Knowing how children become oriented to imaginary play can help educators in centres better support development. But how this begins in the first years of life is not well understood. How toddlers transform through their imagination concrete objects (such as play accessories, figurines, and books) to become props in play (placeholders and pivots)…

Child observation is a critical component of quality pedagogy in early childhood education and care (ECEC). The ORICL (Observe, Reflect, Improve Children's Learning) tool was co-designed by ECEC researchers, policymakers, leaders, and practitioners to support this work. Educators rate the experiences of individual children, and responses of…

This article discusses infant-toddler educators' perspectives of using the Observe, Reflect, Improve Children's Learning tool (ORICL) in practice. ORICL is a new tool informed by implementation science and co-designed with Australian early childhood education and care policy-makers, practitioners, and service providers. It aims to support…

Often included within 'high-risk sibling' studies, the Autism Observation Scale for Infants (AOSI) has only one independent replication study and no evaluation with community-ascertained cohorts. We administered the AOSI and established clinical measures with 103 infants (68% male) at 'high autism likelihood' on the Social Attention and…

Play is a central discourse in policy and practice pertaining to young children's learning, development and well-being in many countries around the world. Dominant ways of understanding and advocating for play often construct universalising notions of children and childhood, overlooking that play is always-already culturally situated and…

This study explores "toddling style" in adult-child interaction. Toddling style was conceptualised by Gunvor Løkken in relation to toddlers' playful and social style in peer groups; however, adults' position was rarely explored. Therefore, this article aims to examine adults' emotional and playful support in creating, maintaining and…

Background: Research has demonstrated that having an understanding of families' everyday routines is important when planning interventions, yet the nature of the information revealed by families about their daily lives has been scarcely documented. The aim of this study was to examine the concerns and priorities of families with a child with a…

This article evaluates the concept of infant 'belonging', central to several national curricula for early childhood education and care. Here, the authors focus on Australia's Early Years Learning Framework. Four different meanings attach to 'belonging' in the Early Years Learning Framework, the primary being sociopolitical. However, 'a sense of…

Evidence suggests that parental mind-mindedness is important for children's social-emotional development; however, almost all research exploring mind-mindedness has been conducted with families from Western backgrounds. The current study explored cross-cultural differences in mind-mindedness based on observed real-time interactions between urban…

This article examines how an educator develops a drama pedagogy through the course of her dramatic interactions with three toddlers. A cultural-historical approach was used to explore the concepts of dramatic interactions and dimensions of drama pedagogy. Visual research methodology involved video observations and a reflective interview with the…

Vygotsky (in: Rieber, Carton (eds) The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky, vol 1, Pleneum Press, Newyork, pp 167-241, Retrieved from http://images.lib.monash.edu.au/edf5411/04118997.pdf, 1987) stated that academic or scientific concepts require a level of conscious awareness on the part of the child within everyday situations. Academic concepts can…

Research evidence suggests children experiencing adversity are at risk of language disparities in early childhood. This puts these children at risk of poor language outcomes, perpetuating disadvantage in later development and academic life. This study aimed to investigate associations between Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) attendance,…

This article examines how joint attention episodes constitute a core feature of relational pedagogy for infants and toddlers. It draws on social interactionist approaches to language and cognitive development to propose that joint attention may afford significant current and future potential for young children's learning. However, most joint…

Parents as partners in their children's learning is predicated by a notion of a mutual understanding of the learning as shared by educators. Documenting learning in early childhood education and care (ECE & C) settings has evolved from more traditional developmental approaches to include photographs, artefacts and social stories to make…

Studying relationships in infant/toddler play, using visual narrative methodology to identify transitory moments, supports our current research on babies and toddlers. We use Vygotsky's theorisation of play to understand children's affective and intellectual aspirations in play. The theoretical discussion, using cultural-historical concepts,…