The objective of this study was to examine in what ways and to what extent preschoolers (5-6 years of age) manifest early Engineering Habits of Mind (EHoM) while engaging in an open-ended problem-solving construction task. The study comprised 228 children (120 boys and 108 girls). The study implemented a quantitative approach. The main research…

Studies examining the visual and verbal metaphorical comprehension of individuals with non-specific intellectual disability (NSID) are remarkably scarce; to date only one case study examined comprehension of metaphors in an individual with Down syndrome (DS). The current study explored both the understanding of conventional and novel metaphors and…

Listening comprehension (LC) is considered an important but complex skill that predicts later reading comprehension in various languages. In this study, we aimed at understanding the relationship of LC with different linguistic and cognitive components. For this purpose, 262 Arabic-speaking kindergartners participated in this study. Our regression…

The present study examined the role of language capacities in explaining differences in social information processing (SIP) among three school-age groups: high-functioning children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD, IQ > 75), children with specific learning disorder (SLD), and children with typical development (TD). Participants were 96 boys…

A large linguistic distance exists between spoken Arabic and the Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) the literary language (a diglosia). Novice readers, therefore, struggle with the complex orthography of Arabic as well as the mastering of MSA. Here, we tested whether structured activities in MSA would advance kindergarteners' MSA aptitude by the end of…

The contribution of repeated e-book reading with and without word explanation support and its effect on receptive and expressive word learning among preschoolers was examined. Seventy-eight kindergartners were randomly divided into an experimental and a control group. The experimental group received two individual reading sessions of an e-book…

The study explored the nature of mother-child conversation during and after a shared book reading (SBR) interaction and how it relates to children's social understanding and prosocial behavior. Participants were 61 mother-child dyads (children's mean age 5 years, 8 months) from low socioeconomic strata (SES). Mother-child SBR and their…

This article investigates the contribution of maternal mediation in storybook reading, socioeconomic status (SES), and home literacy environment (HLE) to children's literacy level in kindergarten and first grade in Israeli Arabic-speaking families. A total of 109 kindergarten children and their mothers participated. Children's literacy level was…

The multidimensional structure of verbal comprehension test items was investigated. Empirical evidence was provided to support the theory that item tasks are multivariate-multiordered composites of faceted components: language, contextual knowledge, and cognitive operation. Linear and circular properties of cylindrical manifestation were…