Objective: To provide an overview of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and its application to the study of white matter in the developing brain in both healthy and clinical samples. Method: The development of DTI and its application to brain imaging of white matter tracts is discussed. Forty-eight studies using DTI to examine diffusion properties of…

From the age of 2.5, children use social information to rapidly form enduring function-based artifact categories. The present study asked whether even younger children likewise constrain their use of objects according to teleo-functional beliefs that artifacts are "for" particular purposes, or whether they use objects as means to any desired end.…

The Annie E. Casey Foundation's 2012 KIDS COUNT[R] Data Book shows both promising progress and discouraging setbacks for the nation's children: While their academic achievement and health improved in most states, their economic well-being continued to decline. This year's Data Book uses an updated index of 16 indicators of child well-being,…

Synthesizing cutting-edge research from multiple disciplines, this book explores how young children acquire knowledge in the "real world" and describes practical applications for early childhood classrooms. The breadth and depth of a child's knowledge base are important predictors of later literacy development and academic achievement. Leading…

"Contemporary Debates in Childhood Education and Development" is a unique resource and reference work that brings together leading international researchers and thinkers, with divergent points of view, to discuss contemporary problems and questions in childhood education and developmental psychology. Through an innovative format whereby leading…

Every European nation has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and therefore has an obligation to protect and promote, with equity and without discrimination, the rights of all children. Yet, across Europe, the majority of poor Roma children face a challenging present and a difficult future. Their possibilities to succeed in life…

In recent years, there has been a growing emphasis on the mental health and social and behavioral developmental needs of very young children. In response, state administrators and local providers of early intervention and preschool programs have worked to strengthen their screening and assessment of children's social and emotional development. The…

This paper seeks to foster a discussion on whether experiments with robots can inform theory in infant motor development and specifically (1) how the interactions among the parts of a system, including the nervous and musculoskeletal systems and the forces acting on the body, induce organizational changes in the whole, and (2) how exploratory…

The home is the most frequently used location for providing early intervention supports and services. However, practices to address child development outcomes have shifted from direct, hands-on "treatment" to supporting families through collaboration and consultation so that they can promote their child's development by using identified…

This article is a practitioner's attempt to resist habitual ways of interpreting and responding to young children's drawings. Early art education as a discipline is shot through with complexities, including wider shifting social discourses. This article specifically explores the continuing and powerful effect that Piaget's developmental approach…

Intellectual (cognitive) development, the emergence of increasingly sophisticated forms or levels of understanding, reasoning, and rationality is an ongoing process of reflection, coordination, and social interaction that begins in early childhood and continues, at least in some cases, long into adulthood (Moshman, 2003). In this process, language…

As World War II spread across Europe, many leaders in work with troubled children and youth moved to North America. Deeply committed to democratic ideals, they pioneered new methods for building restorative relationships and positive group cultures. Their vision gave rise to a reclaiming youth movement that is transforming education and youth…

This research investigated children's developing knowledge of strategies for maintaining motivation. First graders, third graders, fifth graders, and adults were presented with a motivational dilemma and asked to evaluate the effectiveness of several strategies for sustaining motivation. Adults demonstrated more knowledge of the effectiveness of a…

The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis according to which theory of mind competence was a prerequisite to ambiguous idioms understanding. We hypothesized that the child needs to understand that the literal interpretation could be a false world representation, a false belief, and that the speaker's intention is to mean something else, to…

Many models of learning rely on accessing internal knowledge states. Yet, although infants and young children are recognized to be proficient learners, the ability to act on metacognitive information is not thought to develop until early school years. In the experiments reported here, 3.5-year-olds demonstrated memory-monitoring skills by…