws on an ESRC-funded study (RES-000-22-2451) investigating 3- and 4-year-old children's encounters with literacy as they engage with a range of printed and digital technologies at home and in a nursery. The study goes beyond analysis of spoken language,…

The Test of Logical Thinking (TOLT) and the Group Assessment of Logical Thinking (GALT) are two of the instruments most widely used by science educators and researchers to measure students' formal reasoning abilities. Based on Piaget's cognitive development theory, formal thinking ability has been shown to be essential for student achievement in…

Exposure to different forms of narrative media may influence children's development of theory-of-mind. Because engagement with fictional narratives provides one with information about the social world, and possibly draws upon theory-of-mind processes during comprehension, exposure to storybooks, movies, and television may influence theory-of-mind…

The transition into school occurs at the intersection of multiple environmental settings. This study applied growth curve modeling to a sample of 1,364 American children, followed from birth through age 6, who had been categorized by their exposure to cognitive stimulation at home and in preschool child care and 1st-grade classrooms. Of special…

Algebra is a gateway to expanded opportunities, but it often poses difficulty for students with learning disabilities. Consequently, it is essential to identify evidence-based instructional strategies for these students. The authors begin by identifying three areas of algebra difficulty experienced by students with disabilities: cognitive…

This article reports the results of a study of potential sources of item nonequivalence between English and Chinese language versions of a cognitive development test for preschool-aged children. Items were flagged for potential nonequivalence through statistical and judgment-based procedures, and the relationship between flag status and item…

Previous research on children's conceptual and procedural understanding of fractions, and other arithmetic skills, has led to contradictory conclusions. Some research suggests that children learn conceptual knowledge before procedural knowledge, some suggests that they learn procedural knowledge before conceptual knowledge, and other research…