Relational reasoning, the ability to detect meaningful patterns, matures through adolescence. The unique contributions of verbal analogical and nonverbal matrix relational reasoning to science and maths are not well understood. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data were collected during science and maths problem-solving, and participants…

Perspective taking is a fundamental skill that helps us to understand others' thoughts, feelings and perceptions. Past studies have shown that there were significant relations between young children's perspective taking abilities and age, gender, formal schooling and socioeconomic status. The present study was conducted to investigate the…

In response to Golinkoff, Hoff, Rowe, Tamis-LeMonda, and Hirsh-Pasek's (2018) commentary, we clarify our goals, outline points of agreement and disagreement between our respective positions, and address the inadvertently harmful consequences of the word gap claim. We maintain that our study constitutes a serious empirical challenge to the word…

The current study focuses on the cumulative effect on children's early learning outcomes of the quality of teacher-child interactions over multiple years during early childhood. Using propensity score matching to minimize selection bias, we compared the academic outcomes of children who experienced consistently high-quality or consistently…

We examined the concurrent relationship between narrative skills (the Renfrew Bus Story Test) and core language measures (vocabulary, grammar and verbal memory) at age 4 and the longitudinal relationship between core language and listening comprehension skills at age 7 in a sample of 215 children using latent variables and structural equation…

A locus of the difference in meaning between distributive and collective sentences can be the quantifiers that modify their subjects. A current theoretical account of distributive and collective sentences claims that sentences with quantifiers such as "the" in English, or "los" in Spanish, in subject position and an indefinite…

Students tend to choose a field of study in which they believe they possess the most skills by comparing their performance across different domains, such as math and English. These intraindividual comparisons between domains are known as dimensional comparisons (Moller & Marsh, 2013). There are individual differences in dimensional…

Purpose: We aimed to compare the speech of parents and examiners as they elicited language samples from minimally and low-verbal (MLV) children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), while following the same semi-structured elicitation protocol, Eliciting Language Samples for Analysis-Adolescents (ELSA-A). We also compared the speech…

Purpose: The aim of the current study was to examine /l/ developmental patterns in young learners of Southern American English, especially in relation to the effect of word position and phonetic contexts. Method: Eighteen children with typically developing speech, aged between 2 and 5 years, produced monosyllabic single words containing singleton…

The aim of the current study was two-fold. First, it evaluated the influence of bilingualism on syntactic abilities and verbal memory of children with High Functioning Autism (HFA). Second, it explored the relationship between syntactic abilities and verbal memory of children with HFA and typical language development (TLD). Eighty-six monolingual…

Young children are often enrolled in either AM (morning) or PM (afternoon) sessions in early childhood programs. However, little research is available on this routine practice. We used multilevel analysis to investigate if there are differences in the literacy, math, and social outcomes for children who participate in AM or PM sessions beyond…

Atypical social communication is a key indicator of autism spectrum disorder and has long been presumed to interfere with friendship formation and first impressions among typically developing youth. However, emerging literature suggests that such atypicalities may function differently among groups of peers with autism spectrum disorder. The…

Studies examining the visual and verbal metaphorical comprehension of individuals with non-specific intellectual disability (NSID) are remarkably scarce; to date only one case study examined comprehension of metaphors in an individual with Down syndrome (DS). The current study explored both the understanding of conventional and novel metaphors and…

To date, cross-cultural studies on Theory of Mind (ToM) have predominantly focused on preschoolers. This study focuses on middle childhood, comparing two samples of mainland Chinese (n = 126) and Australian (n = 83) children aged between 5.5 and 12 years. Strange Stories, the most commonly used measure of ToM, was employed. The study aimed to…

Emerging evidence suggests interventions can improve childhood self-regulation. One intervention approach that has shown promise is Taekwondo martial arts instruction, though little is known about its acceptability among stakeholders or its mechanisms of effect. We extend evidence on Taekwondo interventions in three ways: (1) testing the efficacy…