Reading is one of many things vying for young people's attention. In the case of volitional reading, young people between 8 and 15 are following trends of less enjoyment of reading and declining time spent reading. There are complex explanations for patterns of decline in their volitional reading related to how choice is afforded within social and…

Reading assessment is a critical feature of education systems. The aim of this study is to explore reading assessment policy in the New Zealand (NZ) assessment culture. We reviewed research publications, national policy documents and test protocols on reading for year levels 6-9 (ages 9-13). We found that assessment data are broadly conceptualised…

Background: Children with intellectual disability are less physically active and more sedentary than typically developing peers. To date no studies have tested the feasibility of a school-based walking intervention for children with Intellectual Disability. Method: A clustered randomised controlled trial (cRCT), with an embedded process…

Background: Previous research suggests that children with or at risk of probable developmental coordination disorder (pDCD) activate different areas of the brain when performing certain motor skills compared with typically developing (TD) children. This study used functional near-infrared spectroscopy to compare prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity in…

Following the positive youth development perspective that emphasizes the importance of focusing on the positive assets of youth to be developed, this study examined the variables related with mental toughness, a trainable skill that is associated with psychological and academic well-being outcomes, in preadolescent youth. The effect of…

A key aspect of children's moral and social understanding involves recognizing the value of helpful behaviors. COVID-19 has complicated this process; behaviors generally considered praiseworthy were considered problematic during the COVID-19 pandemic. The present study examined whether 6- to 12-year-olds (N = 228; residing in the United States)…

Background: Atypical speech prosody has been commonly found among autistic children. Yet it remains unknown whether prosody impairment originates from poor pitch ability in general or whether it is the result of the difficulty in understanding and using prosody for communicative purposes. Aims: To investigate whether native Mandarin…

This study adopted a qualitative case study approach to investigate the perceptions of immigrant children who participated in a puppet-making workshop about the story of an immigrant puppet, called Amal. The study involved 11 participants, 5 girls and 6 boys aged between 9 and 12 years, who joined the "Children Like Us" puppet-making…

This study aims to preliminarily validate the Italian version of the Coparenting Relationship Scale for Children (CRS-C) with 141 mothers, 141 fathers, and 141 children (48.6% males) aged 8-14 years. We tested the factorial structure of the CRS-C, which included five factors (support, endorsement, undermining, agreement, and exposure to conflict),…

Disabled youth derive health, social belonging, enjoyment, and well-being from participating in sports, much like their nondisabled peers. This narrative inquiry study explored wheelchair sport experiences and the meaning ascribed to sport participation among youth with orthopedic impairments and their parents or guardians. Using a multi-case…

Self-regulated learning (SRL) involves processes by which learners purposefully direct their cognitions, emotions, and behaviors towards the achievement of personal learning goals. Research has shown that young learners often struggle with SRL. Educational technology could be useful to support their SRL. However, it remains unclear how support…

ChatGPT has been demonstrated to possess significant capabilities in generating intricate human-like text, and recent studies have established that its performance in theory of mind (ToM) tasks is strikingly comparable to a nine-year-old child's. However, it remains unknown whether ChatGPT outperforms children of this age group in Chinese writing,…

This article examines how incorporating the Universal Design for Learning into writing instruction could improve the writing achievement of year four students in regional Victoria, Australia. The Universal Design for Learning is an instructional approach that aims to provide students with meaningful learning experiences through multiple means of…

Play is a central feature of childhood and a fundamental right of all children. Currently, our understanding of autistic play is based on a deficit perspective, most often framed in comparison to neurotypical 'norms' and assumptions where the views of the players themselves have been overlooked. In moving towards a strengths-based neuroaffirmative…

Previous research on peer sexual harassment at school has mostly considered students' involvement in the victim role while overlooking the roles of witnessing and perpetration, and students' movements between different roles over time. In this two-wave longitudinal study (N = 783) conducted in Sweden, we examined students' involvement in peer…