Children (N = 278, 34-71 months, 54% girls) were told which of two figurines turned on a music box and also observed empirical evidence either confirming or conflicting with that testimony. Children were then asked to sort novel figurines according to whether they could make the music box work or not. To see whether children would explore which…

Child-directed language can support language learning, but how? We addressed two questions: (1) how caregivers prosodically modulated their speech as a function of word familiarity (known or unknown to the child) and accessibility of referent (visually present or absent from the immediate environment); (2) whether such modulations affect…

This study was designed to test how well a commercial intervention with a highly feminized role model (Barbie) worked to improve pre-adolescent girls' interest and performance in computer science. Concurrently, this study examined how overtly feminist texts and images of real women would impact girls compared to the traditional highly feminized…

In this systematic review, we examined the rigor and outcomes across 27 object play intervention studies using single-case research methodology. We focused on studies including children age 5 years or younger and examined several descriptive characteristics including materials, instructional packages, and settings. We also analyzed the…

This study explores humour's role in a holistic craft process when 7-8-year-olds design personalised soft toys. Humour enhances learning environments by fostering joy, belonging and a positive atmosphere, acting as a motivational tool in experiential and arts-based learning. The study aims to answer the following questions: (1) What are the…

Play during childhood is essential to growth and learning. Little is known about whether categories of toys moderate play behaviors at different ages, or how children interact with toys that are simple, appropriate, or complex for their developmental level. Two hundred and forty-three children between the ages of 1 and 8 years, divided into four…

This study aims to examine the views of mothers regarding plays and toys which are of great significance also for children with intellectual retardation and learning disability. This study was conducted through a mixed method by using qualitative and quantitative methods together. Seventy-five mothers who participated in the study were chosen by…

This paper implements a feminist new material lens to illuminate how the spaces and objects of play are actively involved in the enactment and normalisation of gender violence in kindergarten. Findings from data collected in two Canadian kindergartens show how the familiar and mundane spatial-material arrangements of play, namely the use of…

Pretend play is important for children's development. However, recent research indicates that, as preschool children age and get more proficient at pretend play, they prefer real objects. We examined whether toddlers prefer real objects when they are younger as well as when they are older and more proficient in pretend play situations. Forty-three…

Programmable robotics is recently used in early childhood education (ECE) to introduce programming and computational thinking (CT) skills. However, there is a further need for research to contrast the efficacy of children's participation in robot programming and traditionally beneficial ECE activities. The present study thus investigated the…

This article aims to summarise research on this topic; analyse, reflect on and discuss earlier research on play and learning using a few empirical examples; and determine what constitutes an appropriate educational approach concerning war and weapon within an early childhood education and care (ECEC) setting. This is done by putting feminist…

Dolls have accompanied children with a variety of activities, including the practice of reading. However, the current literature has neglected to provide empirical support that reading to dolls has influenced reading fluency or the child's belief in their reading ability, known as reader self-efficacy. This study sought to answer the questions of…

Given the established role of parental talk in the growth of math knowledge in preschoolers, there has been an increasing focus on identifying ways to promote parental math talk at this stage of child development. The current study investigated how parental math talk is affected by features of play materials and contexts. The features were…

We tested 6- and 8-month-old White and non-White infants (N = 53 total, 28 girls) from Northern California in a visual search task to determine whether a unique item in an otherwise homogeneous display (a singleton) attracts attention because it is a unique singleton and "pops out" in a categorical manner, or whether attention instead…

This qualitative study investigated teachers' beliefs about the availability of play materials in the physical indoor environment of early childhood education and care (ECEC). The empirical data were gathered from fieldwork in eight child groups in ECEC institutions across Norway and comprised 13 semistructured interviews with teachers. The…