Perspective taking and cognitive flexibility are important abilities for navigating our everyday lives. In this longitudinal study with 108 children (61 girls, mostly White), we investigated the developmental relation between Level 1 perspective taking at 27 months of age and Level 2 perspective taking at 52 months of age as well as relations to…

As adults, we might understand that beliefs often spread because people are strongly influenced by their friends, family, and other social connections. However, do we think those influences are strong enough to overrule direct evidence of a friend's unreliability? And do preschoolers expect people to show such biases toward friends and to…

The present study aimed to examine the effect of a dialogic book reading program on preschool children's perspective taking skills. In line with this aim, a dialogic book reading program was designed, and its effects were tested in a quasi-experimental study involving both pre/post and follow-up tests. The study group consisted of 42 five-year old…

Perspective taking refers to the ability to understand others' thoughts, feelings and perspectives. From previous studies, it emerges that children with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder show many difficulties in understanding the other's point of view, especially in terms of thoughts and emotions. The aims of the present study were: (1) to…

In Danish early childhood education and care (ECEC), pedagogues traditionally work in a child-centred manner, valuing the children's experiences. During the last 150 years pedagogues have developed expertise in framing everyday life for children while paying double attention to the children's perspectives, on one hand, and to their own pedagogical…

This study examines how reading bullying-themed children's picture books and role-playing based on these books help young children develop perspective-taking abilities and empathy as well as understanding of bullying. Twenty-one 5-year-old children enrolled in a Flower Garden childcare center located in a metropolitan city in South Korea…

People sometimes commit 'egocentric errors', failing to ignore their own perspective when interpreting others' communication. Training imitation-inhibition, when participants perform the opposite action from another person, facilitates subsequent perspective-taking in adults. This study tested whether imitation-inhibition training also facilitates…

Jeremy Sawyer recounts that, after Lev S. Vygotsky's death, Jean Piaget conceded the Russian psychologist correctly understood the social origins, functions, and developmental trajectory of children's egocentric speech (now called private speech) but dismissed this work as irrelevant to children's egocentrism or nondifferentiation of perspectives.…

The current study's aim was to assess the contribution of empathic perspective-taking to the relationship between attachment security and children's risk of maladjustment. A sample of 212 preschoolers aged 3-5 years old was included in this study. Children completed the Attachment Story Completion Task and a modified version of the Kids' Empathic…

We assessed the efficacy of two spatial learning programs grounded in early years learning pedagogical theory to improve numeracy performance in preschool. Engagement with a play-based spatial program led to better overall spatial reasoning and transferred to better numeracy compared with a business-as-usual control, underscoring the importance of…

This study presents the research that Pramling Samuelsson's keynote at the 32nd annual EECERA conference in Brighton 2024 drew upon. The study addresses an important but understudied feature of early childhood education and care for sustainability (ECECfS), namely engaging children in prospective or what-if thinking. Our reasoning is founded on…

Understanding others' perspectives and integrating this knowledge in social interactions is challenging for young children; even adults struggle with this skill. While young children show the capacity to understand what others can and cannot see under supportive laboratory conditions, more research is necessary to understand how children implement…

This paper focuses on problem solving and problem posing in mathematics education with 6-year-olds. After working on a problem-solving activity, the young students were asked to pose a "similar" task to a friend. This article explores how the students interpret the notion of "similar." To be able to pose a problem-solving task…

Participants ranging in age from 3 to 98 years (N = 708; approximately 60% female; 49% Caucasian, 38% Asian; 12% Other ethnicities, 1% Indigenous; modal household income > $80,000) completed a battery of tasks involving verbal ability, executive function, and perspective-taking. Wherever possible, all participants completed the same version of…

Understanding others' perspectives and integrating this knowledge in social interactions is challenging for young children; even adults struggle with this skill. While young children show the capacity to understand what others can and cannot see under supportive laboratory conditions, more research is necessary to understand how children implement…