Playing is essential for the development of higher psychological functions. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that playing constitutes an essential step in children's socio-cognitive development by describing playtime as the indicator of the gradual overcoming of self-centred thinking, with a view to acquiring new social adjustment…

The present research explored the relation between socio-cognitive skills, as Theory of Mind and affective empathy, social behaviour, attachment style and scholastic success in children, aged from 8 to 11 years (N = 159; 90 females, 69 males; M[subscript age] = 9,60; DS = 0.78). Several assessment tools were administered to children on mentalizing…

Technology plays a large role in the daily experiences of young children. Presently, technology is used both to support and enhance 'educational' activities and in the context of children's play. The aim of the present study is to understand how much time teachers in early childhood centres across 8 countries implemented technology into their…

The aim of the present study is to assess the relationship between the young child's attention in a word learning interactive context with the educators in nurseries during shared-book reading and child's subsequent vocabulary growth. The participants in the study were 24 infants from eight nurseries. Each infant was first observed during five…

Several studies have demonstrated the role of narrative competence in predicting later academic achievement, but only a few authors tried to highlight exact relationships between the different aspects of these two complex domains. The main aim of the present work was to investigate this association considering the micro- and macrostructural levels…

This article discusses a teacher educator's reflections on her participation in an international study group and visits to the infant-toddler and pre-schools of Reggio Emilia, Italy, as inspiration for early childhood teacher education in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The following five themes are reflected on, for teacher education in the context of Abu Dhabi:…

This paper explores the methodology of an ecological investigation of aspects of culture in the interactional construction of early childhood in diverse global communities: Peru, Italy, Canada, Thailand, and the United Kingdom. Regarding culture as a dynamic dimension of the child's socialisation, the approach taken was to film a "day in the…