Children's vocabulary ability at school entry is highly variable and predictive of later language and literacy outcomes. Sleep is potentially useful in understanding and explaining that variability, with sleep patterns being predictive of global trajectories of language acquisition. Here, we looked to replicate and extend these findings. Data from…

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the use of telemedicine as an avenue to address the need for diagnostic clarification in young children at risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Although preliminary research has supported the use of telemedicine for identifying ASD in toddlers, little is known about the experiences of practitioners…

Deficits in working memory have not been fully explored in toddlers and preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We investigated the relationship between language (verbal ability, verbal self-talk) and visuospatial working memory in 2- and 4-year-olds with ASD (n = 65) and typical development (TD) (n = 54). Children with ASD displayed…

We examined the relations of restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRB; insistence on sameness, repetitive sensory-motor, self-injurious behavior) to social skills overall and aspects that comprise social skills as measured by the VABS-II (coping skills, play/leisure time, interpersonal relationships) in 24- (n = 63) and 36-month old (n = 35),…

Previous studies have found correlations between parent input and child language outcomes, providing prima facie evidence for a causal relation. However, this could also reflect the effects of shared genes. The present study removed this genetic confound by measuring English vocabulary growth in 29 preschool-aged children (21 girls) aged…

The faces and hands of caregivers and other social partners offer a rich source of social and causal information that is likely critical for infants' cognitive and linguistic development. Previous work using manual annotation strategies and cross-sectional data has found systematic changes in the proportion of faces and hands in the egocentric…

Attentional control in infancy has been postulated as foundational for self-regulation later in life. However, the empirical evidence supporting this claim is inconsistent. In the current study, we examined the longitudinal data from a sample of Swedish infants (6, 10, and 18 months, n = 118, 59 boys) across a broad set of eye-tracking tasks to…

Grief does not spare infants and young children. Attachment disruption through the loss of a primary caregiver is devastating to a young child's foundational experience of safety without the developmental capacity to understand any aspect of their loved one's absence. In this case story, the authors explore the diagnosis of complicated grief in…

The Babysong Project arose out of the Baby Room Project and its aims included supporting baby room practitioners to develop 'communicative musicality' (Malloch & Trevarthen 2009), extending research knowledge about baby room practices and helping practitioners to explore opportunities to question and adapt their own ways of working with babies…

This colloquium shares experiences from doing ethnographic fieldwork with young children and the challenges that followed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The project DIGIKIDS Sweden has its focus on very young children (birth to three years) and their engagement with digital media technologies in their homes. The pandemic put the project on hold,…

Two experiments examined the development of the ability to encode, maintain, and update integrated representations of occluded objects' locations and featural identities in working memory across toddlerhood. Sixty-eight 28- to 40-month-old US toddlers (13 Asian or Pacific Islander, 6 Black, 48 White, 1 multiracial; 40 girls; tested between…

Background: Use of numerical and spatial language, also known as math talk, is critical to the development of foundational number and spatial skills in early childhood. However, caregivers and children of low socioeconomic status (SES) tend to use less math talk than their higher-SES peers. Objective: The current efficacy study tested the…

The aim of the study is to examine the symbolic play behaviours of the child and mother at home and to determine how the mother participated when playing with her child. The study included 19 mothers and their children with 24-36 months old children from Turkey. The symbolic play that the mother and child played together in their home environment…

This study on mother-child interactions is in line with Sigel's theoretical approach to distancing. The current study aimed at analyzing the distancing postures used by mothers with their young child in school-like tasks, according to their level of education and children's sex. The main hypothesis was that mothers with higher levels of education…

The premiere book in the STEM for Our Youngest Learners Series introduces the Infant Toddler Inquiry Learning Model, a new way to think about how young children (birth-age 3) explore, think, and learn STEM concepts. The book also demonstrates how the Inquiry Teaching Model can guide teachers in implementing STEM experiences for this age group.…