The seven papers in this issue address a variety of challenges that parents in several different cultural places encounter as they do their best to ensure their children's safe, happy, and successful development from infancy through middle childhood: infant sleep, developmental agendas, temperament, preschools, academic success, and learning to be…

In this review, we evaluate developmental and personality research with the aim of determining whether the personality trait of conscientiousness can be identified in children and adolescents. After concluding that conscientiousness does emerge in childhood, we discuss the developmental origins of conscientiousness with a specific focus on…

Research Findings: Temperament, often defined in terms of reactive and regulatory tendencies, has been shown to predict child outcomes over and above other risk factors and represents a critical aspect of social-emotional development. The present article is a systematic review of temperament-based interventions targeting caregivers, wherein the…

Cognitive development is the construction of thought processes, including remembering, problem solving and decision making, from childhood through adolescence to adulthood. Play contributes to cognitive development in a number of ways. It helps children to develop imaginary and memory which is essential for thinking about past, present and future.…

This article discusses social and emotional competence and its importance in young children's development. Foundations for children's social and emotional competence are developed during the early years and are linked with school success and later-in-life well-being. We discuss three factors affecting children's social and emotional interactions…

The Skills for a Changing World project presents evidence of a movement of education systems globally toward a more explicit focus on a broad range of skills that our 21st century society needs and demands. This movement can be seen in the vision and mission statements of education systems as well as through their curricula. Although clearly…

A successful transition from kindergarten to 1st grade requires a positive combination of multiple dimensions of child competence. Using latent class analysis, we simultaneously examined the academic skills, work attitude, and social/behavioral competence of a large sample of Dutch kindergarten children to identify profiles of kindergarten…

Background: In Lower Saxony, Germany, pre-school children with language- and speech-deficits have the opportunity to access kindergartens with integrated language-/speech therapy prior to attending primary school, both regular or with integrated speech therapy. It is unknown whether these early childhood education treatments are helpful and…

Relations between early child care and adolescent functioning at the end of high school (EOHS; M age = 18.3 years) were examined in a prospective longitudinal study of 1,214 children. Controlling for extensive measures of family background, early child care was associated with academic standing and behavioral adjustment at the EOHS. More…

The purpose of this study was to examine whether kindergartners' (N = 291; M age = 5 years) effortful control (EC), impulsivity, anger, or shyness predict their classroom participation, school liking, and student-teacher relationship. Parents and teachers reported on children's temperament. Children's EC and impulsivity were also assessed with…

Early exposure to the multiple risk factors associated with poverty is related to an elevated risk for academic difficulty. Therefore, it is important to promote academic resilience as early as possible and to identify factors that support resilience. Given the positive relation between early language skills and later academic outcomes, examining…

Individual differences in temperament can be protective or risk factors that may enhance or interfere with children's healthy development and educational success. This study examined the concurrent and predictive relationships between temperament, school adjustment, and academic achievement in children at-risk. Seventy-seven children at-risk, ages…

Applied a person-centered approach to childhood personality development in 28 diverse samples of 3- to 6-year-olds studied over 6 years. Identified resilient, overcontrolled, and undercontrolled personality types. Found that the undercontrolled personality type related to intellectual decline over 6 years. The number of family risks predicted…

Research on differential susceptibility to rearing suggests that infants with difficult temperaments are disproportionately affected by parenting and child care quality, but a major U.S. child care study raises questions as to whether quality of care influences social adjustment. One thousand three hundred sixty-four American children from…

Homeless children show significant developmental delays across major domains of adaptation, yet research on protective processes that may contribute to resilient adaptation in this highly disadvantaged group of children is extremely rare. This study examined the role of effortful control for adaption in 58 homeless children, ages 5-6, during their…