Animal fears are common, emerging in early childhood and often continuing into adulthood. This study explores the outcomes of positive and negative storybooks about animals on children's attitudes and behaviors. Ninety-six children (ages 4-8 years) were exposed to either negative or positive information about two animals (snakes and frogs) via…

Project Construct is a learner-centered constructivist framework that emphasizes positive teacher-student relationships, autonomy, and child-led experiences. Constructivist pedagogy promote cognitive, behavioral, and academic outcomes. Yet, novice teachers struggle to grasp constructivist teaching practices and tend to emphasize teacher-directed…

Challenging behaviors exhibited by young children negatively affect development and may also prevent children from receiving appropriate education. These behaviors may also hinder positive family interactions and have a significant impact on parents and other family members. Although various parent training approaches exist to increase parents'…

Online Parent Training in Early Behavioral Intervention (OPT-In-Early) is a self-directed resource for caregivers of autistic children. Sixty-three parent-child dyads from three states in were randomized to the OPT-In-Early or treatment as usual group. Parents in both groups completed baseline and post-treatment visits, which were targeted for 4…

Adequate mental representations of animals are important for children's personal development, because they result in their appropriate treatment of such animals, which would not, for example, compromise either animals' or children's safety. By using a convenient sample of 101 six- to seven-year old children, this research examined these…

Children recognize that people who know more are better informants than those who know less. How does an individual's prior knowledge affect children's decisions about whom to inform? In 3 experiments, 3- to 6-year-old children were invited to share a novel piece of information with 1 of 2 potential recipients who differed in their recent history…

As part of a wider study, this paper reports on Australian educators' understanding of children's typical and problematic sexual behaviour and their source of training in this area. A sample of 107 educators from government, independent and Catholic primary schools, preschools and care organisations across Australia answered an online…

Children learn the structure of the music of their culture similarly to how they learn the language to which they are exposed in their daily environment. Furthermore, as with language, children acquire this musical knowledge without formal instruction. Two critical aspects of musical pitch structure in Western tonal music are key membership…

Early childhood educators currently provide content focused learning opportunities for children in the areas of well-being and environmental education. However, these are usually seen as discrete content areas and educators are challenged with responding to children's interests in popular-culture inspired food products given these influence their…

The purpose of this study was to examine how parental homework completion, session attendance, and treatment knowledge influenced parenting practices and confidence in using learned skills during behavioral parent training (BPT). Parents of 54 preschoolers (M[subscript age] = 5.07, 82% Hispanic/Latino) with externalizing behavior problems…

This study evaluates school personnel perceptions, knowledge, and behaviors before and after a 36-hr training program designed to prepare early childhood school personnel for implementation of an after-school family preventive intervention for conduct problems. Participants were 40 female school personnel (22 professionals and 18…

A variety of preschool curricula is available and in widespread use, however, there is a lack of evidence from rigorous evaluations regarding the effects of these curricula on children's school readiness. The lack of such information is important as early childhood center-based programs have been a major, sometimes the sole, component of a number…

Gender schema theory proposes that children's acquisition of gender labels and gender stereotypes informs gender-congruent behaviour. Most previous studies have been cross-sectional and do not address the temporal relationship between knowledge and behaviour. We report the results of a longitudinal study of gender knowledge and sex-typed behaviour…

These stories, with accompanying photographs, were collected during 40 years of teaching preschoolers, directing child care centers, sharing with parents, and working with teachers and teachers-to-be. The anecdotes illustrate the fresh and amusing ways children look at the world; reveal thoughts and feelings that help adults understand better what…