Musical communication between adults and children is a widely studied phenomenon in the field of music education and psychology. In the research carried out to date, a variety of methodological designs have been used, based mainly on the perceptions of adults, to investigate the different aspects of these musical interactions. Thus, there is…

The current study used meta-analysis to ask whether age differences, sex differences, and family size are linked to differences in parental treatment, as well as whether effect-sizes were moderated by the way parental differential treatment (PDT) was measured, who reported on the PDT, and the domain of PDT. Between August 2015 and November 2020,…

Engaged communication between mother and a child in their early developmental stages is one of the predictors of children's development of higher-order thinking skills. For deaf children, this engaged communication between mother and child hinges on the home language environment (HLE) being fully accessible to the child. This research uses…

Today, many children worldwide grow up in bilingual or multilingual families. This study explores early literacy development in Russian-Hebrew bilingual families in Israel. It studies the contribution of the home literacy environment (HLE), the language of communication, and the nature of the maternal writing support in Hebrew and Russian, to…

People with disabilities have not been adequately represented in strengths-based research. This study is the first to examine strengths and positive influences of young children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). Thirty adoptive and relative caregivers of children with FASD reported their children's strengths and positive influences and…

Across a wide range of studies, researchers often conclude that the home environment and children's outcomes are causally linked. In contrast, behavioral genetic studies show that parents influence their children by providing them with both environment and genes, meaning the environment that parents provide should not be considered in the absence…

Sleeping difficulties among adolescents constitute a pressing public health issue, and it is of the utmost importance that these are approached from a health-promotion perspective. This study explores adolescents' suggestions on how their sleep could be supported. Data were collected via eight focus group interviews with 43 adolescents aged 15-16,…

Children learn words in a social environment. In my dissertation, I examine how caregivers' social cues facilitate young children's word learning in settings that mirror their typical, dynamic learning environments. In Chapter 1, I overview prior work examining how social cues may support word learning, focusing on possible mechanisms underlying…

Learner variability presents an enormous challenge for teachers and schools. Even as early as kindergarten, incredible learner diversity exists in terms of children's early learning experiences, especially in mathematics. Research has shown that this variability begins in the home environment, where parents and caregivers have the biggest impact…

In order to eliminate or minimize the behavioral problems seen in children in the preschool period, the factors affecting these behaviors should be examined in detail. Parental attitudes are one of these factors. The aim of this research is to examine the parent profiles of children with behavioral problems in the preschool period and the…

The present study is an attempt to give a holistic and bigger picture of the relations between family contextual factors and academic achievement by employing second-order meta-analysis to synthesize results from first-order meta-analyses. Thirteen first-order meta-analyses included in this study represent more than one thousand culturally diverse…

Research on the effects of the socioeconomic status (SES) on literacy development of children with intellectual disabilities (ID) is limited. This study aimed to explore the SES's influence on literacy development of children with ID and possible mediating effects of home literacy environment (HLE) and the parent-child relationship. The subjects…

Stories are a way that children under 3 years of age learn to share meaning with others. Most research with this age group has focused on 1:1 parent-child story relationships at home, largely book reading. These studies have positioned children in the role of story listeners rather than story tellers. Here, I explore new possibilities about the…

This study examined how deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) and typically hearing (TH) children may differ in their family system and emotional functioning and examined the relations between family system and children's emotional functioning. Parents of 106 DHH and 99 TH children (2-6 years) reported on family cohesion and adaptability, parental emotion…

This commentary paper offers a broader definition of the construct of the home learning environment and an updated conceptual framework. Recent empirical research has burgeoned on the home learning environment and is mainly examining how processes mediate the way parenting practices influence a child's development and learning. By introducing the…