Purpose: Early detection of language delays is essential, as language is key for academic outcomes, well-being, and societal participation. Previous studies have focused on undetected delays in young children. Much less is known about referrals at older ages. In this study, we aimed to (a) establish how many children are referred at toddler age…

Object exploration is considered a driver of motor, cognitive, and social development. However, little is known about how early childhood education and care settings facilitate object exploration. This study examined if children's exploration of objects during free play was facilitated by the use of particular spatial components (floor, tables,…

Given the substantial increase in children attending center-based childcare over the past decades, the consequences of center-based childcare for children's development have gained more attention in developmental research. However, the relation between center-based childcare and children's neurocognitive development remains relatively…

This paper discusses collaborative research between academics and practitioners to enhance the level of play engagement in nine groups of toddlers in The Netherlands. Researchers and pedagogic counsellors designed a structured experiment to test the effects of four pedagogical strategies: confronting the children with a rearranged activity corner;…

Research Findings: This study examined whether teacher-child interaction quality varied as a function of type of activity in toddler classrooms in four European countries (Finland, Netherlands, Poland, and Portugal). It also investigated whether specific activity settings, namely levels of adult involvement, use of whole group, and children's…

This paper explores the dynamic and situated nature of language education policy in an Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) centre through the lens of researcher-child relationality. Drawing on data from 4.5 months of linguistic ethnographic fieldwork in a pre-school in the Netherlands, one extended play situation that emerged between me as a…

This paper analyses how teachers and toddlers enact participation frames in bidialectal early education in Limburg, the Netherlands. Teachers' language choice is often context-bound as they use the national language, Dutch, for instruction and the regional language, Limburgish, for playful or social-emotional situations with individual children.…

The core aspect within process quality is quality of interactions between caregivers and children. This article investigates six interaction skills of caregivers in ECEC groups for toddlers in Norway using the Caregiver Interaction Profile (CIP) scales. The participants are 110 teachers and 58 assistants in 111 toddler groups. Results show that…

This cross-national study involved 56 toddler classrooms in Poland and the Netherlands. A cluster analysis was conducted to identify classroom profiles based on observed quality and these were compared regarding structural (group size and children-to-teacher ratio) and curriculum (e.g. pre-academics and pretend play) characteristics. In total, 224…

We discuss oral history interviews with academics who laid the foundation of research and pedagogies in daycare for under three-year-olds in Europe and North and South America since the 1970s. Their work is clearly embedded in the social-political context of their country: the left-wing programmes for disadvantaged families in the U.S.A.;…

Toddlers' discrimination of native phonemic contrasts is generally unproblematic. Yet using those native contrasts in word learning and word recognition can be more challenging. In this article, we investigate perceptual versus phonological explanations for asymmetrical patterns found in early word recognition. We systematically investigated the…

This paper presents a study of learning experiences in peer conflicts among two- and three-year-olds in Dutch daycare centres. Data were collected from individual sampling of 96 children during their free play. As in earlier studies, the results we obtained showed that three-year-olds used fewer unilateral strategies and more bilateral strategies…

High and stable levels of aggression and the presence of aggressive behaviour in multiple settings according to different informants are risk factors for later problems. However, these two factors have not been investigated in early childhood. The present study investigates trajectories of parent-reported child aggression from 1.5 up to 6 years of…

In this article a study is presented of selective affiliation of two- and three-year-old children in the natural situation of Dutch daycare centers. Data of (behavioral) characteristics of 674 pairs of children (dyads) were collected. Multi-level analyses of these dyadic data were conducted and showed that the chance of friendship between two…

In this article, the author discusses plans that were launched at three consecutive conferences on care for toddlers between 1929 and 1938 in the Netherlands. These plans and their realisation are evaluated in terms of what was seen as the missing link in the supply of institutional care for young children. The author identifies the professional…