In the early years, it has become essential to support the acquisition of computational thinking, which is seen as a 21st-century skill and new literacy. A valid and reliable measurement tool is needed to develop and evaluate educational practices related to these skills. "TechCheck" is a validated unplugged assessment of computational…

STEM literacy is a desired principal outcome of STEM (Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education. With the increasing popularity of Early STEM learning, it is believed that STEM literacy could be developed in the early years. However, relatively few studies have examined STEM literacy in young children. This study utilized the…

The collocation frequency of words in the language environment contributes to early vocabulary development. Vocabulary size, in turn, predicts children's reading comprehension skills later in development. Both collocation frequency and reading comprehension have been connected to inferential reasoning at different time points in development. Here,…

Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) is rapidly becoming ubiquitous in many contexts. There is limited scholarship, however, in the fields of Developmental Psychology and Early Childhood Education exploring the implications of generative AI for babies and young children. In this Perspectives piece, we discuss potential use cases,…

Humans are driven by an intrinsic motivation to learn, but the developmental origins of curiosity-driven exploration remain unclear. We investigated the computational principles guiding 4-year-old children's exploration during a touchscreen game (N = 102, F = 49, M = 53, primarily white and middle-class, data collected in the Netherlands from…

Prior research highlights the role of number manipulation activities in fostering the early mathematical development of children. This study (N = 1,491) explored the effect of a bear-themed intervention on enhancing arithmetic abilities in kindergarten students. Utilizing a pre- and post-test design, the study compared the advancements of children…

Through micro-genetic analysis of early singing, I describe and explain the complexity of song as an elementary cultural expression. For educators, it is important to understand the key role of song with and by young children as a means to convey feelings and musico-linguistic rules. Song consists of melody and lyrics, both of which are connected…

This article describes academic conversations in kindergarten classrooms and how they vary across two different instructional activities: teacher-led and student-led book conversations. Conversations about texts have been recommended to improve the comprehension of kindergarten through third graders. The research was conducted in a K-8 urban,…

This article generates two dialogical theorisations of young children's encounters in more-than-human worlds involving metaphor. The first theorisation devises metaphor as an entry point into the dialogues of more-than-humans and includes rare attention to metaphors as multimodal intra-action. The second theorisation provides an alternative to…

Understanding children's attitudes towards mathematics provides insights into their lived mathematical experience and engagement. Despite the considerable amount of research into students' attitudes toward mathematics, limited research has been conducted into "young children's" attitudes toward mathematics (YCATM). Within this limited…

In recent years, North Carolina has engaged in efforts to improve the transition to kindergarten process for children, families, and teachers across the state. These efforts include the launch of North Carolina's Transition to Kindergarten Pilot project in 2018 and activities funded by the state's Preschool Development Grant Birth to Age 5 (NC's…

Although nature is recognized as a setting that stimulates children's joy and wonder, few studies have examined the negative emotions that children experience in nature. This qualitative study explored 4-5-year-old Alaskan children's emotional, behavioural, and cognitive expressions of fear and anxiety during an outdoor excursion. Data was…

Computational thinking (CT) is widely recognized as a fundamental skill in the information age. However, within the context of Chinese early childhood education (ECE), CT remains underrepresented, with a notable gap in the availability of developmentally appropriate and rigorously validated assessment tools designed specifically for…

Elevated "neural noise" has been advanced as an explanation of autism and autistic sensory experiences. However, functional neuroimaging measures of neural noise may be vulnerable to contamination by recording noise. This study explored variability of electrophysiological responses to tones of different intensities in 127 autistic and 79…

Background: Recent studies have revealed the association between mapping and arithmetic (Ferres-Forga et al., "J. Numer. Cogn.", 8, 2022, 123; LeFevre et al., "J. Numer. Cogn.", 8, 2022, 1). Aim: The underlying mechanism remains unclear. Materials & Methods: The current study recruited 118 kindergarten children and followed…