Numerous longstanding developmental theories have emphasized the important role that culture and context play in shaping young children's skill development. Nevertheless, the field lacks explicit models describing the extent to which early childhood development may be similar (universal) versus different (specific) across cultures. In this…

Racial literacy as defined by Stevenson (2014) is an important cultural resistance strategy (e.g., positive coping strategy) for Black children and youth because it gives them the skills needed to survive in a racist society. Stevenson's work, along with the work of several of his colleagues, focuses on adolescents and those in middle childhood,…

By the preschool age, children exhibit a diversity of prosocial behaviors that include both sharing resources and helping others. Though recent work has theorized that these prosocial behaviors are differentiated by distinct ages of emergence, developmental trajectories and underlying mechanisms, the experimental evidence in support of the last…

The aim of this study was to assess text generation and text transcription of children and youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD, n = 67) and Typically Developing (TD) peers (n = 67). Participants (80.6% male, ages 9-14) produced a free-style handwriting task analysed for written content and handwriting legibility and speed. Findings showed…

Pretend play is an important, universal activity of early childhood, but research to date contains multiple inconsistencies in definitions and measurement of pretend play. To begin to resolve this issue, we conducted a first study of the multiple different behaviors of pretend play in the preschool years (3-5 years), and investigated their…

Physical activity (PA) is linked to multiple positive health outcomes for young children, with potential benefits in other domains as well. Engaging in higher intensity PA may produce positive gains for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), especially in academic engagement and on-task behavior. However, there is limited research…

Recent meta-analyses have demonstrated a significant association between children's early math achievement and their experiences with math at home, including their caregivers' talk about math. However, few studies have investigated the relations between caregiver math talk and children's learning with experimental designs. Eighty-six children (M =…

This double-blind, randomized controlled trial, tested fatty acid (FA) supplementation in children (ages 2- < 6 years) recently diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Participants received daily oral FA supplement containing omega-3 and omega-6 FA, or a placebo for 90 days based on participant weight. Erythrocyte FAs and the cytokines,…

What role does literature for children and young adults have in the present environmental crisis and in the context of climate change? To answer this question, I propose to analyse Ted Hughes's narrative "The Iron Woman" (1993) which, despite being written almost thirty years ago as a sequel to "The Iron Man" (1968), reads as…

Gesar ("ge sar") is a warrior-like king in the realm of Ling ("gling") and the protagonist of a voluminous folkloric poem that many Tibetan bards have performed for centuries. With Gesar's increasing fame in modern times, the orature has become a quintessential representation of Tibetan culture. This paper compares two…

Neoliberalism along with other sites of cultural, social and political life has created deep impacts on childhood. With the rise of neoliberalisation of policies, childhood has come to be defined in terms of economic utility and wellbeing of society. In this paper, we examine the process of neoliberalisation through the changing role and meaning…

Preschoolers are not meeting physical activity recommendations and are spending an extensive amount of their day sedentary. Interventions targeting teacher-led strategies can benefit children's physical activity levels the most. The purpose of this feasibility study was to examine the effects of an indoor teacher-guided and -led preschool physical…

Many parents of young autistic children report wanting to be more involved in their child's education. Parental involvement is positively correlated with school satisfaction, yet how various involvement activities are differentially related to satisfaction has not been extensively investigated. This study aimed to learn more about satisfaction…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine feedback processing within the context of probabilistic learning in children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD). Method: The probabilistic category learning task required 28 children ages 8-13 years old to classify novel cartoon animals that differed in five binary features into…

This article presents a developmental pathway for the acquisition of morphosyntactic variation. Although there is abundant evidence that morphosyntactic variation is pervasive among adults, much less is known about how children acquire such variation. The literature thus far indicates that the pathway of development involves first producing only…