Play dates are inclusive opportunities outside of school for young children to practice skills with their playmates. Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), however, have challenges socially interacting with typically developing playmates. Previous research supports that parents hold great promise as facilitators to support their children…

Play, of varied type and form, provides opportunities for children to acquire a sense of competence and belonging when engaging in classroom life. The purpose of this study was to investigate ways that the inclusion of play as a curricular component eased academic stressors and supported motivation during the transition to kindergarten. In this…

Attentional control theory indicates that concentration is considered an important variable that contributes to learning. There are some devices for players to practice their concentration, but there are few virtual reality (VR) designs which can increase the level of difficulty for students to discipline their mental concentration with…

Schools strive to respond compassionately to disadvantaged families. However, barriers to authentic home-school relationships persist because the concept of parental engagement at home is not well enough understood. Socio-cultural stereotyping still contributes to schools' fixed impressions of what parental engagement should consist of, and the…

In this paper, we present SCAMP -- Social Configuration Affordances for Museum Play -- an analytical framework we develop and use to highlight the relationship between designed affordances at interactive museum exhibits and different social playful behaviors they trigger and support. We do this through a selective case study analysis of Rainbow…

Studies into early mathematics education have reported that play, and active exploration, provide promising settings for early mathematics education (Ginsburg, 2006) as the early years is a time to engage children in a range of mathematical ideas to develop their mathematical capability (MacDonald, 2018). More recently, the Australian Association…

Children have a right to play, as outlined by the United Nations, due to its important role in holistic development. However, as with many other human rights, children's access to their right to play was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions. With several studies demonstrating the ways in which children's play changed…

The standby wooden blocks that are prevalent in most high-quality early childhood classrooms are missing from most primary and elementary grades. The goal for block play in early childhood is to support learning in mathematics, science, art, literacy and language arts, physical development, social studies, and social and emotional growth. This…

This study addresses a gap in resilience interventions for rural preschoolers by validating a 14-week play-based picture-book reading program involving 80 Chinese preschoolers aged 4-5 years. Participants were randomly assigned to non-intervention (NI), play intervention (PI), picture-book reading intervention (PRI), or play-based picture-book…

The more-than-human turn in early childhood education has highlighted the relevance of children's intra-actions with their environment, as well as the multiple ways in which worlds and literacies emerge in them. The rejection of representationalism as the single source of knowledge leads to the consideration of affect, embodiment, memories, sound…

We report preliminary results of computer vision analysis of caregiver-child interactions during free play with children diagnosed with autism (N = 29, 41-91 months), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD, N = 22, 48-100 months), or combined autism + ADHD (N = 20, 56-98 months), and neurotypical children (NT, N = 7, 55-95 months). We…

Drawing on theories of deliberative democracy, this article analyzes initiatives in educational settings to develop deliberative capabilities--defined here as a person's motivation and abilities to explain their views based on thoughtful considerations, reciprocal engagement, and more inclusive and respectful communication. Building and expanding…

Presently, in Malta, syllabi are being replaced by learning outcomes. For ages 3-7, the outcomes are framed holistically (e.g. identity, communication, etc.), and it is recommended that children learn mathematics informally through play and projects. For ages 8-11, learning outcomes are subject-based, and new mathematics textbooks are being phased…

The scope of this study was to discriminate factors, which could improve students' social relationships in kindergarten classrooms. In this research, 147 volunteer children participated, 67 female students and 80 male students. Every student was between 4.5 and 5.5 years old and they were all attending urban public kindergarten located in central…

The curriculum states that Swedish school-age educare (SAEC) should offer students a meaningful leisure time and stimulate their development and learning through SAEC teaching, which is defined as a combination of care, development, and learning. In recent decades SAEC has relocated from a social to an educational arena with a different…