Within educational research, there is a growing interest in using neuroscience methods such as electroencephalography (EEG) and event-related potentials (ERPs) to probe neural mechanisms underlying students' learning and development, in natural, school-based settings. The results of these studies are beginning to appear in educational,…

The aspects of preschool education curriculum (re)design have recently been emphasized both in various international and national legal documents and in the professional mainstream literature with the aim to support children's holistic development. The maturity and advancement of a child across cognitive, physical, social-emotional, and behavioral…

Cognitive tasks are seldom evaluated on their ability to provide valid and reliable measurements of the construct they intend to measure. This scarcity of psychometric evaluations makes it challenging to evaluate replications of experimental effects and to relate performance in cognitive tasks to other constructs of interest. In developmental…

The study evaluated the effects of board games on children in a range of cognitive areas, considering both inclusion (i.e. pre- and post-comparisons, playing style [board games], participants belonging to PreKinder and Kindergarten, and experimental approach) and exclusion criteria (i.e. video games). Nineteen articles were selected using both…

As young as 3 years old, children rely on a mutual intentionality framework to confer group membership--that is, agreement between a joiner ("I want to be in your group") and group ("We want you to be in our group"). Here, we tested whether children apply this cognitive framework in the context of identity-based groups,…

Theory of mind (ToM) is the ability to attribute mental states and feelings to others, and to understand that those mental states and feelings affect their behaviour. It is one of three core developmental tasks for children in preschool years, along with emotion self-regulation and relationships with parents and family members. Given there are…

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education is essential to the economic growth, health, and progress of the modern world. One cognitive ability that underpins thinking and learning in STEM, as well as other disciplines, is relational ability. This ability to spot common relations shared by different objects, events, ideas, or…

Early childhood aggression is a ubiquitous and developmentally normal behavior; however, different report sources (e.g., child self-report vs. teacher) often yield markedly different interpretations. The current study examined how typical demographic and cognitive factors that have been previously found to explain child behavior (e.g., SES,…

The learning and developmental losses from preprimary program closures due to COVID-19 may be unprecedented. These disruptions early in life can be long-lasting. Although there is evidence about the effects of school closures on older children, there is scarce evidence on such losses for children in their early years. This article is among the…

Empathy is crucial for our social life, with evidences suggesting that executive function is the cognitive basis of empathy. However, debates about the causal relationship between executive function and empathy still exist. A two-wave and one-year longitudinal follow-up experiment is conducted to investigate this problem, mainly focusing on…

The aim of this review was to systematically summarize the literature about physical education (PE) programs and their effects on preschool children's physical activity levels and motor, cognitive, and social competences. A systematic search of relevant articles was carried out using four electronic databases up until February 16, 2022. The main…

Play is critical in the development of cognitive and language skills in young children with autism; however, few studies have examined the impact of the intervention on the development of play skills. The current study aims to address the change in developmental skills, including play after participation in the JASPER intervention, and to examine…

Cognitive control can be triggered by explicit or implicit events; it has been proposed that these two possibilities tap into dissociable mechanisms. In this study, we investigate this idea by testing whether young children, who struggle with explicitly triggered control, can demonstrate proportion congruency effects--which are based on implicit…

Executive functions (EFs) undergo dramatic changes during preschool years and show differential age-related effects. In view of this, the present study examines the developmental pathways of EF components among Hungarian preschoolers. The study sample consisted of 136 participants aged between 3 and 6 years old, who were assessed using the…

One means by which humans maintain social cooperation is through intervention in third-party transgressions, a behaviour observable from the early years of development. While it has been argued that pre-school age children's intervention behaviour is driven by normative understandings, there is scepticism regarding this claim. There is also little…