Relationships between peer interactive play and social competence in a sample of preschool children (N = 85) considered at risk for academic difficulties were examined. Ratings of peer interactive play and social emotional development were collected from parents and teachers on the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale and Vineland Social-Emotional…

Background: Children with language impairment (LI) experience social difficulties, including conflict management. The factors involved in peer-conflict progression in pre-school children with LI, and which of these processes may differ from pre-school children with typical language development (TL), is therefore examined. Aims: To describe the…

Performance on an emotional labeling task in response to schematic facial patterns representing five basic emotions without the concurrent presentation of a verbal category was investigated in 40 parents of children with autism and 40 matched controls. "Autism fathers" performed worse than "autism mothers," who performed worse than controls in…

Children's lives are infused with stories at home, at school or the library, and in the media. This article discusses how to harness the power of literature and use it to develop positive character traits in young children. Storytelling is a fundamental way in which human beings process and share events as well as the feelings surrounding those…

Recreational games can be incorporated into physical education programs to encourage play and activity among students during their leisure time. Students can play their own games during recess, before or after school, during intramural programs, or in their neighborhood with family and friends. This article describes five such games namely:…

This article considers the nature of social play deficits in autistic spectrum disorders (ASDs). It discusses how initial social difficulties of children with ASDs prevent the development of social interaction, and cognitive and affective difficulties prevent play from developing to the extent of attracting other children. Teaching strategies are…

Background: Delays and deficits in joint attention and symbolic play constitute two important developmental problems in young children with autism. These areas of deficit have been well studied in autism but have rarely been the focus of treatment efforts (see Kasari, Freeman, & Paparella, 2001). In this study, we examine the efficacy of targeted…

In this article the author suggests that the persistence of a "performance model" of early childhood music education has detracted attention from children's spontaneous musical activity. The article focuses on one dimension of children's spontaneous musicality: improvised singing. Descriptions of short episodes taken from two periods of…

Digital or computer games have recently attracted the interest of education researchers and policy-makers for two main reasons: their interactivity, which is said to allow greater agency, and their inherent pleasures, which are linked to increased motivation to learn. However, the relationship between pleasure, agency and motivation in educational…

This study examined the contribution of cognitive and emotion-based factors in predicting school-age children's risk-taking decisions when the social-situational context did, and did not, pressure for risk-taking. Using drawings of play situations that depicted three possible paths of travel that varied in injury risk and pitted convenience…

In the past few years researchers have begun to show an interest in humour and language play as it relates to second language learning (SLL). Tarone (2000) has suggested that L2 language play may be facilitative of SLL, in particular by developing sociolinguistic competence, as learners experiment with L2 voices; and by destabilizing the…

Research into preschoolers' peer culture has generally focused on how play and games influence the development of cognitive, social and communicative skills (Evaldsson & Corsaro, 1998). The majority of studies on ESL preschoolers were interested in the development of the second language. Studies on social networking among preschool children aimed…

The purpose of the study was to explore how young children express their perception of gender dynamics (e.g., gender-bending and gender-doing) in their play. A total of 84 children (52 boys and 32 girls) and 4 teachers from the U.S. and South Korea participated in the study. To capture perspectives from the children, qualitative data were…

Given the explosion in growth of out-of-the-home child care, increasing attention is being focused on the developmental consequences of early childhood environments. The authors show that the ratio of children to the number of activity areas in the classroom is positively correlated with off-task time. There is also a marginal, negative…

The authors suggest that the recess period serves a positive purpose in the primary school curriculum, counter to the current practice of minimizing recess in many schools across North America and the United Kingdom. The authors' position is embedded in the larger debate about school accountability; they argue that school policy should be based on…