The number of multilingual families in Norway has increased during the last decades, but there are no official statistics concerning the linguistic situation in Norway today. Immigrants account for 15% of the population. In addition, there are mixed-language families where one of the parents does not have Norwegian as his/her mother tongue. Most…

Caring relationships between children and educators in early childhood education and care centers become in an array of entanglements with spaces, materials, and the organization of time. An exclusively dyadic understanding of care is insufficient in the material, institutional, pedagogic, and professional environment of early childhood education…

In this study, the relationship between play, language skills and social competence is explored in a sample (n = 1005) of 33-month-old toddlers in a Norwegian early childhood education setting--Barnehages--based on two observational materials ("Tras" and "Alle med"). The study has two aims: (1) to investigate whether there is a…

Despite increased interest in children's risk-taking in play, little is known of this aspect considering children under three years. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the concept of scaffolding to potentially describe patterns in staff-child interaction in 1-3-year-olds' risky play. Empirical data were taken from an exploratory study,…

This study examined whether Norwegian children who were referred to The School Psychology Services (SPS) for either language difficulties or social difficulties at kindergarten age demonstrated co-existing weak skills in the other area at 33 months and whether some of them could have been identified and referred earlier. Forty-three children…

The aim of the study is to investigate whether 33-month-old (toddlers) monolinguals (N = 902) and different groups of dual language learners (DLL) (N = 161) differ in majority language comprehension, Norwegian (L2). The three DLL groups vary regarding the amount of parental exposure to Norwegian. Language comprehension was assessed by authentic…

This study examines possible relations between early mathematical skills and motor life skills in 450 toddlers aged two years and nine months. The study employs baseline data from the longitudinal Stavanger Project--The Learning Child. The children's mathematical skills and motor life skills were assessed by structured observation in the natural…

Offering an in-depth exploration of the distinctive features of the play development and learning of toddlers, this book provides useful materials, strategies and tools that can be used by practitioners supporting toddlers at this significant age. The book explores the context and concepts of wellbeing and is ideal for early years practitioners,…

The aim of this study is to investigate whether maternal spatial support during two types of joint manipulative toy play tasks with 2-year-old children was longitudinally associated with math screening test scores in second grade. The interaction between spatial support and maternal education was explored as well. We also investigated predictions…

This article explores variations in development of everyday motor-life-skills in 661 children (329 girls and 332 boys) in Norwegian kindergartens of ages 2:9 (T1) and 4:9 (T2) years:months. The particular focus is on children at risk for problems in motor development (the 10% weakest children in the sample). The methodological approach chosen is…

This article explores the relationship between toddlers' (age: 30-33 months) well-being (WB), play (PL), social-emotional competence (SC) and movement skills (MS). Two hypotheses were put forward for testing: (1) there is a significant positive correlation between WB, PL, SC and MS, and (2) toddlers' WB can be predicted from their PL, SC and MS.…

This article focuses on how Early Childhood Education and Care institutions provide for 1- to 3-year-olds' risky play--a previously little researched topic--utilizing data from an exploratory, small-scale study investigating aspects of risky play in the age-group. The main findings describe how three essentially different Early Childhood Education…

The purpose of this study was to explore the quality of toddler childcare in Norway using the Infant Toddler Environment Rating Scale-Revised Edition (ITERS-R; [Harms, Thelma, Debby Cryer, and Richard M. Clifford. 2006. "Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scales Revised Edition." New York: Teachers College Press.]), drawing on a sample of…

This study explores how toddlers and caregivers make meaning with an interactive healthcare game on a tablet during medical treatment. The data material consists of video recordings of six nebuliser treatments of two children. Using a social semiotic perspective and a multimodal analysis, the study identifies how children and caregivers make…

Sex differences in typical development can provide context for understanding ASD. Baron-Cohen ("Trends Cogn Sci" 6(6):248-254, 2002) suggested ASD could be considered an extreme expression of normal male, compared to female, phenotypic profiles. In this paper, sex-specific M-CHAT scores from N = 53,728 18-month-old toddlers, including n…