Children tend to overestimate their performance on a variety of tasks and activities. The present meta-analysis examines the specificity of this phenomenon across age, tasks, and more than five decades of historical time (1968-2021). Self-overestimation was operationalized as the ratio between children's prospective self-estimates of task…

Theories of cultural evolution posit that cues of competence-based prestige, rather than formidability-based dominance, should guide culturally transmitted learning, but recent work suggested that French and Kaqchikel Guatamalan preschoolers place their epistemic trust in dominant others. In contrast, this study shows that 249 three- to…

This meta-analysis examined the relationship between prenatal maternal stress and/or anxiety and the outcomes of children aged 3 months to 9 years. Of the 8754 studies published before June 2021 that were synthesized, 17 conducted in Western countries were included in the meta-analysis (N[subscript total] = 23,307; M[subscript males] 54%;…

This systematic review and meta-analysis considered evidence of guided play compared to direct instruction or free play to support children's learning and development. Interventions from 39 studies were reviewed (published 1977-2020); 17 were included in meta-analysis (N[subscript total] = 3893; M[subscript childage] = 1-8 years; M[subscript…

This meta-analysis synthesizes research on media use in early childhood (0-6 years), word-learning, and vocabulary size. Multi-level analyses included 266 effect sizes from 63 studies (N[subscript total] = 11,413) published between 1988-2022. Among samples with information about race/ethnicity (51%) and sex/gender (73%), most were majority…

In a series of meta-analyses, paternal sensitivity was associated with children's (age range: 7 months-9 years) overall cognitive functioning (N = 3,193; k = 23; r = 0.19), including language skills (k = 9; r = 0.21), cognitive ability (k = 9; r = 0.18), and executive function (k = 8; r = 0.19). Paternal sensitivity was not associated with…

Fluent conversation requires temporal organization between conversational exchanges. By performing a systematic review and Bayesian multi-level meta-analysis, we map the trajectory of infants' turn-taking abilities over the course of early development (0 to 70 months). We synthesize the evidence from 26 studies (78 estimates from 429 unique…

Studies of infant motor development in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have increased in recent years. This article synthesized this literature through meta-analysis to assess (a) whether infant motor ability differs in ASD relative to neurotypical controls; and (b) whether motor ability and communication are related in infants with ASD. Study 1…

A prevailing theory of mathematical problem solving predicts that children will be less accurate solving a + b = c + __ problems versus a + b = __ + c. However, this has never been tested directly. Because of low base rates, information combined from multiple studies can help improve estimation accuracy and precision. This study compared…

This study conducted two meta-analyses to synthesize the association between children's language skills and two broad-band dimensions of psychopathology: internalizing and externalizing. Pooled estimates across 139 samples (externalizing k = 105; internalizing k = 90) and 147,305 participants (age range: 2-17 years old; mean % males: 53.75; mean %…

This meta-analysis studies the association of pedagogical processes in early childhood care and education with outcomes in two academic domains: language and literacy as well as mathematics. It synthesizes evidence from 17 longitudinal studies in nine European countries with 16,461 children in regular center-based care spanning the period between…

Previous work suggests that key factors for replicability, a necessary feature for theory building, include statistical power and appropriate research planning. These factors are examined by analyzing a collection of 12 standardized meta-analyses on language development between birth and 5 years. With a median effect size of Cohen's d = 0.45 and…

The purpose of this review was to introduce readers of "Child Development" to the meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM) technique. Provided are a background to the MASEM approach, a discussion of its utility in the study of child development, and an application of this technique in the study of reading comprehension (RC)…

This meta-analysis, spanning 5 decades of Draw-A-Scientist studies, examined U.S. children's gender-science stereotypes linking science with men. These stereotypes should have weakened over time because women's representation in science has risen substantially in the United States, and mass media increasingly depict female scientists. Based on 78…

It has been argued that children who possess an advanced theory of mind (ToM) are viewed positively by their peers, but the empirical findings are mixed. This meta-analysis of 20 studies including 2,096 children (aged from 2 years, 8 months to 10 years) revealed a significant overall association (r = 0.19) indicating that children with higher ToM…