The contribution of parent input to children's subsequent expressive verb diversity was explored in twenty typically developing toddlers with small verb lexicons. Child developmental factors and parent input measures (i.e. verb quantity, verb diversity, and verb-related structural cues) at age 1;9 were examined as potential predictors of…

Research Findings: The aim of this research was to delineate developmental processes that contribute to early school success. To achieve this aim, we examined emotion regulation, executive functioning, emotion knowledge, and metacognition at ages 3 and 4 as distal and proximal predictors of age 5 achievement and school adjustment in a sample of…

Although infants begin learning about their environment before they are born, little is known about how the infant brain changes during learning. Here, we take the initial steps in documenting how the neural responses in the brain change as infants learn to associate audio and visual stimuli. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNRIS) to…

Dr. Robert J. Harmon (1946-2006) was a member of the ZERO TO THREE Board of Directors for 20 years, and he was a pioneer in the field of infant mental health. Along with other groundbreaking contributions, he held the view that infant mental health work is deeply intimate and that incorporating personal life experience is a legitimate and…

The present study set out to investigate theoretical speculations that regulation and musical play, an initial manifestation of musicality, are directly linked. This study aimed to explore the potential for regulation to occur during musical play and investigate the nature of the regulatory behaviours. Thirty-six children, aged 6 and 8, were…

Peace education has been offered to children for decades, but those curricula have been only minimally guided by children's developmental stages and needs. In this article, the authors apply their research on children's developmental understanding of peace along with peace education principles and Vygotsky's sociocultural theory to present…

Assessment of student learning outcomes (SLOs) has become increasingly important in higher education. Meaningful assessment (i.e., assessment that leads to the improvement of student learning) is impossible without faculty engagement. We argue that one way to elicit genuine faculty engagement is to embrace the disciplinary differences when…

Although established in the last century, the theories of two well-known psychologists, Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky continue to be used throughout the world to prepare teachers and caregivers of young children (ACEI/Wortham, 2013). From an historical perspective, their theories provide insight regarding children's growth, development, and…

The arts had a definite place in ancient Greek education and played an important part in children's physical, emotional, social, and intellectual growth. Education was based on the development of the whole person. Gymnastics, drawing, music, and poetry were used to increase physical strength, moral character, and a sense of the aesthetic. Music,…

The science of child development and the core capabilities of adults point to a set of "design principles" that policymakers and practitioners in many different sectors can use to improve outcomes for children and families. That is, to be maximally effective, policies and services should: (1) support responsive relationships for children…

On December 31, 2013 there were over 2.2 million adults incarcerated in American prisons and jails (Glaze & Kaeble, 2014), up from 300,000 in 1980 (Alexander, 2012). A number of life experiences, including having an incarcerated parent (Aaron & Dallaire, 2010, Murray, Farrington & Sekol, 2012, Wildeman, 2009), being suspended from…

A little more than 100 years ago, the "Oakland Enquirer" reported favorably on a lecture Montessori delivered to 6,000 National Education Association attendees: "Her speech was pregnant with the possibilities for future education…" (America's First Impressions, p.113). In her lecture, Montessori credited her method of education…

Previous research has consistently demonstrated that false-belief (FB) understanding correlates with and predicts metalinguistic ability in preschoolers. Surprisingly, however, there is scant evidence on the question of whether this relation persists at later ages. The present cross-sectional study sought to fill this gap by examining the…

This study investigated relations among children's Theory-of-Mind (ToM) development, early sibling interactions, and parental discipline strategies during the transition to siblinghood. Using a sample of firstborn children and their parents (N = 208), we assessed children's ToM before the birth of a sibling and 12 months after the birth, and…

A qualitative study of three parents and their toddlers with autism was conducted to investigate the communicative functions underlying parent-toddler interactions and how the instrumental or social nature of one partner's actions influenced the other's engagement. Parent-child interaction videos collected from a separate intervention study were…