The authors discuss an urban public school district's efforts to reinsert play after its mandated disappearance for fourteen years under a scripted curriculum imposed to meet the goals of the No Child Left Behind law. The authors analyze field notes, teacher and administrator interviews, coaching records, and surveys to chart the impact on…

Research on immediate effects of background television during mother-infant toy play shows that an operating television in the room disrupts maternal communicative behaviors crucial for infants' vocabulary acquisition. This study is the first to examine associations between frequent background TV/video exposure during mother-infant toy play at…

Video-based intervention (VBI) has strong evidence supporting efficiency in teaching social, communication, functional, behavior, play, and self-help skills and emerging evidence for teaching academic skills to students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). VBI allows opportunities to electronically provide personalized, consistent, and prerecorded…

Families and Schools Together (FAST) is a collaborative program involving schools, families, and community-based partners in efforts to prevent substance use, juvenile delinquency, school failure, child abuse and neglect, mental health problems, and violence. Although evaluated extensively, there remains a dearth of qualitative data on child and…

Superhero play is a specialised form of fantasy play with considerable appeal to young children. During superhero play, children have opportunities to pretend and often to play different types of roles within a safe and caring environment. When guided appropriately in an early childhood classroom, superhero play gives young children opportunities…

Opportunities for play and self-initiated activity, considered to be an important part of children's learning in early childhood settings, diminish as children progress into school. Previous studies suggest that losing time for play/self-initiated activity can impact negatively on children's attitudes to school learning. This article discusses the…

Objective: Early childhood is considered a window of opportunity for lifestyle interventions, as this is a critical life-stage at which children accumulate knowledge and skills around behaviours such as eating and physical activity. This study examined how exposure to a settings-based healthy lifestyle programme influences knowledge and preference…

The current study investigated the influence of a play-based curriculum on the development of pretend play skills and oral language in children attending their first year of formal schooling. In this quasi-experimental design, two groups of children were followed longitudinally across the first 6 months of their first year at school. The children…

Young children are naturally inquisitive, and teachers often invite them to question, challenge, and create to expand their ever growing knowledge base. This article describes an inspiration one kindergarten teacher had when she overheard two children in her class discussing their recent experiences at an airport. The students were sharing some of…

Children born to teen mothers tend to score lower on language development assessments and to have school readiness delays. To support teen mothers and their children in improving language development, educators need information about mothers' daily interactions with their children and how they contribute to their children's language development.…

On 6 February 2008, a deliberative theatre experiment was held at the National Archives of Quebec. Inspired by the democratic virtues of public deliberation but preoccupied with its blind spots, Forum Theatre was used to initiate discussion about the social tensions between the homeless and other dwellers of public space in downtown Montreal.…

This article tells the story of a single mother, Maria, who has a history of trauma, and her 2-year-old daughter, Lina, as they learn, play, and heal together through the use of Child-Parent Psychotherapy, an evidenced-based, trauma-informed therapeutic intervention in a home-based program model. Through the power of play, Maria and Lina are able…

This study aims to analyze pre-service teachers' narrations about important teaching experiences, which mostly affected them and which they mostly enjoyed. In the present study, a qualitative research was used. The study was carried out with 214 pre-service teachers in Mugla, Turkey who wrote short memoirs on learning experiences as prompted by a…

This research adopted a qualitative methodology to investigate the reported beliefs and pedagogical practices relating to infant peer relationships held by three early childhood infant educators. Thematic analysis was used to derive commonalties and differences that reflected these educators' views and practices about children's early peer…

This article discusses a small-scale study that explores how members of one family based in Australia and the United Kingdom use remote technology to develop and maintain family relationships across generations and distance. Of particular interest was the manner in which Skype computer software was mediated to develop intersubjectivity between a…