Considering the fact that learning difficulties are mostly related to academic learning, and students first encounter tasks related with academic learning during the pre-school, it is critical for early intervention that the first symptoms of students with potential learning disability are detected by the pre-school teachers. The aim of this…

The ability to make inferences about what one's peers know is critical for social interaction and communication. Three experiments (n = 309) examined the curse of knowledge, the tendency to be biased by one's knowledge when reasoning about others' knowledge, in children's estimates of their peers' knowledge. Four- to 7-year-olds were taught the…

From an early age, children show a tendency to map novel labels onto unfamiliar rather than familiar kinds of objects. Accounts of this tendency have not addressed whether children develop a metacognitive representation of what they are doing. In 3 experiments (each N = 48), preschoolers received a test of the "metacognitive disambiguation…

Effective communication requires knowing the "right" amount of information to provide; what is necessary for a naïve learner to arrive at a target hypothesis may be superfluous and inefficient for a knowledgeable learner. The current study examines 4- to 7-year-olds' developing sensitivity to overinformative communication and their…

The ability to judge the limits of one's own knowledge may play an important role in knowledge acquisition. The current study tested the prediction that preschoolers would judge the limits of their lexical knowledge more accurately if they were first exposed to a few objects of contrasting familiarity. Such preexposure was hypothesized to increase…

The aim of this research is to improve different responsibility value education activities in pre-school value education. In Turkey, there is a yearly programme in which value should be gained in pre-school value education, but it is lack of activities and how. This research was performed with the studies in a total of 26 students aged five and…

The current study aims to explore how children explain the concepts of biology and how biological knowledge develops across ages by focusing on the structure and functions of the digestive system. The study was conducted with 60 children. The data were collected through the interviews conducted within a think-aloud protocol. The interview data…

The goal of the current study is to explore the influence of knowledge on socioeconomic discrepancies in word learning and comprehension. After establishing socioeconomic differences in background knowledge (Study 1), the authors presented children with a storybook that incorporates this knowledge (Study 2). Results indicated that middle-income…

Measures of print knowledge were compared across preschoolers with hearing loss and normal hearing. Alphabet knowledge did not differ between groups, but preschoolers with hearing loss performed lower on measures of print concepts and concepts of written words than preschoolers with normal hearing. Further study is needed in this area.

Purpose/Objectives: The purpose of this pilot study was to compare changes in preschool children's identification, preferences, and beliefs related to fruits and vegetables introduced to a child care center's menu before and after a nutrition education and food exposure intervention. The study also sought to determine how these changes were…

The importance of the preschool period in becoming a skilled reader is highlighted by a significant body of evidence that preschool children's development in the areas of oral language, phonological awareness, and print knowledge is predictive of how well they will learn to read once they are exposed to formal reading instruction in elementary…

Early childhood programs serve increasing numbers of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and their families. While many programs have made significant progress in providing educational services responsive to the needs of children with ASD, concerns persist about whether early education programs can meet the educational needs of such…

The purpose of this mixed research study was to investigate early assessment and identification for dyslexia in kindergarten through second grade, and to examine whether teachers' knowledge and beliefs lead to the practice of retaining students in grade rather than recommending formal dyslexia assessment. This study investigated both kindergarten…

Young Maltese children have experience and knowledge of animals. We explored the range of animal with which they are familiar and the origin of this knowledge. The children interviewed were in Pre School, aged 4 years, and in the first year of compulsory education, aged 5 years Verb l questions and photographs were used as the probe to access…

Tested in three studies a pragmatic explanation for children's tendency to choose an unfamiliar rather than familiar object when asked to find the referent of a novel name. Found that 3-year-olds responded to requests for referent of a novel label and a novel fact the same way. Shared knowledge between speaker and listener influenced children's…