The mental health and well-being of children and adolescents are critical public health concerns globally. This cross-sectional study analysed nationally representative data from the combined 2016-2022 National Survey of Children's Health (n = 239,534) to produce estimates of parent-reported diagnoses of children's anxiety, depression and…

Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia Reactivity (RSA-R) correlates both positively and negatively with externalizing behaviour in autistic individuals. These inconsistencies may result from task-based differences. This pilot study measured RSA-R in 4-to 6-year-olds, across two timepoints, using four validated tasks with matched baseline and challenge…

This study investigated the potential influences of administration context on the measurement of child skills. The Brief Observation of Social-Communication Change (BOSCC) was administered at two time points to preschool-aged children with autism in two contexts: (1) at school by trained research staff and (2) at home by the parent. Participants…

Recent studies have focused on predictors of exclusionary practices in early childhood, but few have examined what happens after a child is removed from care. Families' difficulty finding new care is complicated by the shortages of convenient, affordable and quality childcare in the United States. Using online surveys, we gathered data from…

Low inhibitory control (IC) is sometimes associated with enhanced problem-solving amongst adults, yet for young children high IC is primarily framed as inherently better than low IC. Here, we explore associations between IC and performance on a novel problem-solving task, amongst 102 English 2- and 3-year-olds (Study 1) and 84 Swedish children,…

Delay of gratification tasks have an impressive predictive value for various outcomes and are designed to measure self-regulation. Since many behavioural and psychological conditions in children are related to limitations in self-regulation, the extent to which delay tasks can be used as a screening for the detection of psychopathology is…

Child temperament is a predictor of non-verbal ability (i.e. thinking and problem-solving skills that do not fundamentally require verbal language production and comprehension). Given that temperament scores might vary depending on whether the reporter is a parent or a teacher, this study analyses (a) whether those reports are different and (b)…

Symbolic and situational mathematics are the two major representations of mathematical knowledge. Although previous literature has studied the relationship between the two from the perspective of teaching practice, learning effectiveness and behavioural performance, there is still a lack of empirical psychological research on cognitive mechanisms…

Toddler tantrums are a typical part of child development but can cause stress to the teacher--child relationship (Schindler et al., 2015). Understanding how to resolve tantrums is an important skill, yet there is little research to guide teachers. The present study observed two toddler-classrooms, examining teachers' responses to 46 tantrums, and…

Student engagement promotes school learning and adaptation and can be a protective factor for children who are vulnerable to school failure. A longitudinal mixed-methods study was conducted to identify individual, family and school predictors of children's school engagement as well as to explore the facilitators of and obstacles to student…

Structural equation modelling (SEM) with longitudinal survey data was used to test a proposed developmental model of the association of family income (with children aged 6-9) to parent behaviours (for children at 10 years of age) and adolescent cognitive achievement and behaviour problems (at age 15). Data from the Child Development Supplement and…

This study examined verbal and non-verbal features of mother-infant shared book reading in Australia during the first year of life and explored the relationship between these features and infant cognition. Mother-infant dyads were observed in this cross-sectional study reading an unfamiliar book in a laboratory setting when infants were aged 6…

This study examined bidirectional relations between television exposure and effortful control accounting for the effects of family contextual risk factors. Data were from a sample (N = 306) of parents and their preschool-age children (T1 M = 36 mos. in 2008-2010) assessed four times, once every 9 mos. At T1, adolescent parent status predicted…

The present longitudinal study aims at investigating the interplay between child temperament, mother-child interaction quality and child Theory of Mind (ToM) at preschool age with regard to the development of child problem behavior at school age in 115 participants. Maternal sensitivity and child temperament were assessed when children were 4…

Diverse mechanisms account for the familial aggregation of certain personality traits and externalizing psychopathology. We explored the roles of positive and negative parenting as mediators of longitudinal associations between parents' maladaptive personality traits and their children's inattention/hyperactivity problems. We collected self,…