To date, a number of studies have demonstrated the existence of mismatches between children's "implicit" and "explicit" knowledge at certain points in development that become manifest by their gestures and gaze orientation in different problem solving contexts. Stimulated by this research, we used eye movement measurement to investigate the…

Little is known about prosocial behaviours in children of young mothers. This longitudinal study involved 44 young mother (age less than 20 years at birth of first child) families and 44 older mother families, who were carefully matched for child age and gender, as well as for family structure (number of children, lone-parent status) and…

This study examines the role that context plays in links between relative balance, or mutuality in parent-child interaction and children's social competence. Sixty-three toddlers and their parents were observed in a laboratory play session and caregiving activity (i.e. eating snack). Mutuality was operationalised as the relative balance in (a)…

Infants are frequently exposed to music during daily activities, including free play, and while viewing infant-directed videotapes that contain instrumental music soundtracks. In Experiment 1, an instrumental music soundtrack was played during a live or televised demonstration to examine its effects on deferred imitation by 6-, 12-, and…

The aim of the present study was to develop and provide a preliminary evaluation of a social-skills-based early intervention program specifically designed to assist extremely inhibited preschoolers. Participants were a sample of n = 522 extremely inhibited preschool-aged children, who were randomly assigned to either the "Social Skills…

In the current study, we examined parent gender differences in feelings (negativity and positivity) and perceptions of child behavioural and emotional problems in adoptive and biological parent-child dyads. In a sample of 85 families, we used a novel within-family adoption design in which one child was adopted and one child was a biological child…

Children's ability to distinguish between enjoyment and non-enjoyment smiles was investigated by presenting participants with short video excerpts of smiles. Enjoyment smiles differed from non-enjoyment smiles by greater symmetry and by appearance changes produced in the eye region by the Cheek Raiser action. The results indicate that 6- and…

This study investigated the role of maternal socialization and temperament in Turkish preschool children's emotion regulation. Participants consisted of 145 preschoolers (79 boys, 69 girls; M[subscript age]= 62 months), their mothers, and daycare teachers from middle-high socioeconomic suburbs of Istanbul. Maternal child-rearing practices and…

Social skills are necessary for developing successful relationships and promoting learning. "Interpersonal skills" (IPS) are needed for maintaining friendships while "learning-related skills" (LRS) are required for positive classroom behaviours. In this study, we investigated the construct validity of LRS and IPS within two existing assessments:…

This study examined whether teacher-child interactions characterized by teacher involvement, structure, and autonomy support at the beginning of second grade predicted children's global, academic, social, and behavioural self-concept at the end of second grade. The study was conducted in 30 second grade classrooms with 570 children and their…

For more than 30 years, researchers have focused on the important transition that children undergo between the ages of 3 and 5, when they start to solve mind-reading problems that require reasoning about complex mental states, such as beliefs. The main question for debate has been whether, during that transition, children acquire new concepts…

Infant DVDs typically have titles and even company names that imply some educational benefit. It is not known whether these educational claims are reflected in actual content. The present study examined this question. Of 686 claims (across 58 programs) listed on packaging, websites and promotional materials, implicit claims were most frequent…

This study examined parents' and toddlers' talk and viewing behaviour while co-viewing an educational infant DVD focused on teaching language. Sixty-four 12- to 25-month-old infants viewed a DVD in a laboratory with their parents. A cluster analysis on parent talk revealed three groups: High, Moderate, and Low Teaching Focus parents. The High…

Young children are frequently exposed to examples of screen media like videos. The current studies asked whether videos would support word learning and whether word learning from videos might resemble word learning from a live speaker. In Study 1, 2-year-olds saw a video of a target image being labelled with a novel word and were later asked to…

The goal of this study was to determine whether verbal interactions between mothers and their 6-month-old infants during media exposure ("media verbal interactions") might have direct positive impacts, or mitigate any potential adverse impacts of media exposure, on language development at 14 months. For 253 low-income mother-infant dyads…