Drawing on a mixed-methods cross-cultural study undertaken in five locations in Argentina, Denmark, Hong Kong, England and the United States in 2018, this paper explores how children (aged five and seven) conceive of playfulness. Following a card-sorting task, 387 children selected familiar activities that they felt were most representative of…

This paper identifies key barriers to young Iraqi and Syrian refugee children's access to education in Lebanon and highlights how local initiatives serve as glimmers of hope, or 'lifelines', for their well-being and learning. Reporting on aspects of my doctoral study, the paper homes in on one case study with an Iraqi family and their 5-year-old…

This study examined the sustained and moderating effects of a behavioural sleep intervention for autistic children in a randomised controlled trial. Autistic children (5-13 years) with sleep problems were randomised to the Sleeping Sound intervention or Treatment as Usual (TAU). At 12-month follow-up (n = 150), caregivers of children in the…

Sleep problems are common in children and adolescents, particularly those with Neurodevelopmental Disorders. With the changes in daily habits resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, we have analyzed sleep characteristics, during social isolation, in Brazilian children and adolescents aged between 4 and 12 years with Autism Spectrum Disorder (N =…

Elevated "neural noise" has been advanced as an explanation of autism and autistic sensory experiences. However, functional neuroimaging measures of neural noise may be vulnerable to contamination by recording noise. This study explored variability of electrophysiological responses to tones of different intensities in 127 autistic and 79…

Young children tend to deny the possibility of events that violate their expectations, including events that are merely improbable, like making onion-flavored ice cream or owning a crocodile as a pet. Could this tendency be countered by teaching children more valid strategies for judging possibility? We explored this question by training children…

Background: Self-perception is an important internal resource, and violence exposure can negatively impact children's view of themselves. Although camp interventions can enhance self-perception, research has not yet examined whether camp interventions improve self-perception among children affected by family violence. Camp-based interventions…

Culturally authentic literature is widely recognized for its efficacy in developing children's multicultural awareness and intercultural understanding. Through systematic examination and analysis of 53 Children's picture books featuring China and its culture published in North America, this study investigated the extent to which the selected books…

Background: Recent studies have revealed the association between mapping and arithmetic (Ferres-Forga et al., "J. Numer. Cogn.", 8, 2022, 123; LeFevre et al., "J. Numer. Cogn.", 8, 2022, 1). Aim: The underlying mechanism remains unclear. Materials & Methods: The current study recruited 118 kindergarten children and followed…

Individuals with dyslexia have been shown to have an increased risk for developing internalizing problems. Various studies have revealed the powerful role that culture plays in determining the type of anxiety and coping strategies adopted by various groups of individuals. However, compared to the vast number of studies conducted in individualistic…

Universal screening in reading is a common, and often required, practice in early elementary school. Computer-adaptive screening tools, such as "Istation's Indicators of Progress-Early Reading" (ISIP-ER), are often chosen for this purpose in schools. In our present study, we examine the validity evidence between the ISIP-ER in…

Children with gifted intellects often earn lower scores on measures of processing speed than their nongifted counterparts. However, neuropsychological research indicates such a profile of scores is likely not due to a true innate neurocognitive processing speed deficit but is rather a statistical artifact resulting from the interference of common…

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about changes to the lives of families with young children. It has been associated with physical and psychological risk, yet the impact on younger children is poorly examined. The aim of this qualitative study was to examine how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the day-to-day life of parents of young children living in…

The performance of standardized tests is an ongoing matter of concern for childhood researchers. Standardized tests are often described as neglecting the ethical complexities of doing research with young children. However, this critique is primarily presented in general terms, and does not attend to the locality and specificity of particular test…

This quantitative study examines the connection between the years that children spent in early childhood education and care (ECEC) and their social orientations and main objects of attention. The data were collected within the Progressive Feedback project by observing children: 20,457 observations of 972 six-year-olds from 360 child groups in…