Under conditions of suboptimal parental care, children with specific temperamental features have been shown to be especially vulnerable to the effects of stress. Most studies of temperamentally vulnerable children have been conducted using parental questionnaires, which are unfortunately not completely objective. An alternative approach, the use…

Advancements in medical technology have contributed to increased rates of preterm birth. Prematurity places infants at high risk for feeding difficulties, however. Early identification and assessment of preterm infant dysphagia is critical to maximize nutrition and hydration, feeding safety, and growth and development. The purpose of this study…

Positive behavioral health outcomes are affected by a variety of factors including social, biological, economic and physical environments. These social determinants of mental health (SDOMH) affect not only individual children but the communities and neighborhoods in which children are expected to live, play and thrive. The State must ensure…

Children help others to complete their goals. Yet adults are sometimes motivated to help others in a "paternalistic" way, overriding a recipient's desires if they conflict with the recipient's best interests. Experiments investigated whether 5-year-olds (n = 100) consider a recipient's desire, and the consequences of fulfilling this…

What does it mean for a child to fulfil his or her potential? This article explores the contexts and implications of the much-used concept of potential in educational discourses. We claim that many of the popular, political and educational uses of the term in relation to childhood have a problematic blind spot: interpersonality, and the necessary…

Effective category-based induction requires understanding that categories include both fundamental similarities between members and important variation. This article explores 4- to 11-year-olds' (n = 207) and adults' (n = 49) intuitions about this balance between within-category homogeneity and variability using a novel induction task in which…

Children younger than three years old are able to detect hidden rules in numerical sequences, and this ability matches that of adults by age seven. However, the developmental trajectory of this ability during the ages of four to six remains unknown. The present study adopted a modified Brixton task to address this issue. In this task, children…

Urie Bronfenbrenner and Ernest Boyer argued for leaving the laboratory to conduct rigorous developmental research in the real world where children are found--in the places they go. Contributions to this special issue meet Bronfenbrenner and Boyer's call while at the same time recognizing the continued importance of laboratory research. These…

This paper is an attempt to highlight the ways through which expected parents can support their children for their development from the time of conception till birth. This paper shares ideas to the parents about stimulation, which children are required for their development. This paper is divided into three categories: First trimester, second…

Weakening federal assistance programs that provide children with affordable health care, nutritious food, stable housing, and early childhood education by imposing funding cuts, work requirements, unreasonable time limits, and other unnecessary bureaucratic barriers undermines access to services for low income families and undercuts opportunities…

There is near consensus that early childhood education and care (ECEC) is essential to children's early development. A common corollary is that early learning will be pivotal to helping redress inequities in educational outcomes. We examine whether this is true among rural communities in the Indian states of Assam, Rajasthan, and Telangana.…

This paper explores the connection between nurses' multilingual beliefs and their advice on multilingual parenting to families with young children. Data was gathered through video-stimulated reflection dialogues with 11 nurses employed at infant welfare clinics in Belgium. Our analysis disclosed two salient counter topics regarding participants'…

Aim: To investigate developmental trajectories in early childhood and predictors of class assignment. Methods: Data were available for Gen2 infants at 12 (n = 2275), 24 (n = 1845) and 36 (n = 2110) months of age in the Raine Study. Latent growth class analysis was used to identify developmental trajectories based on the Ages and Stages…

Currently, Developmental scales for children aged 0-6 years are a particularly valuable resource for assessing developmental milestones in children. Most scales are developed based on a broad conceptual framework, and their metric validation is insufficient and of low quality. The aim of this systematic review is to analyse the psychometric…

The quality of early childhood programs plays a crucial role in improving outcomes for children. Play-based practices are considered a vital component in early childhood development as they offer opportunities for children to learn and grow. Despite this, the field is still trying to understand the role of teachers in facilitating play and their…