To what extent do toddlers have shared vocabularies? We examined CDI data collected from 14,607 infants and toddlers in five countries and measured the amount of variability between individual lexicons during development for both comprehension and production. Early lexicons are highly overlapping. However, beyond 100 words, toddlers share more…

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs) is an umbrella term that describes a variety of conditions characterized by a pattern of atypical facial features, growth restriction, structural physical abnormalities, and brain dysfunction resulting from prenatal alcohol exposure. Studies suggest that the prevalence of FASDs ranges between 2-5% (of the…

We examined concern for others in 22-month-old toddlers with an older sibling with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and low risk typically-developing toddlers with older siblings. Responses to a crying infant and an adult social partner who pretended to hurt her finger were coded. Children with a later diagnosis of ASD showed limited empathic…

Part C Early Intervention is intended to build capacity among caregivers of infants and toddlers with special needs to use tailored strategies in natural environments. Satisfaction and perceived strategy use, however, remain unclear. In a Northeastern home-based program, caregivers (n = 195; 33% response) and providers (n = 66; 33% response)…

This paper explores the processes involved in developing, embedding and sustaining an ECCE practitioner capacity building programme in the community through an interagency approach, which utilises mentoring and coaching strategies for increased knowledge and skills uptake. There is now conclusive international evidence that early childhood care…

Infants from low-socioeconomic status (SES) households hear a projected 30 million fewer words than their higher-SES peers. In a recent study, Hirsh-Pasek et al. (Psychological Science, 2015; 26: 1071) found that in a low-income sample, fluency and connectedness in exchanges between caregivers and toddlers predicted child language a year later…

Infants, toddlers, and young children have unique needs when separated from their primary caregivers because of child abuse and neglect. Parents of these children often have their own histories of abuse and neglect and can benefit from assessments and interventions that bear in mind the effect caregiving histories have on present parenting. This…

Sex differences in typical development can provide context for understanding ASD. Baron-Cohen ("Trends Cogn Sci" 6(6):248-254, 2002) suggested ASD could be considered an extreme expression of normal male, compared to female, phenotypic profiles. In this paper, sex-specific M-CHAT scores from N = 53,728 18-month-old toddlers, including n…

The current study examined the relations between individual differences in attention to emotion faces and temperamental negative affect across the first 2 years of life. Infant studies have noted a normative pattern of preferential attention to salient cues, particularly angry faces. A parallel literature suggests that elevated attention bias to…

Typically developing (TD) children refer to objects uniquely in gesture (e.g., point at a cat) before they produce verbal labels for these objects ("cat"). The onset of such gestures predicts the onset of similar spoken words, showing a strong positive relation between early gestures and early words. We asked whether gesture plays the…

This study aimed to test a 5-wave sequential mediation model linking maternal mind-mindedness during infancy to children's school readiness in kindergarten through a serial mediation involving child language and effortful control in toddlerhood and the preschool years. Among a sample of 204 mother-child dyads, we assessed maternal mind-mindedness…

Several challenges arise when researchers or practitioners attempt to assess the literacy skills of toddlers, including a lack of developmentally appropriate measures, toddlers' more limited communication ability, and how literacy is defined in the years before age three. This paper describes four new measures of early literacy development and…

The Technology, Literacy, and Caring project was a longitudinal, intervention evaluation study assessing the degree to which two home-based interventions promoted positive parent--child book-sharing interactions, child development, and infant-toddler emergent literacy skills for low socioeconomic status, Latino families. Data collection for the…

An extensive literature links language problems with behavioral difficulties and academic underachievement. Although less extensive, emerging literature suggests that temperament, Positive Affectivity (PA) in particular, contributes to language development. Thus, the present study was focused on PA related temperament dimensions in infancy as…

Background: Late language emergence is a risk indicator for developmental language disorder. Parent-implemented early language intervention programmes (parent programmes) have been shown to have positive effects on children's receptive and expressive language skills. However, long-term effectiveness has rarely been studied. Additionally, little is…