The applied field of "Global Early Childhood Development", developed in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialised Rich and Democratic) settings, asserts universal frameworks and understandings of early childhood development pathways. This field advocates for the roll out of parenting interventions aimed at improving child development…

Children whose families experience socioeconomic disadvantage are at risk for poor sustained attention, a foundational skill related to goal-oriented behaviour, self-regulation and kindergarten readiness. Maternal parenting behaviours and parenting stress are theorised developmental pathways linking socioeconomic status (SES) to children's…

This study utilised the Early Growth and Development Study (N = 561 adoptive children; 57.2% male, 55.3% White), a study of children adopted at birth, to examine heritable (birth parent psychopathology) and prenatal risk (prenatal maternal distress and smoking during pregnancy), infant negative affectivity, adoptive parent over-reactivity and…

Selecting whose words to trust profoundly impacts children's learning behaviours. This study investigated Western and East Asian children's trust preferences for informants based on social dominance and its potential association with cultural factors. Sixty-six European American children in the United States (M = 5.44 years, SD = 0.80 years) and…

In this study, maternal socialization goals in early childhood were linked to qualities of children's self in middle childhood, while also considering maternal education and child gender. Estonian mothers (N = 209; M[subscript age] = 33.6; 52.2% had university education) provided ratings of their socialization goals for children (52.2% girls;…

Parenting programs around the world target components of the "Nurturing Care Framework" (NCF)--including responsive caregiving and early learning--to improve early childhood development (ECD). However, it is difficult to optimally design culturally relevant programs without knowing how these components align with local cultural beliefs.…

Measures of parasympathetic regulation, such as respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), predict executive function outcomes, including inhibitory control, across childhood. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia augmentation tends to be associated with more maladaptive outcomes, compared to RSA suppression, but the literature regarding RSA profiles and…

Executive function (EF) is essential for academic achievement, successful work, and physical and mental health. Although evidence shows that several factors have been linked to EF, these results are mixed. This study aims to identify both biological and environmental variables associated with impaired EF in preschoolers. This study was a…