Background: A wealth of evidence supports the important role high-quality parent-child interactions play in children's early language acquisition. However, the impact on later language outcomes remains unclear. Aims: To examine the associations between responsive parental behaviours across the early years and child language outcomes at age 7 years…

The Head Start REACH: Strengthening Outreach, Recruitment, and Engagement Approaches with Families project is focused on understanding the eligibility, recruitment, selection, enrollment, and attendance/retention (ERSEA) approaches that Head Start programs use to engage Head Start--eligible families experiencing adversities. One of the…

This study explores young children's possibilities for influence in situations of child--educator disagreement in Finnish early childhood education and care (ECEC). Data were gathered from observations conducted in four ECEC groups of under three year-olds. A total of 112 child--educator disagreements were analysed qualitatively using reflexive…

Young children learn how to communicate with others through their everyday interactions and social relationships. In this article, we argue that stories about personal experiences are a valuable context for exploring how 1-year-old toddlers learn to engage with others across their family homes and early childhood settings. We demonstrate how…

We examined the efficacy of an early autism intervention for use in early childhood intervention (ECI) and mutual gaze as a contributor to social development. Seventy-eight families were randomly assigned to one of three 12-week interventions: Pathways (with a mutual gaze component), communication, or services-as-usual (SAU). The Pathways/SAU…

The "Early Years Learning Framework" promotes the need to recognise children's participation rights and for educators to be responsive to and promote child agency. This study explored how infant and toddler educators understand agency, and what role they ascribe to themselves in infants' and toddlers' realisation of agency. Research was…

Purpose: To investigate the language environments experienced by preterm-born infants, this study compared the linguistic and interactive features of parent--infant conversations involving 2-year-old preterm- and term-born infants. The study also explored how mother-infant and father-infant conversations may be differentially affected by…

We estimated the effects of Norway's universal ECEC program - expanding access to 1- and 2-year-olds starting in the early 2000s - on standardized math and achievement tests in 5th grade (age 10) using a population-based survey sample (Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study, MoBa, n = 102,352), linked with national administrative records…

Autism spectrum disorder is a developmental disorder that includes deficits in social communication and interaction, and restricted and repetitive behaviours, interests, or activities. This survey was done to assess autism spectrum disorder prevalence in 16- to 30-month-old children at an urban-rural distribution and determine the association of…

In the autism field, there is increasing interest in translating evidence-based interventions (EBIs) into systems that serve young autistic children and their families. Public Early Intervention systems have been a focal point of research-based implementation efforts given that these systems are federally mandated to provide services to children…

The prevalence of late language emergence (LLE) in young children is high, comprising 10 to 20% of toddlers. Late language emergence refers to children who do not use at least 50 single words and 2-word phrases at the age of two. Current best practices for the under-three population with or at risk of having disabilities include the use of…

Over the past 20+ years, researchers have worked toward identifying early behavioral predictors of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and developing observation-based screeners to supplement existing parent-report methods. This study is a follow-up, 3 to 8 years later, with parents/caregivers of 57 children previously enrolled in a U.S.…

Researchers and practitioners need robust measurement tools for evaluating knowledge of child development to better support parents and their children during pregnancy and the transition to parenthood. We addressed this need by evaluating the psychometric properties of the Domains of Development Instrument (DoDI) for measuring knowledge of…

Child observation is a critical component of quality pedagogy in early childhood education and care (ECEC). The ORICL (Observe, Reflect, Improve Children's Learning) tool was co-designed by ECEC researchers, policymakers, leaders, and practitioners to support this work. Educators rate the experiences of individual children, and responses of…

CDKL5 deficiency disorder (CDD) results in early-onset epilepsy and lifelong cognitive and motor impairments. With no validated measure for communication in CDD, this study evaluated the psychometric properties of the Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales-Developmental Profile Infant Toddler Checklist (CSBS-DP ITC). Caregivers (n = 150;…