Systematic coaching can help early intervention (EI) practitioners gain the skills needed to support children's regulation leading to gains in social engagement and decreases in challenging behavior for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Responsive social interactions are important for children's cognitive, communicative, and…

Practice-based coursework in higher education programs is considered a critical aspect of early childhood practitioner preparation. Many undergraduates also have formal (e.g., childcare) or informal (e.g., nannying, babysitting) work experience outside of their degree programs, which may influence their caregiving competencies. In this study we…

Background: While parent management training (PMT) has been shown to be an effective treatment for adolescents with externalizing concerns, evidence suggests that effectiveness is not equitable across all types of families. Research suggests that caregiver psychopathology may adversely affect PMT success for adolescents. However, it remains…

Understanding the sequential associations between caregiver responsivity and child communication is pivotal for enhancing child outcomes and guiding effective interventions. This dissertation study evaluates the LENA Start™ on caregiver-child communication, focusing on sequential association between caregiver and child communicative behaviors.…

Educationalists', researchers', and policy makers' work on children's digital resilience has marginalised the role of the broader context within which digital resilience is constituted, experienced and derived. We aimed to address this lacuna by exploring how pre-teen's digital resilience operates as a dynamic socio-ecological process. Addressing…

The years from birth to five are critical for building the emergent literacy skills that precede learning to read and write. Early childhood education and care services are in a unique position to support emergent literacy development, particularly for children in socio-economically disadvantaged communities. This article reports the findings of a…

Autism and other developmental disabilities are common in low- and middle-income countries. The World Health Organization developed the caregiver skills training programme to address the needs of families having children with developmental disabilities globally. This study explored the acceptability and feasibility of the caregiver skills training…

Teachers are sometimes puzzled and frustrated by some children's difficulties and troubles as these children respond aggressively when feeling that peers crowd too close or seem 'threatening'. This article provides a variety of bodily games to help children become more aware of how their bodies and muscles work. The activities suggested are…

As early identification of autism improves, there is a critical need for interventions to support the development of social communication skills in toddlers. Caregiver coaching and parental involvement is crucial for improving outcomes and providing children with adequate hours of planned active engagement. This pilot study assessed a 4-week…

Raising young children in Botswana was traditionally a communal effort shared by the child's parents and the extended family members in a kinship system. However, the economic and social transformations that are taking place in Botswana have altered the traditional child upbringing to involve paid caregivers unrelated to the children or their…

Background: Training parents to implement language and communication intervention strategies is an effective approach to promote language development for children with language delay. Aims: This study introduces an online parent training program conducted in Hubei province, China, which was designed to help parents of language-delayed children…

Children with disabilities often engage in less complex play and fewer spontaneous pretend play behaviors. Research has highlighted the value of providing caregivers with sustained support to promote their active involvement in the learning of their children with disabilities. Caregivers; however, are rarely offered opportunities to facilitate…

Robots have shown great promise in being effective tutors for both children and adults. For instance, they have been shown to be successful in math tutoring for children, interruptions training for adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder, and assisting the elderly while exercising. Yet, despite the great potential of tutoring robots, most studies…

The use of technological devices has proven to be effective and efficient for the delivery of videos aimed at promoting daily living skills (DLS) among individuals with autism spectrum disorder. As technology advances, devices have become more portable and, ultimately, accessible to caregivers. There are relatively few studies that have examined…

The World Health Organization identified the promotion of "Nurturing Care Environments" as a global health priority. Responsive caregiving, 1 of 5 domains describing nurturing care, is critical for healthy child development. Relatively little research has evaluated population-level interventions aimed to increase responsive caregiving…