Recent research has shown that parents, through conversations during shared book reading, play a pivotal role in promoting children's social cognition, particularly their theory of mind (ToM). This study compared mothers' mental-state discourse during two kinds of interactions with their children--storybook reading and wordless storybook telling.…

Young children's relationships with teachers predict social and academic success. This study examines contributions of child temperament (shyness, effortful control) and gender to teacher-child relationship quality both directly and indirectly through the frequency of teacher-child interactions in the classroom. Using an NICHD SECCYD sample of 819…

Evidence strongly suggests that shared book reading at home and in preschool is important for young children's development of the foundational skills required for the eventual mastery of decoding and comprehension. Yet the nuances of how learning from book reading might vary across these contexts and with children's skills are not well understood.…

This research was conducted to understand paraprofessional home visitors' perceptions of their training in addressing poor mental health, substance abuse, and domestic violence, and their actions in working with families in addressing these issues. Five focus groups were conducted with a total of 28 paraprofessional home visitors. Three main…

Examines the role of the partner in the development of social pretend play in two related studies. In both studies, toddler age children played with same-age and five-year-old partners. In both studies, two-year-olds engaged in more social pretend play with older than same-age partners. (Author/BB)

As part of a larger study, Victoria Day Care Research Project, caregivers representing three different types of caregiving arrangements (licensed center-based day care, licensed family day care homes, and unlicensed family day care homes) were interviewed regarding various caregiver-related areas. Interview data revealed distinctive profiles for…

Examines the effects of rewards on ideational fluency of 75 preschool children. The children, who were assigned to a reward or nonreward condition, were administered two ideational tasks. Analyses revealed a significant main effect for reward on ideational components of originality, total fluency, and flexibility. Rewarded subjects scored lower,…

Investigates the nature of social concept development in young children. A heterogeneous sample of 64 kindergarten and 65 first grade public school students completed an assessment task for both basic concepts and social concepts. Grades, sex, and racial group had significant impact on performance. Important differences in difficulty among social…

Measures fathers' and mothers' linguistic involvement in the development of communication between young siblings--infants and toddlers. In a laboratory setting, 39 families, each with a mother, a father and two children, were videotaped in semistructured activities. Results suggest that fathers very actively direct sibling interactions, especially…

The kindergarten adjustment of 217 Caucasian children was measured in relation to their temperament and communicative competence. Both communicative competence and various dimensions of temperament accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in kindergarten adjustment among the children. (Author/BB)

Investigates the impact of computer use on preschool activities and whether the computer's presence decreases participation in all activities equally or whether specific activities are affected more than others. Results indicate that involvement in art activity decreased and that the children whose involvement in art activity diminished switched…