Language development plays a pivotal role in a child's cognitive and overall growth, progressing through identifiable stages that ultimately lead to adult communication. It serves as a significant indicator of a child's intellectual and overall development. This study aims to explore the impact of daily technology use on children's language…

We examined the evolution of social pretend play in toddlers and tested whether children's age, gender, and language abilities were associated with changes in social pretend play over time. We employed a unique observational data set that followed 28 children (M[subscript age] = 27 months old; 57% boys) with each of two unfamiliar peers over 18…

Multiple domains develop simultaneously and interact throughout infancy and early childhood. Although relationships between motor and language skills have been examined cross-sectionally during the first three years of life, little is known regarding the individual factors that influence the development of these domains as well as the relationship…

The present study examined individual differences in the development of sustained attention across toddlerhood, as well as how these individual differences related to the development of language and sleep. Toddlers (N = 314; 54% male) were assessed at 30, 36, and 42 months using multiple measures of attention, a standardized language assessment,…

This meta-analysis aimed to investigate whether screen exposure is beneficial or detrimental for early language development. A total of 28 eligible studies were synthesized to examine the correlation between screen exposure (including screen time, educational programme viewing, co-viewing, and start age of screen exposure) and language development…

How does linguistic structure affect children's developing cardinal number knowledge? The bootstrapping theory proposes that children might use syntactic information provided by known words such as quantifiers to bootstrap the meanings of unfamiliar words such as number words. Prior studies of numeral and quantifier development have indicated that…

Background: Extensive research suggests that peripartum depression is a risk factor for children's early language development. Yet, previous research on this association shows mixed results, often lacking information on the persistence of depression and the social context. This population-based cohort study addresses this gap by investigating the…

This study investigates the development of metapragmatic awareness in preschool children through the lens of Talmy's Force-Dynamics Model. Using conversation data from 60 Mandarin-speaking children aged 4 to 6, obtained from the International Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES), the research employs a custom coding framework to analyze…

Despite the important role assigned to analogical reasoning (AR) in cognition and language, the relationship between this ability and language skills in the emergent literacy period has not been sufficiently studied, especially in Spanish speakers. To explore this link, we examined two modalities of AR (verbal and non-verbal) as predictors of…

The present study analyses 3- to 6-year-old children's dialect-standard repertoires in an Austrian-Bavarian sociolinguistic setting and investigates how far individual repertoires can be explained by input and sociodemographic factors. Adults' linguistic repertoires in the area typically comprise a certain spectrum on the dialect-standard…

The relationship between emotion and language in children is an emerging field of research. To carry out this type of study, researchers need to precisely manipulate the emotional parameters of the words in their experimental material. However, the number of affective norms for words in this population is still limited. To fill this gap, the…

Childhood socioeconomic status (SES) is related to disparities in the development of both language and executive functioning (EF) skills. Emerging evidence suggests that language development may precede and provide necessary scaffolding for EF development in early childhood. The present preregistered study investigates how these skills co-develop…

The purpose of this study is to examine the bidirectional relationship between children's language development and challenging behaviors as well as the moderating roles of gender and race/ethnicity. We conducted a number of structural equation modeling analyses with a national representative sample (N = 2,462) of Head Start children from the 2014…

Background: A wealth of evidence supports the important role high-quality parent-child interactions play in children's early language acquisition. However, the impact on later language outcomes remains unclear. Aims: To examine the associations between responsive parental behaviours across the early years and child language outcomes at age 7 years…

Young children with Down syndrome (DS) have language delays beginning early in life. Book reading with parents provides a context for capitalizing on language learning opportunities. This study evaluated the quantity and quality of language input among mothers and fathers of young children with DS during book reading interactions and investigated…