Parents of special needs children know how hard their children work to master new skills. It can be heartrending when hard-won progress evaporates. Summer can present a particular dilemma to those with learning challenges. The freedom, recreation, and fun is something everybody looks forward to, but this break from learning can result in the loss…

The introduction of "Belonging, Being and Becoming: the Early Years Learning Framework for Australia" (EYLF) offers the potential for a change in collective thinking about the social and emotional capabilities of infants and toddlers. Classical theories of young children's development have held that infants and toddlers are egocentric in…

Emotional and cognitive changes that occur during adolescence set the stage for the development of adaptive or maladaptive beliefs about emotions. Although research suggests that parents' behaviors and beliefs about emotions relate to children's emotional abilities, few studies have looked at parental socialization of children's emotions,…

As thinking adults depend upon years of practical experience, reasoning about facts and causes, and language to sustain their knowledge, beliefs and memories, and to understand one another, it seems quite absurd to suggest that a newborn infant has intersubjective mental capacities. But detailed research on how neonatal selves coordinate the…

With substantive evidence suggesting that adolescents' disclosure is likely a protective factor against problem behaviors, as well as evidence that many adolescents will go to great lengths to "avoid" sharing information with parents, one may conclude that parents' face a formidable task. Previous studies have identified parental acceptance as a…

Due to the prevalence of ADHD, there is a need for early intervention at the preschool level to improve children's chance of academic success in later years. Yet few preschool teachers are trained to meet the challenges children with ADHD present. This paper gives a rationale and curriculum for teacher training in ADHD, with an emphasis on Social…

This study evaluated the degree to which a range of social emotional learning skills--academic self-efficacy, academic motivation, social connections, importance of school, and managing psychological and emotional distress and academic stress--could be used as an indicator of future academic outcomes. Using a sample of 4,797 from a large urban…

One quality indicator of intervention research is the extent to which the intervention has a high degree of social validity, or practicality. In this study, I drew on Wolf's framework for social validity and used qualitative methods to ascertain five middle schoolteachers' perceptions of the social validity of System 44®--a phonics-based reading…

The traditional teaching of reading, writing, and arithmetic alone will not fully prepare students to lead with integrity, govern fairly, analyze problems, and work collectively with people different from themselves. Social emotional learning (SEL) has been described as one of the missing links in academic education, but a restrictive approach to…

The observation and assessment of quality of teacher--child interactions in elementary school settings are increasingly recognized as important; however, research is still very limited in European countries. In this study, we examined the quality of the interactions between teacher and children in first-grade classrooms in Portugal and the extent…

Early childhood is an important time for the development of resilience. A recently completed study has followed three cohorts of resilient children and young people living in disadvantaged areas in Victoria, Australia, through different transitions in their educational careers. This paper focuses on the early childhood cohort, where we have…

Currently, there are few strengths-based preschool rating scales that sample a wide array of behaviors believed to be essential for early academic success. The purpose of this study was to assess the factor structure of a new measure of early academic competence for at-risk preschool populations. The Teacher Rating Scales of Early Academic…

Mastering basic numeracy and literacy skills is one of the most fundamental goals of education. However, it is estimated that 250 million primary-school-age children lack basic reading, writing and math skills (UN, 2013). Children living in war and poverty stricken countries are among the least likely to attain those basic goals. The United States…

In 2010, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the Kindergarten Readiness Act into law. The law changed the kindergarten entry cutoff so that children must turn five by September 1 to enter kindergarten. The law also established a new grade level--Transitional Kindergarten (TK)--which is the first year of a two-year kindergarten experience for…

Educators are increasingly aware that the efficacy of social and emotional learning (SEL) is dependent on implementation factors, not just program content. These include the philosophy underpinning an intervention, the beliefs as well as the skills of facilitators, and the classroom/whole school context in which the intervention takes place. This…