This paper used the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (N = 1,258) to examine the influence of hilevels of cognitive stimulation from mothers, fathers, and childcare providers at 24 months and children's pre-academic skills at 48 and 60 months in two parent families. Results from path analysis showed direct positive effects of…

This study examined the interrelated and longitudinal impacts of parent-child shared book reading, parenting stress, and early relational health, as measured by both parental warmth and parent sensitivity, from infancy to toddlerhood. To extend findings from previous studies of collateral effects that have been conducted in parenting…

There is little evidence regarding the benefits of early center-based care attendance (before three years old) for child development and most studies have focused on developed countries. Addressing this gap, this study examines the relationship between center-based care attendance during toddler years and children's cognitive outcomes. Research…

Amid growing controversy about the oft-cited "30-million-word gap," this investigation uses language data from five American communities across the socioeconomic spectrum to test, for the first time, Hart and Risley's (1995) claim that poor children hear 30 million fewer words than their middle-class counterparts during the early years…

Marital quality and social support satisfaction were tested as moderators of the association between maternal depressive symptoms and parenting during early childhood (18--36 months) among 2 large, divergent, longitudinal samples (n = 526; n = 570). Unexpectedly, in both samples the association between maternal depressive symptoms and reduced…

The aim of this study is to investigate whether maternal spatial support during two types of joint manipulative toy play tasks with 2-year-old children was longitudinally associated with math screening test scores in second grade. The interaction between spatial support and maternal education was explored as well. We also investigated predictions…

Research on the home literacy environment has typically involved parents as teachers with little attention given to siblings' roles in teaching each other. This study examines naturalistic language and literacy teaching by 39 sibling dyads, at two timepoints, when children were ages 2 and 4 (time 1; T1) and again at ages 4 and 6 (time 2; T2). Each…

Both early childhood maternal language input and the quality of classroom instruction in elementary school have been shown to be important environmental supports in predicting children's literacy skill development. However, no studies have simultaneously examined these two environmental supports in relation to children's early language skills and…

Vygotsky (1987) stated that the restructured form of everyday concepts learned at home and in the community interact with scientific concepts introduced in formal school settings, leading to a higher level of scientific thinking for school-aged children. But, what does this mean for the scientific learning of infants and toddlers? What kinds of…

Purpose: This study was designed to (a) identify sociodemographic, pregnancy and birth, family health, and parenting and child care risk factors for being a late talker at 24 months of age; (b) determine whether late talkers continue to have low vocabulary at 48 months; and (c) investigate whether being a late talker plays a unique role in…

The paper reports on a study which tested whether infants high in negative affectivity are differentially susceptible to observed coparenting behavior in relation to their subsequent social-emotional development. Data came from a longitudinal study of 182 US dual-earner, primiparous couples and their infant children. At nine-months postpartum,…

Little is known about outcomes of early intervention for children with autism spectrum disorder reared in bilingual homes. There are concerns that social communication deficits among children with autism spectrum disorder may reduce the developmental benefits of early intervention for children with autism spectrum disorder raised in bilingual…

Research Findings: This study examined the transactional nature of harsh parenting and emotion regulation across toddlerhood, including the moderating role of teacher sensitivity in child care. Secondary data analyses were conducted with a subsample of families from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project who participated in…

Background: Little empirical research examines the process in which home literacy environment (HLE) in toddlerhood is associated with preschoolers' vocabulary and decoding skills using a large-scale dataset. Objective: The purposes of the current study were to (a) examine the differential effect of HLE in toddlerhood on preschoolers' vocabulary…

Research Findings: The current study examined how children's parent-reported compliance at age 3 (36 months) moderated the effects of 2 dimensions of directly observed early care and education (ECE) process quality (positivity/responsivity and cognitive stimulation) during the prekindergarten year (54 months) on teacher reports of children's…