Research Findings: Social constructivist theories have proposed that caregivers' perceptions of children as morally responsible agents are an important factor in children's moral development. However, there is substantial variance in caregivers' ascriptions of moral agency to young children. The present study examined caregiver social conformity…

Acquisition of natural language has been shown to fundamentally impact both one's ability to use the first language and the ability to learn subsequent languages later in life. Sign languages offer a unique perspective on this issue because Deaf signers receive access to signed input at varying ages. The majority acquires sign language in (early)…

Digital technologies are increasingly present in young children's lives. How can early education systems get the best out of digitalisation while minimising its risks? This is especially urgent as the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated our reliance on digital tools -- tools that enabled young children to continue learning when early education…

Children's food preferences are strongly associated with their consumption patterns. Children tend to choose foods with which they are familiar. It is proposed that the earlier and broader the experience with food, the healthier the child's or adult´s diet. In a focus group we developed a toolkit consisting of a training course for kindergarten…

In 1993, the first study of outcomes of auditory-verbal graduates was published in the Journal of the American Academy of Audiology (JAAA). The stated purpose of the research at that time "was to document the status of graduates of one aural habilitation option; auditory-verbal" (p. 190, Goldberg & Flexer). A follow-up study was…

The first years of life lay the foundations for a child's future development and learning. Many countries have increased their financial support for provision of early childhood education and care (ECEC) over the past years. More recently, the focus of debate has been shifting from expanding access to affordable ECEC to enhancing its quality. A…

This article presents a critical review of the literature surrounding the potential impact of undiagnosed and untreated vision impairment on reading development in the early years of primary school. Despite pre-school screening programmes, it is still possible for children to enter school with undiagnosed, uncorrected vision impairments. This can…

In many countries there are very few men in professional care for young children. In this paper we will focus on the different perspectives of male and female workers to outdoor play and discuss the role of outdoor activities in recruiting more men to pre-schools. The article is based on research in Norway and Austria. The results draw the…

Two experiments with 3 1/2- to 6 1/2-year-old children showed that theory-of-mind development is associated with the growth of episodic memory. Episodic memory was assessed by manipulating informational conditions such that they permit or prevent the formation of episodic memories in terms of re-experiencing the recalled event. Only experienced…

Seventy-six children ages four to eight were tested first in a reward-allocation task in which they had to divide a reward between two stimulus characters painting a fence. The characters differed in painting abilities, effort put into the job, and amount of fence painted. Then the same children's understanding of causal relationships among…

The acquisition of German plurals has been the focus of controversy in the last decade. In this paper we claim that degree of productivity (i.e. the capacity of nouns to form potential plurals) plays a key role in determining pace of acquisition. A plural elicitation task was administered to 84 Viennese German-speaking children aged 2;6 to 6;0.…

Groups of seven- to nine-year olds learning to read in English and German were given three types of reading tasks. Whereas reading time and error rates in numeral and number word reading were very similar across the two orthographies, the German children showed a big advantage in reading the nonsense words, suggesting adoption of different…

The authors' objective in this article was to explore the accuracy of mothers' estimates concerning their children's developmental functioning, especially with respect to vocabulary and gross motor development, by comparing the results of diagnostic tests administered to both the children and their mothers. The authors studied 55 children with…

This third review of services for young children in the European Union, undertaken by the European Commission Child Care Network, covers services providing care, education, and recreation for children from birth to 10 years of age. The report is particularly focused on group settings and family day care. The report consists of a summary of main…

When Canadian parents look back on their own lives and the lives of their parents, they see changes across a generation that have profoundly affected their parenting experience, compared to when they themselves were young children. Supports for today's parents must take into consideration these changes that affect the care and nurturing of…