COVID-19 impacted all aspects of children's lives. Research showed that teachers were most concerned about Communication and Language, and Personal, Social and Emotional Development, two of the three Prime Areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage which underpin all learning. The pandemic had a significant impact on early years settings.…

Literacy educators are often unequipped to help young children contend with the world we inhabit, where linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism are not always valued or sustained. In fact, educators are routinely bombarded by programs that position literacy as a simple, one-size-fits-all practice. This resource will help pre-K-3 teachers…

A randomized controlled parallel-group trial was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of two 10-week early childhood education and care (ECEC) interventions "SAGA" and "Pikkuli" for supporting social-emotional and verbal development. All children above the age of 4 were invited from 15 Finnish volunteer ECEC groups (n…

In 2 experiments, I studied the effects of an Equivalence Based Instruction (EBI) math intervention on the emergence of untaught selection responses and abstraction to production responses. In Experiment I, using a multiple baseline design, I implemented the EBI intervention among a group of 17 first grade participants with varying levels of math…

Purpose: This study compares responses of children who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) who use spoken language with responses of children who have typical hearing on a repeated word association task to evaluate lexical-semantic organization. Method: This study included 109 participants in early kindergarten or who had completed first grade. The…

The aim of this study is to examine which predictor variables are related to literacy attainment in Irish (Gaelic)-English bilinguals. The participants were in their second (n = 115) and third (n = 125) year of schooling in Ireland and were drawn from both native speaker and new speaker backgrounds. The constructs of phonemic awareness, verbal…

This study aims to examine the relationship between school maturity levels and speech and language development of children receiving preschool education. The correlational survey models was used to determine these relationships. The sample of the study consists of 44 boys and 58 girls who are studying in public schools in Meram district of Konya…

Background: Early intervention for children identified as late talkers (LTs) at the age of 24 months is still a controversial issue in research and clinical routine. Previous studies have shown inconsistent results regarding predictors of early lexical deficits on school-age outcomes of late-talking toddlers. Methods: In a five-wave follow-up…

This paper presents the effects of using digital games on improving language learning in Tanzanian preschools. A gamified learning prototype system was developed for making alphabetical sound articulation more engaging and fun. The study was conducted with twelve preschools in Tanzania. The results revealed that preschoolers' learning performance…

Our qualitative literature review of 31 published studies found that (a) three major approaches are used in early childhood classrooms to support children's vocabulary learning--exposing children to advanced words, providing direct word-meaning instruction, and employing mixed-method interventions; (b) these practices support children's learning…

The present study investigated three-year-olds' sensitivity to direct and indirect cues to others' knowledge states for word learning purposes. Children were given either direct, physical cues to knowledge or indirect, verbal cues to knowledge. Preschoolers revealed a better ability to learn words from a speaker following direct, physical cues to…

Storytelling is an imperative and innovative pathway to enhance learning due to the fact that such activity prompts learners to reflect to construct meaning based on their observations and knowledge. Therefore, to develop and enhance students' storytelling ability has become an important issue for both educators and researchers. Since storytelling…

This paper reports the findings of an investigation aimed at gaining a clearer understanding of the nature of vocabulary difficulties associated with dyslexia and associated risk status. Three studies were conducted to examine preschoolers' access and mastery of syntactic- and phonological-based processes believed to support word learning. Results…

We have likely all heard of the so-called "Mozart Effect," the claim that listening to music increases intelligence. While the often-cited 1993 study never actually claimed such a profound conclusion, the resultant publicity focused the nation's attention on the evidence of music's positive effect on various types of cognitive skills.…

Of all the developmental difficulties that may be present in childhood, language impairment is probably the most common. It is of vast importance to prevent cumulative negative consequences of these impairments. The present study evaluates the effects of a language and activity-based intervention programme on verbal and non-verbal performance and…