Children comprehend iconic gestures relatively later than deictic gestures. Previous research with English-learning children indicated that they could comprehend iconic gestures at 26 months, a pattern whose extension to other languages is not yet known. The present study examined Turkish-learning children's iconic gesture comprehension and its…

The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the significance of early childhood education and care (ECEC) for children's development. We investigated the impact of attendance at ECEC programs following a closure period due to the pandemic. We used linear regression with a lagged dependent variable to examine assessments of children's cognitive and receptive…

Research Findings: We assessed socio-emotional behavior, nonverbal reasoning, German receptive language, and motor skills of refugee children attending early childhood development [ECD] programs and of those who did not (N = 207, mean age = 69.4 months). Young refugee children overall demonstrated lower levels of development and more…

This research aims to investigate the impact of an early literacy programme called 'Dialog, Play and Tell--Early Literacy Skills Support Practices with Mother Involvement (DPT-ELP)' on the early literacy skills of socio-economically disadvantaged children. An interventional mixed research design was implemented with 13 children attending municipal…

Background: Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have problems acquiring language, affecting their communicative participation, social--emotional functioning (SEF) and quality of life (QoL). Aims: To investigate whether communicative participation mediates the relation between language and SEF and QoL. Methods & Procedures: In a…

The aim was to evaluate the effects of a family-focused early intervention programme on the cognitive, motor, and language development of infants exposed to social and biological risks in the first year of life. Quasi-experimental randomized controlled trial (RBR-6ct969), with intervention (IG; n = 72) and control (CG; n = 170) groups. IG mothers…

Autism is often associated with early developmental delays in language and motor skills. However, little is known about the complex dynamic processes that drive the co-development of such early difficulties. The aim of the present study was to model the parallel growth of language and motor skills in a cohort of infants and to explore differences…

Despite earlier claims that language abilities are intact in individuals with Williams syndrome (WS), many studies have shown that language development is often delayed and atypical, that is, it develops in line with different cognitive abilities compared to typically developing populations. It is unclear, however, whether general cognitive…

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings faced significant disruption during the COVID-19 pandemic, compromising the continuity, stability and quality of provision. Three years on from the first UK lockdown as pandemic-era preschoolers enter formal schooling, stakeholders are concerned about the impact of the disruption on children's…

The present study investigates the relation between language environment and language delay in 63 British-English speaking children (19 typical talkers (TT), 22 late talkers (LT), and 22 late bloomers (LB) aged 13 to 18 months. Families audio recorded daily routines and marked the new words their child produced over a period of 6 months. To…

Social mastery motivation and parental response are important correlates of children's vocabulary and self-regulation skills, but little research has examined their relationships collectively. This study investigated the direct relationships among social mastery motivation (active interaction and positive affect frequencies), parental response,…

Background: Recent research has shown that socio-emotional and language competencies are positively associated with each other. However, few studies have explored these associations for the second language competencies (L2) of young dual language learners (DLLs). Aims: This longitudinal study investigated possible bidirectional associations…

This study investigates the levels of social language and vocabulary characteristics of three- to six-year-old children with autism in Vietnam. The research is based on analysis of the developmental assessment reports of 151 children with autism, and 42 parents' reports on their children's vocabulary (recorded using the Child Word Inventory form).…

Despite the well-established role of lexis in proficiency in the four skills, a great deal of research has focused on the importance of vocabulary breadth and depth in reading. Therefore, the neglect of productive skills has motivated recent calls to inspect the impact of lexical dimensions on writing ability. Using Partial Least Squares…

Rejection by peers has devastating effects on children's social-cognitive development. As language difficulties have been found to be one of the underlying causes of peer rejection, the present study focused on the relation between these two variables. Specifically, this study was the first to test a hypothesized model connecting children's level…