The paper looks at the relevance of W.R. Bion's 'Theory of Thinking' to the interpretation of young child observations. Bion describes a process whereby emotional experience, when contained by a caregiver, gives rise to a capacity for symbol formation, which is at the root of imagination and language. The study consists of eight written hour-long…

Higher-order thinking is relational reasoning in which multiple representations are linked together, through inferences, comparisons, abstractions, and hierarchies. We examine the development of higher-order thinking in 64 preschool-aged children, observed from 14 to 58 months in naturalistic situations at home. We used children's spontaneous talk…

There are clear associations between the overall quantity of input children are exposed to and their vocabulary acquisition. However, by uncovering specific features of the input that matter, we can better understand the mechanisms involved in vocabulary learning. We examine whether exposure to "wh"-questions, a challenging quality of…

This book proposes a new theory on children's thinking (cognitive) development. According to this theory, the stages of said development should be divided into four stages: first, the stage of animalistic thinking (birth--before possessing basic language ability); second, the stage of elementary thinking (beginning to possess basic language…

A review of 20 experimental, shared book reading (SBR) interventions using questioning strategies with preschool children was conducted. The studies were analyzed in terms of their quality, focus, and the questioning strategies employed. Although there were few methodological concerns about the studies conducted, treatment fidelity and…

Virtual reality (VR) has brought about numerous alternative learning opportunities in the last decade, and with modern products such as Oculus Rift and other wearable Virtual Reality technologies being introduced into society, VR will promisingly continue to provide yet unseen opportunities in the next few decades and therefore is a technology…

Errors differ in degree of seriousness. We asked whether preschoolers would use the magnitude of an informant's errors to decide if that informant would be a good source of information later. Four- and 5-year-olds observed two informants incorrectly label familiar objects, but one informant's errors were closer to the correct answer than the…

In recent years, the intersection of cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and neuroscience with regard to deaf individuals has received increasing attention from a variety of academic and educational audiences. Both research and pedagogy have addressed questions about whether deaf children learn in the same ways that hearing children…

The transition from infancy to toddlerhood occurs after the youngster's first year of life (12-24 months). This is a critical time in a child's development. In this year, children develop critical thinking skills and begin making connections in the world around them. They demonstrate increased independence and view themselves as the center of…

Developing "Thinking and Understanding in Young Children" presents a comprehensive and accessible overview of contemporary theory and research about young children's developing thinking and understanding. Throughout this second edition, the ideas and theories presented are enlivened by transcripts of children's activities and conversations taken…

This article reports on a 4-year follow-up study from the Learning Experiences and Alternative Program for Preschoolers and Their Parents (LEAP) randomized trial of early intervention for young children with autism. Overall, participants from LEAP classes were marginally superior to comparison class children on elementary school outcomes specific…

For very young children, music has power and meaning that go beyond words. First, and most important, sharing music with young children is simply one more way to give love and receive love. Music and music experiences also support the formation of important brain connections that are being established over the first three years of life. This…

A primary purpose of early childhood education and interventions is to promote children's acquisition of knowledge and skills linked to later social competence and academic success. In this report, special attention is given to summarizing what has been learned about early childhood classrooms as contexts for development and learning, the kinds of…

This case study reports on the progress of Navon, a 13-year-old boy with prelingual deafness, over a 3-month period following exposure to Logo, a computer programming language that visualizes specific programming commands by means of a virtual drawing tool called the Turtle. Despite an almost complete lack of skills in spoken and sign language,…

This study utilized the head-turn preference procedure in four experiments to determine whether 1-year-old infants could extract and remember information from auditory strings produced by miniature artificial grammar. Findings indicated that subjects generalized to the new structure by discriminating new grammatical strings from ungrammatical ones…