Research shows many positive effects from physical exercise. The present study examined the impact of a structured physical exercise program compared to treatment as usual on the gross motor skills of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Participants included 20 children, from 4 to 7 years old, who were assigned to two groups;…

Given the established role of parental talk in the growth of math knowledge in preschoolers, there has been an increasing focus on identifying ways to promote parental math talk at this stage of child development. The current study investigated how parental math talk is affected by features of play materials and contexts. The features were…

Trajectories of cognitive and neural development suggest that, despite early emergence, the ability to extract environmental patterns changes across childhood. Here, 5- to 9-year-olds and adults (N = 211, 110 females, in a large Canadian city) completed a memory test assessing what they remembered after watching a stream of shape triplets: the…

The purpose of this study was to explore whether a relationship exists between the rates of state-level developmental screening by a health care provider and state-level provision of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Part C (IDEA Part C) early intervention services. This is an important first step in determining whether states have the…

Within developmental psychology, pointing gestures have received a great deal of attention, while ostensive gestures have been overlooked in terms of their emergence and intentionality. In a longitudinal and micro-genetic study with six children at 9, 11, and 13 months of age, we codified gesture production of children within second-by-second data…

This study compared mother, infant, and dyad interactions between infants with and without biological risk, considering contextual factors related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Forty-two infants with biological risk and 33 without risk (average age 5.6 months) were evaluated via remote video assessments. Results showed that infants without biological…

Humans can attribute beliefs to others. However, it is unknown to what extent this ability results from an innate biological endowment or from experience accrued through child development, particularly exposure to language describing others' mental states. We test the viability of the language exposure hypothesis by assessing whether models…

This study aimed to determine the effects of the Active Early Learning (AEL) childcare center-based physical activity intervention on early childhood executive function and expressive vocabulary via a randomized controlled trial. Three-hundred-and-fourteen preschool children (134 girls) aged 3-5 years from 15 childcare centers were randomly…

Cross-national comparisons represent an avenue for investigating milestones achieved by one region that can help improve standards in another country. This study compares the development of executive functioning in Hungarian and Kenyan preschoolers as they prepare for school readiness. The study's cross-sectional design entailed sampling…

We systematically compared beliefs about animal (e.g., "lion"), artifactual (e.g., "hammer"), and institutional (e.g., "police officer") categories, aiming to identify whether people draw different inferences about which categories are subjective and which are socially constituted. We conducted two studies with 270…

Parents participating in a prospective longitudinal study of infants with older siblings with autism completed an autism screening questionnaire and were asked about any concerns relating to their child's development, and children were administered an interactive assessment conducted by a researcher at 14 months. Scores on the parent questionnaire…

The current study adopted a case study design with mixed methods to examine the multiple features in child development course syllabi in early childhood teacher education programs in two countries, China and the US. This study provided insights into the twenty syllabi through document review and questionnaires. Twenty-six participants, viewed as…

The study sought to understand the general trajectory of children's executive function, as well as whether there was heterogeneity among monolingual English-speaking and dual language learning children in their growth of executive function. In addition, the study examined whether monolingual English-speaking and dual language learning children…

A large and growing body of work has documented robust illusions of area perception in adults. To date, however, there has been surprisingly little in-depth investigation into children's area perception, despite the importance of this topic to the study of quantity perception more broadly (and to the many studies that have been devoted to studying…

The purpose of this study examines the impact of an instructional strategy on kindergarten children's narrative skills. The strategy was based on Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) principles and was adapted for kindergarten children. The sample consisted of 85 children aged 5-6, attending six kindergarten classes in Crete, Greece. The…