The aim of this study was to summarize evidence about the relations between parent math support in children aged 3-5 years (from several countries in America, Asia, and Europe) and concurrent and longitudinal math outcomes. The (bio)ecological model of human development guided our hypotheses. The design and reporting of this meta-analysis used the…

Early childhood educators' math anxiety and its relation to their frequency of pedagogic actions was examined through a questionnaire completed by 352 participants (aged 21-65) representative of the Swedish municipality where the study was conducted. Our sample contained 189 certified preschool teachers and 163 preschool caregivers who…

The present research evaluated whether behavioral tasks ("direct assessments") commonly used to assess young children's social cognitive development in laboratory studies could have utility for measuring and predicting U.S. children's outcomes in educational contexts. To do so, children (N = 95; 49 boys, 46 girls; 41.05% White, 16.84%…

Pretend play is an important, universal activity of early childhood, but research to date contains multiple inconsistencies in definitions and measurement of pretend play. To begin to resolve this issue, we conducted a first study of the multiple different behaviors of pretend play in the preschool years (3-5 years), and investigated their…

The present study was the first to investigate the ability to selectively trust reliable informants in a sample of Brazilian preschool children from two different socioeconomic backgrounds. Ninety-three 3- and 4-year-old children, equally distributed across a low- and medium-SES group, participated. A standard selective trust task was used.…

We aimed to longitudinally examine how symbolic distancing affects preschool children's delay tolerance in a delay choice task. We presented children with choices between a smaller immediate reward and a larger delayed reward in conditions with either symbolic stimuli or edible rewards. Overall, symbolic distancing modulated children's delay…

We examine the contributions of the environmental context on cognitive development in a representative sample of children (24-59 month-olds) in Nicaragua. Multivariate regression models revealed that children who experienced high levels of structure in the home, encountered more social interaction, and were enrolled in early education programs,…

Pretend play is common in childhood. Yet by age 4, children shown pretend and real activities in a book said they would choose to do the real activity over the pretend one. The present studies extended this research, examining children's actual behavior in laboratory and school settings (Study 1, n = 32, M = 59.32 months; and Study 2, n = 16, M…

Translational research involving the development, implementation, and assessment of evidence-based interventions has shown promise in improving outcomes for children from lower socioeconomic-status backgrounds. One such approach involves 2-generation interventions, which target both children and their parents/caregivers. Here we traced the…

Within the field of developmental science, there is a general agreement of the need to work together across academic disciplinary boundaries in order to advance the understandings of how to optimize child development and learning. However, experience also shows that such collaborations may be challenging. This paper reports on the experiences of…

There is a need for empirically based educational practices shown to support learning, yet validation tends to require a high degree of experimental control that can limit ecological validity and translation to classrooms. We describe our iterative intervention design to support preschoolers' vocabulary through book reading coupled with playful…

Preschoolers' patterning skills are predictive of their concurrent and later math knowledge; however, it is unclear if patterning is only a proxy for general intelligence, or how it might support specific math skills. The current study examined the relation between 66 preschool children's patterning skills and their general cognitive abilities,…

An increasing number of findings suggest that cognition is grounded in sensorimotor experiences. Research suggests that fine motor skills (FMS) link to cognitive abilities. Existing studies, however, lack conceptual and methodological differentiation regarding FMS and little is known about the directional nature of links. In study 1, we measured…

Reduced autobiographical memory specificity (AMS) has robust associations with psychopathology. As such, understanding the development of AMS (or its inverse, overgeneral autobiographical memory) and how it may be unique from other aspects of memory performance is important. In particular, it is unclear whether child AMS is distinct from…

It is imperative to identify contextual factors contributing to the development of early math skills, considering their role in later academic achievement. To pursue this goal, the present study investigated the paths connecting parental beliefs and practices during the preschool years to children's numeric skills at the end of kindergarten…