Research on the development of active learning and information search behaviors has been growing rapidly, drawing interest from multiple disciplines, from developmental psychology to cognitive science and artificial intelligence. These different perspectives can open pathways to understanding how preschool-age children grow into adaptive and…

Language development plays a pivotal role in a child's cognitive and overall growth, progressing through identifiable stages that ultimately lead to adult communication. It serves as a significant indicator of a child's intellectual and overall development. This study aims to explore the impact of daily technology use on children's language…

Background: Early childhood development (ECD) practitioners are encouraged to implement play pedagogies and their views of play as a pedagogy in rural settings have not been captured widely. They are the main role players in implementing play pedagogies for learners' learning and development. The commitment to play can be traced through theory and…

The authors compare pretend play and executive function both in preschool children with an acquired brain injury and in neurotypical preschool children. They find the ability to produce logical, sequenced pretend play actions and object substitutions in play correlates strongly with executive function ability in both groups, and working memory…

The problem addressed in this qualitative case study was that many early childhood educators are unprepared for or lack the knowledge and skills to utilize trauma informed practices in their classrooms to help address early childhood trauma which leads to the use of exclusionary disciplinary measures. The purpose was to better understand teachers'…

Research shows many positive effects from physical exercise. The present study examined the impact of a structured physical exercise program compared to treatment as usual on the gross motor skills of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Participants included 20 children, from 4 to 7 years old, who were assigned to two groups;…

New motor skills can shape how infants communicate with their caregivers. For example, learning to walk allows infants to move faster and farther than they previously could, in turn allowing them to approach their caregivers more frequently to gesture or vocalize. Does the link between walking and communication differ for infants later diagnosed…

Children with a history of behaviorally inhibited (BI) temperament face a heightened risk for anxiety disorders and often use control strategies that are less planful. Although these relations have been observed concurrently in early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence, few studies leverage longitudinal data to examine long-term…

It is known that infant-directed speech (IDS) plays a key role in language development. Previous research, however, has also identified significant variability across societies in terms of how often IDS occurs. For example, some studies report very little IDS in non-western, small-scale societies -- including children growing up in small-scale…

Working memory functions as an underlying force for school readiness, yet many autistic children have difficulties with it. Similarly, autistic children tend to start kindergarten with less school readiness compared with their peers. In addition, children from lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds face additional barriers in working memory…

Longitudinal study of associations between family-level emotion socialization and adolescent adjustment is limited. When American children (53.5% girls) were in second grade (N = 213; M[subscript age] = 7.98; data collected 2002-2003), mothers and fathers (79.8% of mothers and 74.2% of fathers were White) reported on their reactions to children's…

In this article, we consider the academic literature regarding how racial discrimination is prefigured in societal norms and habits in early learning and childcare in Scotland and England. Specifically, we outline what we see as a salient opportunity to strengthen the existing knowledge base, namely how race and racism are understood in young…

High-quality early childhood education is key for children's positive and long-term outcomes. Countries differ on how they quality assure provision. In England, Ofsted is the independent inspection body, often the source of controversy for lack of transparency in ratings. However, there is a dearth of evidence on how inspectors' judgements are…

Parental emotion socialization is crucial to children's development, yet emotion-focused parenting programs are scarce in non-Western contexts. In this study, we developed a four-week emotion-focused parenting program based on the principles of emotion coaching for Chinese families with preschool-aged children. This program integrated parent group…

Quality early childhood education (ECE) can improve children's learning and development in low- and middle-income countries, but little evidence exists of programs targeting marginalized girls in vulnerable rural communities. This study used a matched-pair mixed-methods community-randomized trial to evaluate a preschool program for marginalized…