Families and other caregivers play a major role in children's learning and success in school. Psychologists have learned a great deal about how families can help their children learn and thrive in the classroom. Through conversations with caregivers and extensive research, psychologists have developed ideas about how children learn, what helps…

Early intervention (EI) and early childhood special education (ECSE) practitioners participating in the Child Outcomes Summary (COS) process must understand age-expected development, the ages at which children typically acquire different skills. This resource provides answers to commonly asked questions about age anchoring as it applies to the COS…

School-ready children are children who are prepared to learn successfully in school. These children show growth over time in their physical, social and emotional, language, and cognitive development. They also show increasing interests in new experiences and in mastering new skills. Getting "school-ready" starts long before the weeks or…

This book makes explicit connections between young children's spontaneous repeated actions and their representations of their emotional worlds. Drawing on the literature on schemas, attachment theory and family contexts, the author takes schema theory into the territory of the emotions, making it relevant to the social and emotional development…

Certain at-risk behavior patterns are often associated with traumatic childhood experiences. With the role of schools evolving to shape children's developmental needs in today's world, educators across the globe bear an increasingly greater responsibility to identify and address these symptoms associated with childhood trauma. Given the…

This guide has helped put executive skills on the map for school-based clinicians and educators. The book explains how these critical cognitive processes develop and why they play such a key role in children's behavior and school performance. Provided are step-by-step guidelines and many practical tools to promote executive skill development by…

Many families of children with challenging behaviors have experienced multiple changes in child care because of their child's behavior. While this is disruptive for families, it has even more serious consequences for children. For these children, consistency and continuity is critical to their long term outcomes. In order to build the capacity of…

Educators today have a renewed perspective: when schools attend systematically to students' social and emotional skills, the academic achievement of children increases, the incidence of problem behaviors decreases, the quality of the relationships surrounding each child improves. The challenge of raising knowledgeable, responsible, and caring…

Employing a child-centered approach to the growth and development of children from birth to age 16, this book describes in detail the personal, social, and intellectual development of children as they progress from infancy through adolescence. It contains anecdotes and examples that capture the unique qualities of each age and stage of child…

Language acquisition and other developmental processes in children do not occur haphazardly, but rather follow a sequence that is well-established, and though subject to a moderate variation in detail from child to child, surprisingly uniform. This book provides information to parents concerning their children's development levels and attainments…

Notes infants' capacity for empathy and that the way parents respond to infants' natural selfish preoccupation as well as the behaviors modeled for them as they grow influence their manners and concepts of compassion, shame, and moral reasoning. (HTH)

Defines skills important for kindergarten success in areas of health and physical well-being, social and emotional skills, intellectual skills and general knowledge, and language and speech development. Lists eight "red flags" to help identify children who may need specialized assistance. (DLH)

This technical assistance paper provides preschool planners and staff with information on developmental characteristics of preschool children relevant to planning and providing a quality preschool program. Following a case scenario underscoring the need for understanding child development, a theoretical framework concerning child development is…

Examines the benefits of sand play for young children, focusing on areas of cognitive, physical, communicative, creative and social-emotional development. Also discusses the role of the teacher in encouraging children's natural curiosity and exploration with sand play, noting that teachers should observe and interact with children during play in…

Stresses the importance of camp staff understanding why campers misbehave. Offers recommendations for helping campers to learn responsible behavior, including setting clear expectations and consequences for camper behavior; teaching campers self-discipline and problem-solving strategies; asking campers thought-provoking questions; avoiding power…