As adults, we do not expect ignorant agents to behave randomly or always get things wrong. Instead, we expect them to act reasonably, guided by past experiences. We test whether 4-to-6-year-olds share this intuition and use it to infer others' knowledge, or whether they rely on a simple "ignorance = error" heuristic identified in past…

This is an Open access book. This work addresses the presence and participation of adults in play with children. Rather than discussing this issue on ideological ground, the international contributions build on empirical data and report research conducted in many different contexts and settings around the world. Responding to the many forms it…

Families face challenging decisions about early care and education (ECE) for their children. Decisions about what is best for each child and family are constrained by family and contextual factors and are prone to disruptions. This study provides a descriptive look at patterns of ECE settings children were in the year prior to kindergarten,…

The present study aimed to investigate whether preschoolers can recognise the emotions conveyed in panels of the Asterix comic series. The sample consisted of 40 pre-school children (22 boys and 18 girls), aged 52-72 months. They were presented with 8 panels, which in pairs conveyed the emotions of happiness, sadness, fear and anger. Adult raters…

Purpose: Phonological processing skills, or using phoneme knowledge to process language, in preschool- and kindergarten-age children are an important indicator of children's future reading abilities. However, assessing phonological processing skills can be difficult in children with speech sound disorders because scoring often requires that…

Feeling loved by one's parents is critical for children's health and well-being. How can such feelings be fostered? A vital feature of loving interactions is reciprocal self-disclosure, where individuals disclose intimate information about themselves. In a proof-of-concept experiment, we examined whether encouraging reciprocal self-disclosure in…

Objective: Physical activity (PA) is essential to promote both optimal physical and emotional health in preschool children. Hence, well-founded PA guidelines are essential. 24-hour Movement Guidelines (which include PA, recreational screen time and sleep) have been established. Thus, this study aimed to explore preschool-aged children's adherence…

The practice of reading aloud to children is ubiquitous in early childhood classrooms. Teachers read aloud to young children to entertain, to build early literacy skills, to develop domain specific content knowledge and vocabulary, to promote social and emotional development and well-being, and to draw children into community with each other and…

This study investigates the levels of social language and vocabulary characteristics of three- to six-year-old children with autism in Vietnam. The research is based on analysis of the developmental assessment reports of 151 children with autism, and 42 parents' reports on their children's vocabulary (recorded using the Child Word Inventory form).…

Background: In typically developing (TD) children, gesture emerges around 9 months of age, allowing children to communicate prior to speech. Due to the important role gesture plays in the early communication of autistic and TD children, various tasks have been used to assess gesture ability. However, few data exist on whether and how tasks…

Children's early school experiences shape their learning in future years. The transition from pre-kindergarten, or pre-K, to kindergarten is particularly important. This critical time builds the foundation for children's academic, behavioral and social-emotional skills, as well as families' relationships with their child's teachers for years to…

Objective: Children report needle procedures as one of their most feared and painful experiences. Negative blood test experiences can lead to lifelong implications. Xploro is an online health information platform (app) that uses age-appropriate self-directed augmented reality (AR) techniques. This study evaluated the acceptability, feasibility and…

This paper captures thinking around the design of a technology-focused play space for children that is on a university campus. Drawing upon characteristics of play and the importance of the goals and values that shape contexts, the opportunity to develop a space designed for children's digital play required careful conceptualization. Children's…

The aim of this study was to determine the psychometric properties of the pictorial scale of Perceived Movement Skill Competence for Turkish children. A total of 255 children aged 5--10 years (131 girls and 124 boys) participated in this study. One week later, a random subsample (n = 40) was implemented the scale again for test--retest…

The Theory of Mind Inventory-2 (ToMI-2) is a promising measure for assessing theory of mind (ToM) and social-related functions. However, limited evidence on its factorial validity hampers score interpretation. To examine the factorial validity, confirmatory factor analysis for two currently-available structures was performed in 420 typically…