Previous research has suggested that early development may be an optimal period to implement cognitive training interventions, particularly those relating to attention control, a basic ability that is essential for the development of other cognitive skills. In the present study, we administered gaze-contingent training (95 min across 2 weeks)…

There is growing support for the efficacy of mindfulness training with parents as an intervention technique to improve parenting skills and reduce risk for youth problem behaviors. The evidence, however, has been limited to small scale studies, many with methodological shortcomings. This study sought to integrate mindfulness training with parents…

Using a group-randomized field experimental design, this study tested whether a workplace intervention--designed to reduce work-family conflict--buffered against potential age-related decreases in the affective well-being of employees' children. Daily diary data were collected from 9- to 17-year-old children of parents working in an information…

Children practice their spatial skills when playing with spatial toys, such as construction materials, board games, and puzzles. Sex and SES differences are observed in the engagement in such spatial play activities at home, which relate to individual differences in spatial performance. The current study investigated the effects of explicitly…

A robust finding across research on early childhood educational interventions is that the treatment effect diminishes over time, with children not receiving the intervention eventually catching up to children who did. One popular explanation for fadeout of early mathematics interventions is that elementary school teachers may not teach the kind of…

Much of child care research has focused on the effects of the quality of care in early childhood settings on children's school readiness skills. Although researchers increased the statistical rigor of their approaches over the past 15 years, researchers' ability to draw causal inferences has been limited because the studies are based on…

The present study involved 120 kindergartners, of whom n = 60 were followed up to first grade. Upon making inquiries regarding closeness in teacher-child relationships in the classrooms, the children participated in a laboratory situation in which they were exposed to computerized tasks. These tasks challenged the cognitive processes thought to…

The recent development in the measurements of spontaneous mental state understanding, employing eye-movements instead of verbal responses, has opened new opportunities for understanding the developmental origin of "mind-reading" impairments frequently described in autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Our main aim was to characterize the…

Using data ("n" = 3,790 with 2,119 in the 3-year-old cohort and 1,671 in the 4-year-old cohort) from 353 Head Start centers in the Head Start Impact Study, the only large-scale randomized experiment in Head Start history, this article examined the impact of Head Start on children's cognitive and parent-reported social-behavioral outcomes…

Self-regulatory abilities are robust predictors of important outcomes across the life span, yet they are rarely taught explicitly in school. Using a randomized controlled design, the present study investigated the effects of a 12-week mindfulness-based Kindness Curriculum (KC) delivered in a public school setting on executive function,…

Many mothers work in jobs with nonstandard schedules (i.e., schedules that involve work outside of the traditional 9-5, Monday through Friday schedule); this is particularly true for economically disadvantaged mothers. In the present article, we used longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Survey (n = 2,367 mothers of…

Despite impressive advances in the science of reading intervention, how to best help at-risk readers remains a point of contention. Because reading represents the synthesis of background factors and language and reading skills--all of which develop with age and experience--this meta-analysis investigated whether development (as approximated by…

We used a reference memory paradigm to examine whether 4- and 5-year-old children could be trained to use landmark features to relocate targets after disorientation. In Experiment 1, half of the children were pretrained in a small equilateral triangle-shaped room. Each of the three walls was a different color, and the target was always in the…

In the present study, the authors collected data that would help resolve the controversey between developmental and defect theorists of mental retardation. (Authors/RY)