Previous studies have found correlations between parent input and child language outcomes, providing prima facie evidence for a causal relation. However, this could also reflect the effects of shared genes. The present study removed this genetic confound by measuring English vocabulary growth in 29 preschool-aged children (21 girls) aged…

This study examined maternal support of children's math learning at 36 months (n = 140) as a mediator of the association between early childhood family income and children's counting and calculation skills at 4½ and 6-7 years. Family income was associated with this measure of children's math school readiness, but the association was almost…

This study aimed to test a four-wave sequential mediation model linking mother-child attachment to children's school readiness through child executive functioning (EF) and prosociality in toddlerhood and the preschool years. Mother-child attachment security was assessed when children (N = 255) were aged 15 months and 2 years, child EF at age 2,…

Questioning is a core component of formal pedagogy. Parents commonly question children, but do they use questions to teach? This article defines "pedagogical questions" as questions for which the questioner already knows the answer and intended to help the questionee learn. Transcripts of parent-child conversations were collected from…

Manual skills slowly develop throughout infancy and have been shown to create clear views of objects that provide better support for visually sustained attention, recognition, memory, and learning. These clear views may coincide with the development of manual skills, or that social scaffolding supports clear viewing experiences like those…

The primary goal in this study was to examine maternal support of numerical concepts at 36 months as predictors of math achievement at 4.5 and 6-7 years. Observational measures of mother-child interactions (n = 140) were used to examine type of support for numerical concepts. Maternal support that involved labeling the quantities of sets of…

Latent class logistic regression analysis was used to investigate sources of individual differences in profiles of prosocial behavior. Eighty-seven 18-month-olds were observed in tasks assessing sharing with a neutral adult, instrumentally helping a neutral adult, and instrumentally helping a sad adult. Maternal mental state language (MSL) and…

The study investigated whether age at attainment of 20 developmental milestones within the areas of language, walking, eating, dressing, social interaction, and toilet training was associated with adult intelligence. Mothers of 821 children of the Copenhagen Perinatal Cohort recorded 20 developmental milestones at a 3-year examination, and all…

This cross-cultural study investigates how maternal task assignment relates to toddlers' requested behavior and helping between 18 and 30 months. One hundred seven mother-child dyads were assessed in three different cultural contexts (rural Brazil, urban Germany, and urban Brazil). Brazilian mothers showed assertive scaffolding (serious and…

This investigation examined the mutual influences between structured parenting and child social wariness during toddlerhood using a longitudinal adoption design. The sample consisted of 361 adoption-linked families, each including an adopted child, adoptive parents, and a birth mother. Heightened social wariness in children at age 18 months…

This study examined parenting knowledge among Mexican-origin adolescent mothers (N = 191; M[subscript age] = 16.26 years), family contextual factors associated with adolescents' parenting knowledge, and toddlers' (M[subscript age] = 2.01 years) subsequent developmental outcomes. Data came from home interviews and direct child…

This study examined whether poor pointing gestures and imitative actions at 18 months of age uniquely predicted late language production at 36 months, beyond the role of poor language at 18 months of age. Data from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study were utilized. Maternal reports of the children's nonverbal skills and language were…

Data were analyzed from a population-based, longitudinal sample of 8,650 U.S. children to (a) identify factors associated with or predictive of oral vocabulary size at 24 months of age and (b) evaluate whether oral vocabulary size is uniquely predictive of academic and behavioral functioning at kindergarten entry. Children from higher…

The prediction of conduct problems (CPs) from infant difficulty and parenting measured in the first 6 months of life was studied in a sample of 267 high-risk mother-child dyads. Stable, cross-situational CPs at school entry (5-6 years) were predicted by negative infancy parenting, mediated by mutually angry and hostile mother-toddler interactions…

This study tested the 5-HTTLPR gene as a moderator in the relation between maternal unresponsiveness and child externalizing symptoms in a disadvantaged, predominantly Black sample of two hundred and one 2-year-old children and their mothers. Using a multimethod, prospective design, structural equation model analyses indicated that maternal…