This study examined the direct and indirect associations among imaginational over-excitability, cognitive play processes, affective play processes, and parent-reported creative potential of Hong Kong Chinese kindergarten children. Participants were 106 parents of local kindergarten children (43.4% girls, mean age = 60.1 months). Parents reported…

This study explored whether kindergarteners who had yet to learn about multi-digit numbers at school could automatically process the underlying magnitudes, i.e., place-values, represented by the digits in a multi-digit number. A place-value Stroop task showed a pair of price tags in each trial. Each price tag contained a three-digit number, of…

We examined the developmental trajectories and cognitive predictors of first language Chinese reading, second language English reading, and mathematics skills in Hong Kong children in Grades 1-5. We used longitudinal data of 1,000 children (M[subscript age] = 7.59 years) assessed on phonological awareness, rapid naming, and morphological awareness…

This study examined whether different cognitive correlates are associated with spelling of different target types, such as phonologically consistent and inconsistent syllables, of Korean Hangul among 94 five-year-old first language (L1) Korean children and 41 foreign language (FL) learners who are Hong Kong Chinese college students. Korean…

The present study aims to examine the contribution of cognitive flexibility to metalinguistic skills and reading comprehension during primary school years. Forty-nine third-grade primary school children completed the measures of cognitive flexibility, metalinguistic skills including syntactic awareness (word order knowledge), morphosyntactic skill…

In this study, a modified version of the Curriculum Orientation Inventory for Early Childhood Education (COI-ECE) is developed and validated with a sample of 717 in-service teachers from fifty Hong Kong pre-primary schools. Results of confirmatory factor analysis show that the curriculum beliefs of pre-primary school teachers can be conceptualised…

It has been debated whether the progressive emergence of theory of mind (ToM) in autistic children is compatible with a "delayed" or "different" development model, and whether and how the sequential consolidation of ToM concepts is subject to cross-cultural variations in autistic and typically developing (TD) children. To study…

Drawing on Geary's (1995) evolution-based model of cognitive and academic development, this study investigated the relation between biologically primary skills (vocabulary, executive functions, and visual-spatial processing) and subsequent word reading and calculation. It also examined the extent to which these relations were mediated by…

This chapter critically reviews the official document "Kindergarten Education Curriculum Guide" (2017) in Hong Kong by using the concept of five curriculum orientations as an analytical tool. The five curriculum orientations are academic; cognitive process; social reconstruction; humanistic; and technological. The analysis covers the…

Developmental dyscalculia (DD) is a specific learning disability in mathematics that affects around 6% of the population. Currently, the core deficit of DD remains unknown. While the number sense deficit hypothesis suggests that the core deficit of DD lies in the inability to represent nonsymbolic numerosity, the access deficit hypothesis suggests…

Rapid automatized naming has been demonstrated as an important correlate of various reading outcomes. However, the cognitive mechanism underlying the RAN-reading relationship is not well understood. The primary goal of this study is to evaluate three major theoretical accounts for the RAN--reading relationship: phonological processing account,…

Previous research has illustrated the unique benefits of three-dimensional (3-D) Virtual Reality (VR) technology in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) children. This study examined the use of 3-D VR technology as an assessment tool in ASD children, and further compared its use to two-dimensional (2-D) tasks. Additionally, we aimed to examine…

The study aimed to uncover the conceptions of creativity among early childhood teachers in Hong Kong. The sample comprised 563 early childhood teachers. Factor analysis supported the multidimensional hypothesis of teachers' conceptions of creativity. Five dimensions were found: novelty, product, problem solving, cognitive processes and personal…

In Hong Kong, early-years teachers face professional challenges in adopting a creative and child-oriented pedagogy in which play-based learning is central. The paper illuminates teachers' understanding of play, approaches used, difficulties faced, and their power in finding solutions. Six Hong Kong kindergarten teachers participated in an in-depth…