Parents' executive functions (EFs), or cognitive skills facilitating thought and behavior management, are meaningful correlates of parenting behavior. EFs are theorized to support parents in inhibiting reactive responses, managing information during parent--child interactions, and adapting to novel developmental demands. Less effective EFs…

Reflective practice helps clinicians manage the complexity and uncertainty inherent in day-to-day practice. This is important given the high rates of burnout, turnover, and trauma-related stress among social workers and other clinicians. Using focus groups with 55 social work and child development graduate students and alumni, this study explored…

This study, using longitudinal data from the South African Birth to Twenty Plus study, assessed associations between early childcare quality in the home between six months and two years, household SES and cognitive development at age 5. Childcare quality was assessed using measures of maternal responsiveness and cognitive stimulation. Cognitive…

The early years are a critical period for setting children up for school and life. For Black children who are exposed to adversities before and after birth, early childhood education (ECE) has been shown as one potentially strategy to mitigate against systemic inequities. However, evidence continues to show the negative impact of structural racism…

Environmental education, a growing field, is recognized as a crucial element in combating climate change for current and future generations. Although environmental education seeks to offer children a holistic worldview of nature while striving to inspire young thinkers, it is missing from most classrooms, specifically Montessori schools. The…

Background: Early care and education (ECE) quality has been a topic of discussion for several decades (Burchinal, 2018; Mashburn et al., 2008; NICHD ECCRN, 2002). The structure-process-child outcomes theory proposes that structural features (e.g., teacher education, class size) of quality predict process quality (e.g., teacher-child interactions),…

Recent scholarship has focused on the schooling experiences of Black boys in early childhood; however research on the experiences and outcomes of Black girls in early childhood remains virtually nonexistent. More research is needed to ensure that every Black girl excels in early childhood education. Through three reflections from Black early…

As they develop into mature speakers of their native language, infants must not only learn words but also the sounds that make up those words. To do so, they must strike a balance between accepting speaker-dependent variation (e.g., mood, voice, accent) but appropriately rejecting variation when it (potentially) changes a word's meaning (e.g., cat…

Research indicates that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are superior at local processing while the integration of local features to global percepts is reduced. Here, we compared infants at familiar risk for ASD to typically developing infants in terms of global coherence processing at 5 months of age, using steady state visually…

Despite receiving scant attention, the evolution of categorization in early childhood is of central importance, not only in clarifying the child's understanding of the world but in terms of refining cognitive organization and augmenting the development of semantic memory. In this review, we outline how categorization develops and is made manifest…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the contributions of children's social competence, aggression, and anxiety to their play behaviours with peers. A total of 149 preschoolers aged 36-73 months (M = 54.6 months, SD = 0.99; 50.3% girls) and their 46 teachers in Turkey recruited for the current study. Teachers reported on children's social…

Children's literature has an important role to play in developing knowledge of the world, and learning to understand the feelings of others. A growing body of literature explores the role of dual language picturebooks (parallel, interlingual and simultaneous) in drawing on the linguistic capital of multilingual children in classrooms. There is…

African Americans experience more than double the prevalence of low birth weight (LBW)/premature birth compared to their Caucasian counterparts, reflecting a public health crisis and a significant social justice concern. However, there is a paucity of LBW outcome studies in African American samples. There are even fewer that investigate…

In this article, the authors identify possible indicators of cerebral visual impairments (CVI) in young children. Noticing the signs of cerebral visual impairment can assist occupational therapists in the early detection and therapy planning for preschoolers in early intervention programs. Several instructional models are described to meet the…

This paper provides evidence on the predicted benefits of maternal education, in terms of reduced child malnutrition at ages 1 and 5, focusing specifically on the complementarities with early life interventions across contexts. Using data from the Young Lives Longitudinal Study for Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam, results show the expected…