While overt social atypicalities remain a key component of the autistic phenotype, recent reframing of autistic social motivation suggests that these atypicalities do not overlap with their actual level of social engagement. Our study aimed to investigate autistic preschoolers' visual attention toward social situations with unequal interactive…

The transition to and through kindergarten is consequential for the academic, social, and emotional wellbeing of children. Policies and practices are in place to smooth that transition. Researchers are working to understand which practices work best and for whom, particularly as the student population in U.S. schools continues to diversify. In…

This study presents a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of early childhood education and development research in Malaysia, focusing on articles published in Scopus. Publications included in this study consisted of journal articles, books and book chapters, and conference papers, all of which sampled children between four to seven years old. The…

Relationships between families and schools are important in the educational experiences of young children. However, the COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2019 and spread rapidly around the world disrupted many families, teachers, early childhood programs, and other child-support institutions. There is much to be learned on how this pandemic…

Public libraries offer a wide range of developmental support and learning opportunities for young children with and without disabilities. Libraries in many communities function as hubs and places of support for parenting, literacy, education, technology, as well as general local, and health information. A research team recently conducted focus…

Prosocial behaviours appear very early in a child's development, suggesting that they are the basis for building social relationships. Previous studies have shown that two main factors influence decisions about pro-social behaviour: in-group membership and reciprocity. The main aim of this study was to investigate which of these motives children…

Refugee children comprise half of the total world refugee population and face numerous complex challenges (UNHCR, 2021). The purpose of this study was to explore equitable family-professional partnerships between refugee families of children with disabilities or considered at-risk (i.e., who has/had been referred to special education evaluation or…

Child Trends and Start Early have partnered to better understand what early childhood systems builders need to build and support more equitable systems. The briefs in this series, called Conversation Starters, define a new framework for early childhood systems that center families' experiences and raise key considerations and next steps for…

Effective parent-teacher partnerships improve outcomes for autistic students. Yet, we know little about what effective partnerships look like for parents of autistic children from different backgrounds. We conducted interviews with 17 Chinese parents of autistic children attending Australian kindergartens/schools to understand their experiences.…

Salim is the father of a young girl who attends Small Fortune Preschool located in the suburb of Detroit. Although he would like to regularly participate in his child's school events, his beliefs restrain him from helping in the classrooms headed by female teachers, unless his wife is present. This case demonstrates some of the challenges that…

The scope of this study was to discriminate factors, which could improve students' social relationships in kindergarten classrooms. In this research, 147 volunteer children participated, 67 female students and 80 male students. Every student was between 4.5 and 5.5 years old and they were all attending urban public kindergarten located in central…

Research suggests that metacommunication in young children's social pretend play is the most complex form of cooperation. In this study, metacommunication was examined using audio and video recordings during pretend play. Participants were 24 children in kindergarten average age 5.1 years. Utterances were coded for metacommunication, the narrative…

The purpose of this study was to identify characteristics of effective professional learning communities while learning their impacts on staff members. The study also discovered the role of educational leaders during an effective implementation of professional learning communities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with staff members of an…

Contextual approaches to high quality Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) seek to capture the complexity of children's lives, developing pedagogical approaches that are responsive to children's needs and interests. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic provided a complex layer to the question of what constitutes quality ECEC. A mixed methods…

Emerging research indicates an immense burden on children and families related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This study uses data from semi-structured interviews and focus groups with early childhood service providers (n=19) to demonstrate the pandemic's impact on families with very young children and early childhood services in two high-need…