Early childhood research has long established that drawing is a central, and important activity for young children. Less common are investigations into the drawing activity of adults involved in early childhood. A team of adult early childhood researchers, with differing exposures and familiarities with drawing, experimented with intergenerational…

Belonging is a fundamental human need that impacts young children's everyday experiences and wellbeing in group care. We know little, however, about how belonging works for infants in multi-age settings such as family day care. In this article, I use Sumsion and Wong's three intersecting axes of belonging -- categorisation, performativity, and…

This research considers the role of parenting practices and early self-regulation, on children's prosocial behaviour when they begin school. Data for 4007 children were drawn from "Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children" (LSAC). The analyses explored relations between self-reported parenting practices for…

As part of a wider study, this paper reports on Australian educators' understanding of children's typical and problematic sexual behaviour and their source of training in this area. A sample of 107 educators from government, independent and Catholic primary schools, preschools and care organisations across Australia answered an online…

High-quality early childhood education is a vital experience for young children with and without disabilities. Social and communication experiences in the context of play represent a core curriculum that sets a foundation for later learning and participation. Using a new self-report instrument, this article describes data collected in a…

"Learning and Teaching in the Early Years" provides a comprehensive, contemporary and practical introduction to early childhood teaching in Australia. A strong focus on the links between theory, policy and practice firmly aligns this text with the Early Years Learning Framework. Written for students of early childhood programs, this book…

It has been reported that in cross-cultural contexts, Western science content is often not used in everyday practice, and the learning of science is often viewed as difficult and having no social meaning (e.g., Aikenhead & Michell, 2011). It is suggested that the cultural relevance of everyday family practices and Western constructions of…

Despite considerable research and discussion regarding children and young people's rights and citizenship, the participation of young children in community decision-making is still limited. In this exploratory research, a case study is reported on how ideas about young children as active citizens are interpreted within one local government…

In order to co-construct a better understanding of the nature of children's art experiences at home and in educational settings, I interacted with four young children who photographed and discussed their art experiences over the course of one year. As a result of these research processes, and considering John Dewey's (1934/2005) "Art as…

Purpose: Evidence from children's spontaneous speech suggests that utterance length and utterance position may help explain why children omit grammatical morphemes in some contexts but not others. This study investigated whether increased utterance length (hence, increased grammatical complexity) adversely affects children's third person singular…

In this article, the authors describe their efforts to teach counting skills to their class of 5- to 7-year-olds at the Glenleighden School, located in a a suburb of Brisbane. As Glenleighden early childhood teachers, they work in collaboration with a multi-disciplinary team that supports children with speech and language difficulties.…

A child's diagnosis with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can be an extremely stressful time for families. Researchers suggest that the period immediately following ASD diagnosis is a key time for professionals to guide families by providing appropriate information about support options. This article describes a family support program, developed by…

Early manifestations of anxiety in childhood confer significant distress and life interference. This study reports on the first controlled trial of the "Get Lost Mr. Scary" programme, a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy group intervention for children with anxiety aged 5-7 years. Participants were 134 children (65 males and 69 females) drawn…

Many studies have identified the positive "link" between imaginary play and emotion regulation in laboratory settings. However, little is known about "how" play and emotion regulation are related in everyday practice. This article examines how families use play as a tool to support young children's emotion regulation in…

This paper examines Karagiozis--Greek shadow puppet theatre for children--as a way to explore how the Arts might support socially just education in the early years. As authors from diverse cultural backgrounds with different experiences of arriving and residing in Australia, we consider themes of social justice identified in a Karagiozis play and…