Social-emotional skills as valid predictors for subsequent school success should be promoted in early childhood. Preschools are a relevant setting to reach children from families with low socioeconomic status. The federal state law for children´s day-care and preschools in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania offers preschools in difficult…

Aim/Purpose: This study explores the effectiveness of a virtual reality (VR) application designed to teach Theory of Mind (ToM) skills to children aged 5-6, addressing the gap in research on the use of VR for typically developing children. Background: ToM is a critical skill for social interaction and understanding others' perspectives. Despite…

In a world that seems to grow more unpredictable and challenging by the day, how can we increase learning and joy for children while offering them much-needed support? Uncertainty and disruption have created a youth mental health crisis that requires all hands on deck. This urgently needed guidebook offers comprehensive and scientifically-grounded…

A potential underlying mechanism associated with the difficulties in social interactions in Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) concerns the abnormal development of moral reasoning. The present study examined utilitarian and deontological judgments in impersonal and personal moral dilemmas, comparing 66 individuals with ASD and 61 typically…

This paper presents the results of a study focusing on the dimensions of object relations in people with autism spectrum disorder. An object relation denotes a relationship with a significant other, within which several identification processes take place through a meaningful emotional exchange. This is described by the developmental process of…

Supporting social competence in early childhood is associated with the development of friendships, positive outcomes across developmental domains, and preventing challenges in later life. However, within social skills interventions to improve social competence, identifying and selecting target social skills that are likely to be functional within…

This study aims to identify early childhood sociability trajectories and examine their longitudinal associations with behavior problems. Using a population-based data set presented by the Panel Study on Korean Children, sociability trajectories from age 2 to age 4 were identified by latent class growth analysis. Associations between sociability…

"Research Findings": Empathy is a relevant component of social interactions that can be observed from early childhood. Validated tests for young children are still scarce. This study has two goals: (1) to validate the modified two-factor version of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) in Spanish children between the ages of 3 and 8;…

This article aims to review and debate the concept of lying and the variables associated with it, such as the age of its emergence in infancy, developmental patterns in a life cycle, motives for lying, consequences on social relationships and contextual and educational factors. The paradoxical nature of this behaviour is also emphasized because it…

Despite being the largest archipelago and the fourth populous country in the world, Indonesia has received limited research attention to the socioemotional development of its diverse child populations. As the corona virus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic significantly interrupted the life of individuals and families all over the world, it is also critical…

This research uses focus group methodology to examine how a specific subset of family childcare providers--those participating in a voluntary quality rating and improvement system and serving a high percentage of children receiving childcare subsidy--define quality. The study builds on the limited existing research about family childcare quality,…

Third Culture Kids (TCK) are generally considered to be children who spend a significant period living outside of their home country but reside only temporarily in one or more host country/ies. TCKs' upbringing, it is argued, may lead to a number of negative psychological outcomes including depression, anxiety, and identity and attachment issues.…

This study examined how teachers support kindergarten children's social and emotional development in everyday contexts. It used an ethnographic qualitative mode of enquiry, employing participant observations and semi-structured and structured interviews to examine the ways teachers optimize opportunities for supporting kindergarten children's…

In the middle of the 20th century, there was a shift from a skills deficit approach to a positive approach, focused on promoting assets and individual strengths. The role of social-emotional competences became salient. School is a privileged arena for universal and selective prevention interventions that can help pupils in raising their competence…

Children of elementary school age are in the process of discovering and establishing their self-identity through talk, gesture, writing, and, especially, the arts. While they can sometimes find room to exert their individuality in their daily classroom assignments, it is more often in the spaces open to social interaction in school in which this…