People sometimes commit 'egocentric errors', failing to ignore their own perspective when interpreting others' communication. Training imitation-inhibition, when participants perform the opposite action from another person, facilitates subsequent perspective-taking in adults. This study tested whether imitation-inhibition training also facilitates…

This study examined parent-child math talk within three contexts (formal learning; guided play; unguided play) in order to identify characteristics of activities supporting high-quality math engagement. Seventy-two dyads of parents and 4- and 5-year-olds were observed using a set of toy foods; instructions and materials varied across conditions.…

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…

What factors determine whether a young child will learn a new word? Although there are surely numerous contributors, the current investigation highlights the role of causal information. Three-year-old children (N = 36) were taught 6 new words for unfamiliar objects or animals. Items were described in terms of their causal or noncausal properties.…

Purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a hierarchically arranged instructional program in multiple classification, which refers to the ability to define a class by two or more attributes simultaneously. (Authors/MB)