This study investigated responsive and directive speech from 60 Finnish mothers to their 2-year-old children, as well as correlations with concurrent and later vocabulary. Possible gender differences with regard to both maternal speech and children's vocabulary skills were considered. There were no gender differences in maternal utterance…

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 study examines the association between teacher--child interaction quality and children's self-regulation in Finnish and Portuguese toddler classrooms. The participants included 230 Finnish (M = 29; SD = 3 months) and 283 Portuguese M = 30, SD = 4 months) toddlers and their teachers (n = 43 Finland; n = 29 Portugal). The children's behavioural…

Many children experience recurrent acute otitis media (RAOM) in early childhood. In a previous study, 2-year-old children with RAOM were shown to have immature neural patterns for speech sound discrimination. The present study further investigated the consonant inventories of these same children using natural speech samples. The results showed…

This study investigated the potential interrelationship between parental (maternal) and expert assessments of the expressive and receptive language skills of 12- to 18-month-old children. The language activities of 27 children were monitored by their mothers (MCDI scale: Lyytinen, 2000. "Varhaisen kommunikaation ja kielen kehityksen…

In this follow-up study, we evaluated children's communication development at the ages of 8 ("n" = 50), 18 ("n" = 46), 24 ("n" = 44) and 36 months ("n" = 36) using the Finnish version of the "MacArthur Communicative Developmental Inventories" (MCDI). A sample of children ("n" = 14)…

The aim of the present study was to analyze early vocalization development, the predictive value of this development in terms of later language skills, and possible gender difference in early vocalization development in a selected cohort of 32 very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) children and 35 full-term controls. The data on early vocalization…

Developmental needs should be assessed in early infancy and followed longitudinally to improve identification, prevention and intervention efforts.The objective was to examine the relationship between competencies and areas of need in toddlers' development, and to describe the properties and utility of the Brief Infant Toddler Social-Emotional…