The lack of a valid and interpretable score to track early child development over time is a primary reason for neglecting child development in policymaking. Many instruments exist, but there is no accepted method for comparing their scores across different ages, samples, and instruments. This paper aims (1) to enhance the Development Score…

Although executive functions (EFs) have been identified as a cornerstone of cognitive development, knowledge of this fundamental ability in children is based primarily on research with North American and Western European samples of middle to high socioeconomic status (SES). In this article, we highlight advances in research on developmental EFs…

Crawling is considered an important motor skill for infants. Although infants show variations in their crawling, the association between crawling variations and subsequent development is unexplored. This study investigates the difference in amount of crawling variation between infants with and without subsequent developmental delays. This…

Background: Two hundred and fifty million children under five in low- and middle-income countries are at risk of not achieving their developmental potential. High-quality milestone guides can help mitigate these risks but are often not contextually appropriate for countries like South Africa, because of unavailable resources and its…

Using latent profile analysis, the study examined distinct joint parenting styles among Chinese families with preschoolers (N = 300; 51.7% girls; M[subscript age] = 55.97 months). This study incorporated maternal and paternal reports on multiple parenting dimensions that covered both Western- and Chinese-emphasized practices. Using data collected…

This book focuses on the provision of early intervention for children with disabilities (0-6 years) and their families throughout the Asia-Pacific. The motivation for the book stems from a policy brief by the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) issued in 2021. This brief urgently called for young children with…

Research on factors underlying socioeconomic status (SES)-related inequalities in child development mainly focuses on single countries and specific influential factors. Only few studies scrutinize to what extent differences in children's early behavioural outcomes vary across countries and whether the processes that account for them are common or…

The Early Childhood Commission (ECC) is an agency of the Ministry of Education and Youth in Jamaica responsible for early childhood development. It has been proposed that Early Childhood Practitioners (ECPs) should engage in more child friendly and age-appropriate teaching practices. This is especially critical as they use the Jamaica Early…

The research presented in this paper was conducted in 2024 in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, Republic of Serbia. The aim of the study was to examine the level of preschool teachers' motivation for professional development in the field of fostering early childhood development (ECD) and to determine whether differences in motivation exist…

Stories constitute a significant part of the Indian preschool curriculum due to their various benefits in preschool child development. However, the teachers' practice of stories and their perception regarding the influence of stories on preschool child development are vital determining factors in the benefit preschoolers receive from stories. The…

This was a cross-sectional study that aimed to evaluate the association between breastfeeding and motor development of infants at 3-4 months of age in the city of Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul. The outcome, infant motor development, was evaluated through the Bayley Scale of Infant Development (Bayley III). The prevalence of infants that stopped…

Knowing how children become oriented to imaginary play can help educators in centres better support development. But how this begins in the first years of life is not well understood. How toddlers transform through their imagination concrete objects (such as play accessories, figurines, and books) to become props in play (placeholders and pivots)…

Background: Language development is critical for children's life chances. Promoting parent-child interactions is suggested as one mechanism to support language development in the early years. However, limited evidence exists for a causal effect of parent-child interactions on children's language development. Methods: Data from the Language in…

While the relationship between secure attachment and emotion regulation has been extensively investigated, there is relatively little information about the trajectory of emotion regulation in childhood and whether changes in emotion regulation would mediate the relation between mother-child secure attachment and independence. A latent growth…

Two of the greatest Dutch educationalists of the twentieth century, Philipp Abraham Kohnstamm (1875-1951) and Martinus Jan Langeveld (1905-1989), believed that education meant, above all, the formation of a conscience. They developed their ideas in a time full of developments within Europe: the rise of fascism, two world wars, and pioneering…