Many efforts have been made around the globe to advocate for and encourage environmental sustainability education (ESE). As many as 15 fields can serve as "currents" on the greater field of environmental education, including environmental education and education for sustainability. We acknowledge that each is a separate and distinct…

The present study examines the impact of family risk factors (e.g., migration background, poverty) in early childhood on children's numeracy skills during preschool in Germany, and if these relations are mediated through the quality of the home learning environment. The data used for this research were collected using the longitudinal study…

Today, the use of formal preference assessments, including paired-stimulus preference assessments, is widely utilized to help determine which items to use as reinforcers during intervention. A second way to determine potential reinforcers is to analyze multiple dimensions of a stimulus in the moment, a procedure known as in-the-moment reinforcer…

Bilingual preschoolers often perform better than monolingual children on false-belief understanding. It has been hypothesized that this is due to their enhanced executive function skills, although this relationship has rarely been tested or supported. The current longitudinal study tested whether metalinguistic awareness was responsible for this…

Purpose: This study examined the effects of incorporating a peer-mediated approach into a speech-generating device (SGD) intervention on communication of 45 nonverbal and minimally verbal preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 95 peers without disabilities. The SGD was an iPad 2 (Apple) with voice output app. Method: Effects were…

Time spent in the outdoors has been proven to benefit individuals of all ages mentally and physically. For example, exposure to nature reduces stress levels, induces relaxation, and provides Vitamin D. Prior research has linked free play outdoors to helping elementary children focus better in the classroom, reducing symptoms of attention deficit…

This study describes the development and evaluation of a behavioral parent training protocol via telecommunication for three parents of preschool children with autism, with limited access to behavioral expertise. A single-subject, multiple baseline experimental design across child behaviors, replicated across parents, was used to evaluate the…

How do children come to understand that others have mental representations, e.g., of an object's location? Preschoolers go through two transitions on verbal false-belief tasks, in which they have to predict where an agent will search for an object that was moved in her absence. First, while three-and-a-half-year-olds usually fail at approach…

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may encounter difficulties in various aspects of play, including successful entrance into playgroups. This article describes the practical and applied use of an empirically validated strategy that uses graphic symbols to teach young children with ASD to request entrance into playgroups.

The importance of research on the unique nature of the communication supporting environment in nurseries has been heightened by growing evidence of the significance of early language skills for later academic and social development. This study focussed on children's language use during small group times. Opportunities to hear and practise language…

Young children have the capability of making decisions, informed choices, and self-assessing their progress on their choices. In this classroom of 4- and 5-year-olds, children used pictorial contracts, rubrics, and various self-assessment techniques as a method for continuous learning. Gathering and reflecting on their own evidence about their…

It is unclear how children learn labels for multiple overlapping categories such as "Labrador," "dog," and "animal." Xu and Tenenbaum (2007a) suggested that learners infer correct meanings with the help of Bayesian inference. They instantiated these claims in a Bayesian model, which they tested with preschoolers and…

The current study evaluated the effects of the "Superheroes Social Skills" program (Jenson et al. 2011) in promoting accurate demonstration of target social skills in training and generalization conditions in young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and peers with shared social deficits. Three preschool-age children with ASD…

In spite of the increasing Korean population, there is still a paucity of studies examining emergent Korean bilingual children's dual-language development within their social contexts. In particular, no existing study has paid attention to the honorific system of Korean, which is one of the most important features in learning the Korean language.…

Studies comparing mathematical abilities of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typically developing children are hitherto scarce, inconclusive, and mainly focusing on elementary school children or adolescents. The present study wants to gain insight into the foundation of mathematics by looking at preschool performances. Five early…