Executive functions (EFs) are a set of high-level cognitive processes that enable children to perform a goal-directed behaviour. During the preschool years, EFs undergo significant developmental changes. Therefore, it is crucial to have reliable measures that accurately evaluate preschoolers' EFs in preschool-aged children. The present study aimed…

Purpose: Pragmatics is receiving much attention in both the fields of developmental and clinical psychology; however, there is a dearth of instruments to assess pragmatic abilities specifically among young toddler-age children. The aim of the current study was to test the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Language Use Inventory…

The present contribution aims at presenting an assessment tool (i.e., the TALK-assessment) built to evaluate the language development and school readiness of Italian preschoolers before they enter primary school, and its predictive validity for the children's reading and writing skills at the end of the first year of primary school. The early…

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in adolescents is understudied in Italy. This study evaluated the Italian Obsessive Compulsive Inventory--Child Version (OCI-CV) and its predictive validity on OCD symptoms at 1-year-follow-up, an aspect that was not investigated by previous international research. Use of OCI-CV in schools might enhance early…

The concurrent and predictive validities of the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (NNAT) and Raven's Colored Progressive Matrices (CPM) were investigated in a large group of Italian third-and fifth-grade students with different sociocultural levels evaluated at the beginning and end of the school year. CPM and NNAT scores were related to math and…

We use unique administrative data from a leading Italian university to estimate whether the use of admission tests and conditional progression schemes are effective strategies to select high-performing students. Previous work, which has been predominantly correlational, has focused on the effect of selectivity policies on widening university…

The first aim of this research is to introduce and to validate the new concept of School Normative Context, that revisits the concept of School Moral Atmosphere studied by Brugman and his colleagues through the SMAQ (1999) and validated also in the Italian context (Mancini & Fruggeri, 2005). The School Normative Context entails two new…