This longitudinal study examined early predictors of language development in 74 young children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in Taiwan. Participants were assessed twice (initial age between 17 and 35 months) on responding to joint attention (RJA), initiating joint attention (IJA), motor imitation with objects (object imitation; OI) and…

Early experiences in STEM education can contribute to positive cognitive development in young children. When students have the opportunities to play, inquire, follow their interests/curiosities, develop STEM identities, be creative, and operate within concrete/contextualized STEM explorations, they will experience expansive cognitive growth.…

Number line estimation has been found to be strongly related to mathematical reasoning concurrently and longitudinally. However, the relationship between number line estimation and mathematical reasoning might differ according to children's level of performance. This study investigates whether findings from previous studies that show number line…

Background: The aim of many interventions used by speech and language therapists (SLTs) is to change behaviours related to communication and interaction. Parent-led language interventions for children in the early years (0-5 years) rely on SLTs supporting parents to change their behaviour in child-focused interactions to effect a change in the…

Forest School in England is the practice of young children playing outside, rooted in the outdoor kindergartens of Scandinavia and more especially Denmark. Using observation and semi-structured interviews with children and adults in two settings, this case study approach allowed an in-depth look at where, how and what children played in a Forest…

Purpose: Previously, Lancaster and Camarata (2019) showed that the continuum/spectrum model of the developmental language disorder (DLD) best explained the high heterogeneity of symptoms in children with DLD. We hypothesize that the continuum/spectrum approach can include not only children with DLD but also typically developing (TD) children with…

This study investigated the acquisition of early expressive vocabulary among young children who are deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH; n = 68) using auditory technology (hearing aids and cochlear implants). Parents completed a standardized vocabulary checklist, which allowed analyses of (i) the size of their child's spoken vocabulary; (ii) composition…

A foundational mechanism underlying human cooperation is reciprocity. In the context of repeated interactions with others, it is not always clear the degree to which in-kind responses reflect responsiveness to partners' prior behaviors ("reactive" responses), an interest unrelated to the partner ("nonreactive" responses), or…

Over the past decade, numerous reports have indicated pervasively high rates of early childhood expulsion nationwide. In response, state and federal policymakers have enacted various measures to ban or reduce reliance on such exclusionary discipline. Prior evaluations of the implementation of one such legislative ban on expulsion enacted in…

Child maltreatment is a significant public health concern that affects children's health and well-being throughout their life. Children who are maltreated are at an increased risk of developing a disability or delay and are more vulnerable to a range of mental health-related problems, including depression, anxiety, substance abuse, criminality,…

Few studies on the development of forgiveness involved young children and adolescents, and very few involved samples from non-western countries. This study focused on the development of willingness to forgive a particular transgression in participants aged 4 to 12 years and from two different cultures: a South African culture (Mozambique) and a…

Involving children as stakeholders and including their voices in updating the Australian Early Years Learning Framework (for children birth to age 5) was a focus of this project design. The design was grounded in participatory approaches with a children's rights perspective, as the team prioritised seeking children's views and encouraging their…

This dissertation presents behavioral studies that target the early syntactic representations of "wh"-movement during infancy and early childhood. Previous studies show that by 20 months-old, infants represent "wh"-movement and use this knowledge to respond to "wh"-questions during language comprehension tasks…

Numerous studies have documented children's understanding of fairness through their ability to rectify inequities when distributing resources to others. Understanding fairness, however, involves more than just applying norms of equity when distributing resources. Children must also navigate situations in which resources are collected from them for…

Previous studies have shown reduced attention to the eyes in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, most eye-tracking evidence regarding this impairment has been derived from passive viewing tasks. Here, we compared the passive viewing of faces with an active task involving face identification with morphing faces. While typical…