There is evidence that mastery motivation contributes to developmental outcomes, both for typically developing individuals and for those with disabilities such as Down syndrome. Mastery motivation appears to be a stable trait, at least during early childhood, but research with adults has been restricted by the absence of an appropriate measure.…

Objective: Physical activity (PA) is essential to promote both optimal physical and emotional health in preschool children. Hence, well-founded PA guidelines are essential. 24-hour Movement Guidelines (which include PA, recreational screen time and sleep) have been established. Thus, this study aimed to explore preschool-aged children's adherence…

This study aimed to understand how mindfulness meditation affects young people by examining its impact on self-regulation, happiness, emotional awareness, and school performance among two groups of school children. A 10-week mindfulness program was conducted by a meditation expert for 552 children aged 4-8 (Group 1) and 287 children aged 9-11…

A cardinal feature of adult cognition is the awareness of our own cognitive struggles and the capacity to draw upon this awareness to offload internal demand into the environment. In this preregistered study conducted in Australia, we investigated whether 3-8-year-olds (N = 72, 36 male, 36 female, mostly White) could self-initiate such an external…

Background: A wealth of evidence supports the important role high-quality parent-child interactions play in children's early language acquisition. However, the impact on later language outcomes remains unclear. Aims: To examine the associations between responsive parental behaviours across the early years and child language outcomes at age 7 years…

This article discusses findings from the first 10 years of the Longitudinal Outcomes of Children with Hearing Impairment (LOCHI) Study, which includes more than 450 deaf and hard of hearing Australian children whose hearing losses were identified variously through newborn hearing screening or later paths to confirmation and intervention.

Backgrounds and aims: Early symbolic play abilities are closely related to long-term language development for both autistic and non-autistic children, but few studies have explored these relations for different dimensions of pretence and of language. The current study explores carer-reported measures of solitary symbolic play, object substitution…

Australia has a long-standing interest in fostering innovation capabilities to drive its future prosperity. However, it has only been in recent years that an emphasis on developing these capabilities has been formally extended into the classroom through the introduction of the Australian Curriculum Technologies. In 2017, the State Government of…

Objective: The Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence -- Fourth Edition Australian and New Zealand Standardised Edition (WPPSI-IV[superscript A&NZ]) is one of the most widely used intelligence assessments for children aged 2 years 6 months to 7 years 7 months. Given the impact of clinical and placement decisions that are…

Children hold strong ingroup biases from a young age, liking ingroup over outgroup members and preferring them as social learning models. Simultaneously, children are also highly prosocial--both in their own helping behaviors and their avoidance of those who behave antisocially. This study explores how children of 2 age groups (4-5 and 7-8 years)…

Few studies have examined growth and predictors of receptive vocabulary in children with autism spectrum disorder. Here we aimed to compare receptive vocabulary from 4 to 8 years and identify predictors of receptive vocabulary, at 8 years, in children with and without autism spectrum disorder. Participants were drawn from a nationally…

Parents play a key role in supporting young children's interactions with tablets (e.g. iPads). Little is known about the types of scaffolding parents provide during tablet activities and how these relate to child age, SES, and home use. Fifty-five parent-child dyads (M child age = 3.49 years) were videoed as they played on an iPad. All parent…

Purpose: The purpose of this meta-analytic study was to identify clinical characteristics, defined as child factors that can be assessed by a speech-language pathologist as part of a routine speech-language evaluation that may differentiate children who persist in stuttering from children who eventually recover from stuttering. Clinical…

Ear infection or otitis media (OM) occurs in many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children at a young age and tends to persist over a long period of time. Chronic OM is associated with conductive hearing loss that reduces a child's access to sounds. This can have a negative impact on development of listening and communication skills. Primary…

Purpose: For a community cohort of children confirmed to have stuttered by the age of 4 years, we report (a) the recovery rate from stuttering, (b) predictors of recovery, and (c) comorbidities at the age of 7 years. Method: This study was nested in the Early Language in Victoria Study. Predictors of stuttering recovery included child, family, and…