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…

The number of videos produced specifically for infants and toddlers has grown exponentially in the last decade. Many of these products make educational claims regarding young children's language development. This study explores infant media producer claims regarding language development, and the extent to which these claims reflect different…

This study examined the social-emotional content and the quality of social interactions depicted in a sample of 58 DVDs marketed towards infants and toddlers. Infant-directed videos rarely used social interactions between caregiver and child or between peers to present content. Even when videos explicitly targeted social-emotional content,…

The study examined whether face-specific perceptual brain mechanisms in 9-month-old infants are differentially sensitive to changes in individual facial features (eyes versus mouth) and whether sensitivity to such changes is related to infants' social and communicative skills. Infants viewed photographs of a smiling unfamiliar female face. On 30%…

The present study assessed 89 children in a short-term longitudinal study from Junior Kindergarten (age 4-5 years) through Grade 1 (age 6-7 years) using a variety of tests of emergent literacy. Children were assessed for reading skill (a composite of word recognition, decoding, and letter-sound knowledge), phonological awareness, and oral language…

The goal of this study was to examine the moderating role of pragmatic language in the relations between shyness and indices of socio-emotional adjustment in an unselected sample of early elementary school children. In particular, we sought to explore whether pragmatic language played a protective role for shy children. Participants were n = 167…

The aims of the present study are to examine whether preschool children's scores on a standardized test of vocabulary mediate or moderate the relation between shyness and reticence and to test whether any influence of vocabulary would be found for both teacher and parent assessments of shyness. Participants were 108 children (50 males), mean age,…

We examined receptive language and academic abilities in children with selective mutism (SM; n = 30; M age = 8.8 years), anxiety disorders (n = 46; M age = 9.3 years), and community controls (n = 27; M age = 7.8 years). Receptive language and academic abilities were assessed using standardized tests completed in the laboratory. We found a…