In this study, maternal socialization goals in early childhood were linked to qualities of children's self in middle childhood, while also considering maternal education and child gender. Estonian mothers (N = 209; M[subscript age] = 33.6; 52.2% had university education) provided ratings of their socialization goals for children (52.2% girls;…

Emphasis on continuous infant sleep overnight may be driven by parental concern of risk to child mental health outcomes. The Mercy Pregnancy and Emotional Wellbeing Study (MPEWS) examined whether infant sleep at 6 and 12 months postpartum predicts anxiety disorders at 2-4 years, and whether this is moderated by maternal depression, active physical…

Child temperament is a predictor of non-verbal ability (i.e. thinking and problem-solving skills that do not fundamentally require verbal language production and comprehension). Given that temperament scores might vary depending on whether the reporter is a parent or a teacher, this study analyses (a) whether those reports are different and (b)…

The present study examined the longitudinal relations between psychopathology and social competence in a sample of 115 Chinese children during the transition to preschool initiated in their third year of life. Social competence was assessed by maternal reports at three months after preschool entry (T1) and at the end of the first (T2) and second…

This research investigated the developing inter-relationships between language, graphic symbolism and symbolic play both concurrently and longitudinally from the fourth to the fifth year of childhood. Sixty children ("n"?=?60) aged between 3 and 4?years completed multiple assessments of language and assessments of graphic symbolism,…

Previous studies of childhood fear, worry, and ritualistic behaviour have been limited by restricted age ranges, narrow ranges of anxiety phenomena, non-comparable methodologies, and assessment of typical behaviour within a pathological context. Content and intensity of fear, worry, and ritualistic behaviour, and associations among these…

The present study assessed 89 children in a short-term longitudinal study from Junior Kindergarten (age 4-5 years) through Grade 1 (age 6-7 years) using a variety of tests of emergent literacy. Children were assessed for reading skill (a composite of word recognition, decoding, and letter-sound knowledge), phonological awareness, and oral language…

The goal of this study was to examine the moderating role of pragmatic language in the relations between shyness and indices of socio-emotional adjustment in an unselected sample of early elementary school children. In particular, we sought to explore whether pragmatic language played a protective role for shy children. Participants were n = 167…

This study examined whether teacher-child interactions characterized by teacher involvement, structure, and autonomy support at the beginning of second grade predicted children's global, academic, social, and behavioural self-concept at the end of second grade. The study was conducted in 30 second grade classrooms with 570 children and their…

The principal aim of the present study was to obtain a deeper understanding than hitherto of the concurrent correlates and prospective predictors of loneliness and poor peer acceptance, both falling under the umbrella term low social inclusion. Problematic and socially competent behaviours were investigated as possible predictors of low social…

The present study assessed the relations between basic motor abilities in kindergarten and scholastic, social, and emotional adaptation in the transition to formal schooling. Seventy-one five-year-old kindergarten children were administered a battery of standard assessments of basic motor functions. A year later, children's adjustment to school…

The relationship between recall memory, visual recognition memory, social communication, and the emergence of language skills was measured in a longitudinal study. Thirty typically developing Swedish children were tested at 6, 9 and 14 months. The result showed that, in combination, visual recognition memory at 6 months, deferred imitation at 9…

Behavioural sleep problems (childhood insomnias) can cause distress for both parents and children. This paper reports a model describing predictors of high sleep problem scores in a representative population-based random sample survey of non-Aboriginal singleton children born in 1995 and 1996 (1085 girls and 1129 boys) in Western Australia.…

Maternal prenatal smoking, birth weight and sociodemographic factors were investigated in relation to cognitive abilities of 1544 children (aged 3.5 years) participating in the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Children's Development. The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) was used to assess verbal ability, the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale…

This cross-sectional study explored whether participation, from early childhood, in play involving different cognitive abilities predicts visuo-spatial achievement at ages 9, 12, and 15. Based on parental assessment, prior and present practice of spatial manipulation play was found to be consistently more frequent in boys than in girls; the…