Playing is essential for the development of higher psychological functions. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that playing constitutes an essential step in children's socio-cognitive development by describing playtime as the indicator of the gradual overcoming of self-centred thinking, with a view to acquiring new social adjustment…

This study aims to develop and validate essential design principles for improving emotional affordances in an online learning environment by investigating theoretical and practical mechanisms of integrating emotions into the instructional design and technology. To achieve this goal, we applied design and development research methodology in…

The emotional availability scales (EAS), 4th edition, are widely used in research and clinical practice to assess the quality of parent-child interaction. This study examined the short-term reliability and continuity of the EAS (4th ed.) assessed in two similar observational contexts over a one-week interval. Sixty-two Dutch parents (85% mothers)…

Against a backdrop of 'play' as the established notion of best practice in early childhood education, this paper sets out to trouble the discourse by exposing for critique the place of teaching within a play-based curriculum. The paper reports on lessons gleaned from a longitudinal play-based intervention in over 100 primary schools in Northern…

Much of the research into factors that affect children's school performance has focused on parental involvement rather than the nature of children's activities undertaken in school. More research is therefore needed to examine the kinds of activities that affect performance and, in particular, whether the degree of involvement children experience…

This paper focuses on the role of control, power and people in utilising school grounds for play. Despite children's right to play in statute and evidence that play has positive outcomes for children, evidence suggests that school grounds are under-utilised. An action research methodology was adopted with three primary schools in Wales (UK),…

Over the last decade, researchers have identified complex epistemic practices in online gaming communities. Such research invites the question: Can games engender these attitudes and behaviors, or do they merely provide an outlet for players already predisposed to these forms of knowledge production? This question poses both theoretical and design…

Mathematical play has a fairly short history, with strong roots further back in time (e.g., Papert, Montessori), and understanding the role of mathematical play from early childhood to adulthood is, as yet. unmapped. This working group will build on the success of last year's working group and continue to provide a community space to explore and…

"Messy play" is often viewed as a purely ludic play activity in early childhood settings, however, some professionals in therapeutic contexts have understood it as potentially significant for supporting young children who have experienced trauma. This article reports on a study that explored how young children who have experienced trauma…

Purpose: There has been increased interest in using telepractice for involving more diverse children in research and clinical services, as well as when in-person assessment is challenging, such as during COVID-19. Little is known, however, about the feasibility, reliability, and validity of language samples when conducted via telepractice. Method:…

While research on embodied learning sheds light on the body's role during science learning, there is a lack of understanding of how the body is drawn upon in subsequent learning interactions. We seek to understand how the body supports cognition and learning during and after embodiment. We elaborate upon the liminal blends framework (Enyedy, N.,…

Purpose: Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and complex communication needs are increasingly taught to use tablet-based speech-generating devices (SGDs). An important issue in designing such interventions is the selection of an appropriate format for displaying vocabulary. The purpose of this study was to determine (a) whether young…

Background: Early childhood education (ECE) has recently been introduced in Zambian government schools, leading to a need to examine the quality of mathematics lessons. Aim: This study focussed on guided play lessons on shapes in pre-mathematics classes and examined how they could be implemented and what children could learn in the class. Setting:…

Purpose: This study seeks to determine how speech-language impairments relate to the frequency and diversity of communication modes and functions produced by children with cerebral palsy (CP) during interactions with their mothers. Method: We studied 40 children with CP (M[subscript age] = 62 months) comprising three groups--those who were unable…

The aim of this study is to develop a scale comprising parental mediation strategies while their children are playing digital games. The participants of the research consist of 643 parents with the 48-72 months of age children living in Ankara and Kars city centers between the years 2018-2019. In the study, the screening model of the quantitative…