Prior research points to the promotion of parenting self-efficacy (PSE) as an important component of parenting interventions; however, few studies have tested PSE as a mediator or moderator of the effects of parenting programs on child behavior. In the current study, we examined the efficacy of the Family Check-Up (FCU), a brief, strengths-based…

The integration of online learning tools abruptly became necessary during the COVID-19 pandemic from early 2020 onward. This study surveyed a public-school sample of teachers (N = 297) and parents (N = 403) of Kuwaiti kindergartners. The results indicated that both teachers and parents agreed that kindergarten children learned e-learning and…

Children learn words in a social environment. In my dissertation, I examine how caregivers' social cues facilitate young children's word learning in settings that mirror their typical, dynamic learning environments. In Chapter 1, I overview prior work examining how social cues may support word learning, focusing on possible mechanisms underlying…

The study of infant gaze has long been a key tool for understanding the developing mind. However, labor-intensive data collection and processing limit the speed at which this understanding can be advanced. Here, we demonstrate an asynchronous workflow for conducting violation-of-expectation (VoE) experiments, which is fully "hands-off"…

Privatization of public education in North America has long been influenced by two schools of conservative thought: neoliberalism, which seeks to create a marketplace for public services in which individuals choose the option they judge to be in their best interests and government's role is limited as much as possible to simply funding these…

Emphasis on continuous infant sleep overnight may be driven by parental concern of risk to child mental health outcomes. The Mercy Pregnancy and Emotional Wellbeing Study (MPEWS) examined whether infant sleep at 6 and 12 months postpartum predicts anxiety disorders at 2-4 years, and whether this is moderated by maternal depression, active physical…

This article focuses on a school-family partnership programme that has been implemented in French schools to prevent learning difficulties among migrant children, taking their specific needs into account. It consists of a series of three to four sessions, gathering migrant parents, their children and members of the teaching staff, one interpreter…

Family is the child's first school, the parents are the children's first teacher. Nowadays, in China most families have only one child, the responsibility of parents is not just let the children eat and drink, parents also should bear the task of cultivating children, educating children. About two-thirds of the time spent in the family, family…

Literacy activities and critical thinking are two fundamental aspects in the growth and development of primary school students. Parents also play a vital role in children's lives, as they are considered their children's first educators. The time that family members spend together is invaluable and must be used to lead to the harmonious development…

Young adults in the USA face a multitude of challenges, particularly those from multi-disadvantaged backgrounds. This paper examines the socio-economic and cultural barriers impacting the educational experiences of young adults aged 18-29 within formal education settings in the USA. Utilising theoretical frameworks of life course research,…

Family characteristics such as socioeconomic status (SES) and migration background (MiBa) predict children's early mathematical skills. This study investigated the associations between SES and MiBa and children's mathematical precursor skills, mediated by different facets of the home numeracy environment (HNE) in a German sample (N = 500). In…

School-age children need safe, supervised places to learn and grow during non-school hours while their parents and caregivers work. Beyond providing safety and supervision, participation in high-quality school-age child care programs offered before or after school, or during the summer, is associated with positive developmental outcomes for young…

Infant-directed speech (IDS) produced in laboratory settings contains acoustic cues, such as pauses, pitch changes, and vowel-lengthening that could facilitate breaking speech into smaller units, such as syntactically well-formed utterances, and the noun- and verb-phrases within them. It is unclear whether these cues are present in speech produced…

While socioeconomic disparities in the home language environment have been well established, the mechanisms explaining these disparities are poorly understood. One plausible mechanism is heightened stress. The current study investigated whether maternal perceived stress was 1) associated with measures of the home language environment, and 2)…

Adolescent pregnancy can impact the educational attainment of adolescent mothers and language development of their children. However, support services and interventions can mitigate these risk factors. Adolescent mothers have shown success in implementing various language facilitation strategies (LFS) with their children when coached. We developed…