In countries with universal access to early childhood education and care (ECEC), child participation is high across a range of socioeconomic groups. However, ECEC quality is often varying, and many children spend much time in ECEC settings that are not necessarily high quality. In this observational study, we therefore examined the relationship…

In recent years, a literature has emerged describing contributions fathers make to the development of very young children. Scholars suggest that active play may be a specific area of parenting in which fathers are primary and, further, that this type of play helps children experience intense emotions and learn to regulate them. However, this…

While associations between exposure to marital conflict and child development have been documented extensively in middle childhood and adolescence, few studies have examined the developmental consequences of conflict exposure in infancy. Moreover, those that have examined marital conflict in infancy tended to focus on consequences of conflict…

This study uses a nationally representative sample of 9-month-old infants and their families from the Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) study to investigate if reading to infants is associated with higher scores on contemporaneous indicators of cognitive development independently of other language-based interactions between parent and infant, such as…

Extensive exposure to representational media is common for infants in Western culture, and previous research has shown that soon after their 1st birthday, infants can acquire and extend new information from pictures to real objects. Here we explore the extent to which lack of exposure to pictures during infancy affects children's learning from…

Research on the effects of breastfeeding on child cognitive development has produced conflicting results, and many studies do not account for infant stimulation in the home. The aim of this study is to determine whether breastfeeding predicts enhanced cognitive development in one-year-old infants after controlling for the main socio-economic and…

This methodology report documents the design, development, and psychometric characteristics of the assessment instruments used in the second wave of the ECLS-B. The assessment instruments discussed measure children's cognitive development (BSF-R), socioemotional functioning (Two Bags Task), security of attachment (TAS-45), and physical development…

The major objective of this series of studies was to clarify the concept of mastery motivation and to develop measures of this concept applicable to 1-year-old children. Three studies were made with 44 infants, aged 12 to 13 months. The first study, "Aspects of Mastery Motivation and Cognitive Functioning," utilized structured situations…

The purposes of this longitudinal study of early intervention with 83 black mother-child dyads were (a) to test the thesis that sociocultural transmission influences childhood development in educationally significant ways, and (b) to describe the process through which such transmission can occur. Two social intervention programs were contrasted;…

This report concerns the field procedures and data analysis being used in the New York City Infant Day Care Study, a large-scale longitudinal study examining publicly-funded, community-controlled group and family day care programs in New York and comparing the effects of these programs and of home rearing on children and their families. Children's…