Musical training has long been viewed as a model for experience-dependent brain plasticity. Reports of musical training-induced brain plasticity are largely based on cross-sectional studies comparing musicians to non-musicians, which cannot address whether musical training itself is sufficient to induce these neurobiological changes or whether…

This research explored kindergarten students' learning of simple particle models to explain the properties and behavior of matter in the solid, liquid, and gas states and during phase transitions (evaporation, melting, freezing, and condensation). Science instruction for young learners tends to focus on the concrete and directly observable. This…

Free-recall paradigms have greatly influenced our understanding of memory. The majority of this research involves laboratory-based events (e.g., word lists) that are studied and tested within minutes. This literature shows that adults recall events in a temporally organized way, with successive responses often coming from neighboring list…

Background: Recent research suggests that instrumental relationship styles can enhance the effectiveness of school-based mentoring, however, little research has been conducted with young children. This study reports findings from a three-year evaluation of an instrumental Literacy-Enhanced Mentoring (LEM) program that integrates a structured,…

Inclusion is central to work in early intervention and early childhood special education (EI/ECSE) and reflected in the core beliefs and recommended practices of the field (Division for Early Childhood [DEC], 2014). Inclusion, according to the joint statement of the DEC and the National Association for the Education of Young Children (2009), means…

The current study was carried out to investigate the relation between the child-raising attitudes of parents and the mediating role for children's digital technology use. The study's working group was made up of 236 parents having a child at the age of 48-72 months and staying in the city centre of Kars. The sampling was formed by using simple…

Parents are in a powerful position to teach sexual topics to their children, promoting positive sex attitudes and lifelong sexual health. However, parents may lack sexual knowledge and confidence to address such topics. This study, grounded in social learning theory, tested the effects of an active learning intervention to increase parental…

The purpose of this study was to examine the physical activity of parents of young children with disabilities and the effect of physical activity enjoyment on those physical activity behaviors. 135 participants completed an online survey which included the International Physical Activity Questionnaire-Short Form and the physical activity enjoyment…

Large individual differences in language skills are well documented in monolingual children (e.g., Kidd, Donnelly & Christiansen, 2018). In bilinguals, the broad variation is even more pronounced. Interestingly, some bilingual children might be weak in their Heritage Language (HL, also labeled as Minority Language, Home Language, Community…

The aim of the present study was to investigate the acquisition of ditransitive structures beyond production. We conducted an elicitation task (production) and a picture-sentence matching task measuring accuracy and response times (comprehension). We examined German five-to seven-year-old typically developing children and an adult control group.…

Studies about parents' expectations of their children's achievements in primary and secondary school often conclude that such expectations have an impact on academic achievements. This poses two quandaries for early childhood education (ECE): there is minimal research focusing on parents' expectations concerning achievements of young children; if…

Children's early literacy skills (ELS) are closely related to literacy learning and reading comprehension performance. Children who cannot acquire early literacy skills face significant difficulties in doing so in the following years. Although it is widely known that children who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) perform less well in early…

Shared book reading is a common and effective way to support vocabulary knowledge. However, it is not the only pedagogy for supporting this learning goal. We propose a "toolbox" of activities that teachers can use to foster vocabulary acquisition in young children. We first discuss the science behind why these activities are effective…

In this article, we provide guidance about when planned ignoring should be considered, questions that may arise, and step-by-step procedures for implementing. A scenario of a kindergarten student is used to illustrate planned ignoring and possible questions regarding implementation in an educational setting. Forms and resources are provided to…

Approximately 30% of autistic children are considered minimally verbal. The field lacks an efficient and reliable measure of communicative capacity among minimally verbal autistic children. Improved methods are needed to determine which children are at greatest risk for minimally verbal outcomes to better target interventions. Here, we present the…