As play researchers, the authors have an interest in the diversity of experiences and views people have on play. They are also curious about how the concept of play could be better understood in order to shape advocacy efforts in support of increased opportunities for children and adults to play. In Fall 2011, based on their initial adult play…

Early child development professionals naturally prefer playgrounds and classrooms to legislative arenas; however, their strengths, skills, knowledge, and data are sorely needed by policymakers who rely on those closest to an issue--the advocates, researchers, program directors, and consumers--to give them evidence of need and guidance toward…

Objectives: To determine (1) whether prescribed and delivered energy and protein intakes during the first two weeks of life met Ziegler's estimated requirements for Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW) infants, (2) if actual energy during the first week of life correlated with time to regain birth weight and reach full enteral nutrition (EN) defined as…

This study examined children's ability to use mutual eye gaze as a cue to friendships in others. In Experiment 1, following a discussion about friendship, 4-, 5-, and 6-year-olds were shown animations in which three cartoon children looked at one another, and were told that one target character had a best friend. Although all age groups accurately…

Disadvantageous decision making is cited as one of the premier problems in childhood development, underlying risky behavior and causing adolescents to make poor choices that could prove detrimental later in life. However, there are relatively few studies looking at the development of decision making in children and adolescents, and fewer still…

This research investigated children's ability to recognize gaps in their knowledge and seek missing information from appropriate informants. In Experiment 1, forty-five 4- and 5-year-olds were adept in assigning questions from 3 domains (medicine, firefighting, and farming) to corresponding experts (doctor, firefighter, or farmer). However, when…

Three- to 5-year-old children's knowledge that pictures have a representational function for others was investigated using a pictorial false-belief task. In Study 1, children passed the task at around 4 years old, and performance was correlated with standard false-belief and pictorial symbol tasks. In Study 2, the performance of children from two…

Developmental trajectories and individual differences in 70 American middle-income 2.5- to 4-year olds' moral judgments were examined 3 times across 1 year using latent growth modeling. At Wave 1, children distinguished hypothetical moral from conventional transgressions on all criteria, but only older preschoolers did so when rating deserved…

The goal of all teaching should be to help students make neural connections--the basis for all learning. To do that, however, the student has to have engagement and cognition around the material to be learned. At its core, dramatic activities, even when they have nothing to do with performance, have a tremendous ability to foster these…

There has been an increase in publications of quantitative research studies investigating overexcitabilities (OEs) and giftedness. On one hand, increased interest in OEs bodes well for the dissemination of Dabrowski's theory of positive disintegration (TPD), from which OEs are derived. On the other hand, recent research raises concerns regarding…

The veracity of child witness testimony is central to the justice system where there are serious consequences for the child, the accused, and society. Thus, it is important to examine how children's lie-telling abilities develop and the factors that can influence their truthfulness. The current review examines children's lie-telling ability in…

The central purpose of curriculum, assessment, and teaching, especially in putting them together, is to improve children's and adult's learning. Examples of this came to the author via modern communication media and are being furthered through such technology. Soon after the publication of her book "Mind in the Making" (MITM) in 2010, the author…

For many in early childhood education, STEAM is a new term. It began in this decade as STEM, an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. These curriculum areas have become a major focus in education because of the concern that the United States is falling behind in scientific innovation. With a new and familiar addition to the…

We examined five-year-old-children's age stereotyping using a modified Piagetian conservation task. Children were asked if two lines of objects were the "same" after one line had been made longer (transformed). A conversational account posits that children's answers reflect assumptions about the asker's motivation for the question (Schwarz, 1996).…

The vocalization of preterm infants with extremely low birth weight (ELBW) up to the expansion stage was systematically described and compared with those of healthy full-term infants. The sample consisted of 18 preterm ELBW infants and the control group of 11 full-term infants. The follow-up was performed intensively using video-recordings. The…