Children's fuzziness leads to increased variance in the data, data loss, and high dropout rates in developmental studies. This study investigated the importance of 20 factors on the person (child, caregiver, experimenter) and situation (task, method, time, and date) level for the data quality as indicated via the number of valid trials in 11…

The MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDI) are widely used, parent-report instruments of language acquisition. Here, we focus on the word-inventory sections of the instruments, and show two different approaches to modeling CDI data, based on real-world needs. First, we show that Words & Gestures data collected…

Infant research is often underpowered, undermining the robustness and replicability of our findings. Improving the reliability of infant studies offers a solution for increasing statistical power independent of sample size. Here, we discuss two senses of the term reliability in the context of infant research: reliable (large) effects and reliable…

Early intervention (EI) home visitation programs are central to delivering services that support infants and toddlers displaying developmental delays or disabilities and their families. Entities that oversee such programs continually seek to strengthen the quality of program practices. The "Getting Ready" approach is a professional…

Federal guidance allows Head Start grant recipients to apply to the Office of Head Start to shift funding (i.e., convert enrollment slots) from Head Start services for preschool-age children to Early Head Start services for pregnant women, infants, and toddlers. Yet scant information is available about how grant recipients navigate the conversion…

Recent expansions of child tax, food assistance and health insurance programs have made American families' need for a robust social safety net highly evident, while researchers and policymakers continue to debate the best way to support families via the welfare state. How much do children -- and which children -- benefit from social spending?…

A qualified and dedicated early care and education (ECE) professional workforce is essential for the well-being of our youngest children. Despite the importance of ECE professionals, the field continues to experience challenges recruiting and retaining individuals in the workforce, often due to high expectations for early care with inadequate…

In 2019 the Pennsylvania Treasury launched a state-wide children's savings account (CSA) initiative, Keystone Scholars. Keystone Scholars provides $100 in college savings to eligible families - all children born or adopted in Pennsylvania after January 1, 2019. In this introductory research brief, we describe how CSAs are an important tool for…

A qualitative study of three parents and their toddlers with autism was conducted to investigate the communicative functions underlying parent-toddler interactions and how the instrumental or social nature of one partner's actions influenced the other's engagement. Parent-child interaction videos collected from a separate intervention study were…

A qualitative study of three parents and their toddlers with autism was conducted to investigate the communicative functions underlying parent-toddler interactions and how the instrumental or social nature of one partner's actions influenced the other's engagement. Parent-child interaction videos collected from a separate intervention study were…

This study investigates the coordination of matrix and subordinate clauses within finite complement-clause constructions. The data come from diary and audio recordings which include the utterances produced by an American English-speaking child, L, between the ages 1;08 and 3;05. We extracted all the finite complement-clause constructions that L…

Data-driven decision making (DDDM) helps educators identify children not responding to intervention, individualize instruction, and monitor response to intervention in multitiered systems of support (MTSS). More prevalent in K-12 special education, MTSS practices are emerging in early childhood. In previous reports, we described the Making Online…

Data-driven decision making (DDDM) helps educators identify children not responding to intervention, individualize instruction, and monitor response to intervention in multitiered systems of support (MTSS). More prevalent in K-12 special education, MTSS practices are emerging in early childhood. In previous reports, we described the Making Online…

The purpose of this study was to explore the quality of toddler childcare in Norway using the Infant Toddler Environment Rating Scale-Revised Edition (ITERS-R; [Harms, Thelma, Debby Cryer, and Richard M. Clifford. 2006. "Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scales Revised Edition." New York: Teachers College Press.]), drawing on a sample of…

Many English-speaking children use plural nominal forms in spontaneous speech before the age of two, and display some understanding of plural inflection in production tasks. However, results from an intermodal preferential study suggested a lack of "comprehension" of nominal plural morphology at 24 months of age (Kouider, Halberda, Wood,…