This study is part of a larger longitudinal project with the aim of focusing early social interaction and development of mentalizing ability in 12 deaf infants, including the interaction between the infants and their deaf parents. The aim of the present paper is to describe early social interaction and moments of intersubjectivity between the deaf…

Background: Even infants can recognize whether patterns of motion are or are not natural, yet an acknowledged challenge for science education is to promote adequate reasoning about such patterns. Since research indicates linkage between the conceptual bases of recognition and reasoning, it seems possible that recognition can be engaged to support…

A crossmodal effect has been observed in the processing of facial and vocal emotion in adults and infants. For the first time, we assessed whether this effect is present in childhood by administering a crossmodal task similar to those used in seminal studies featuring emotional faces (i.e., a continuum of emotional expressions running from…

Advances in neuroscience allow researchers to uncover new information about the social brain in infancy and early childhood. In this article we present state-of-the-art findings about brain functioning during the first 3 years of life that underscore how important social interactions are to early learning. We explore learning opportunities that…

Within a population-based study of 3356 children, we investigated whether infant neuromotor development was associated with cognition in early childhood. Neuromotor development was examined with an adapted version of Touwen's Neurodevelopmental Examination between 9 and 20 weeks. Parents rated their children's executive functioning at 4 years. At…

Official poverty statistics have been criticized, however, for being based on an outdated measure of poverty (Blank, 2008; Citro and Michael, 1995). First put into use in the 1960s, the official poverty measure's (OPM) concept of needs has been updated for inflation but still reflects the living standards, family budgets, and family structures of…

Rapid development of sustained attention occurs during infancy and toddlerhood, as neurological maturation allows children to increasingly attend to objects and events in the environment (Ruff & Rothbart, 1996). Play experiences during this period can serve as a context during which children's ability to attend can provide an opportunity for…

Communication is crucial for any human being and the children with disabilities are no exception. Due to the number and combination of their disabilities and/or conditions, children with multiple disabilities and visual impairment (MDVI) have especially limitations of the ability to communicate the meaningful and functional way with their…

This paper addresses the challenges service providers are facing amidst growing ethnolinguistic diversity in a neoliberal climate. We focus on the public service provider Kind & Gezin (K&G), the agency that monitors the wellbeing of young children on behalf of the Flemish authorities in Belgium. We demonstrate that the organisation has…

A broad range of initiatives including early intervention programmes have been implemented in Australia to assist disadvantaged and at-risk Indigenous parents and children. This qualitative exemplar case study details the perspectives of caregivers and service providers of one such early learning intervention programme situated within the remote…

Background: Identifying risk and protective factors for language development informs interventions for children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Maternal responsive and intrusive communicative behaviours are associated with language development. Mother-child interaction quality may influence how children use these behaviours in language…

The National American Indian Alaska Native Head Start Collaboration Office (NAIANHSCO), created under Public Law 110-134 ("Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act of 2007"), is directed "to facilitate collaboration among Head Start agencies (including Early Head Start agencies) and entities that carry out activities designed…

Previous research has suggested that early development may be an optimal period to implement cognitive training interventions, particularly those relating to attention control, a basic ability that is essential for the development of other cognitive skills. In the present study, we administered gaze-contingent training (95 min across 2 weeks)…

Harsh environments are known to predict deficits in children's cognitive abilities. Life history theory approaches challenge this interpretation, proposing stressed children's cognition becomes specialized to solve problems in fitness-enhancing ways. The goal of this study was to examine associations between early environmental harshness and…

Implementing relationships-based pedagogies in infant and toddler settings might assume that teachers' experiences of emotional labour will be acknowledged. This assumption may be complicated by assessment practices that both rely on and detract from relationship-building opportunities with infants and toddlers. Assessment also relies on…