Women raise children within cultural ideologies that enforce gendered standards for caregiving. In market‐driven societies, working mothers face the ‘intensive mothering ideology’, which demands self‐sacrifice for children while promoting self‐interest at work. Fathers are primarily framed as breadwinners. We know little about how ethnically and racially diverse, low‐SES mothers construct ideas of

Infant pointing is predictive of later language development, but little is known about factors enhancing the development of pointing. The current study investigated two possible social learning mechanisms in the development of pointing. Given that infants observe their caregivers' pointing gestures from early on, one possibility is learning via imitation. A second possibility is that caregivers' contingent

Measures of parasympathetic regulation, such as respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), predict executive function outcomes, including inhibitory control, across childhood. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia augmentation tends to be associated with more maladaptive outcomes, compared to RSA suppression, but the literature regarding RSA profiles and inhibitory control development across infancy and early childhood

This study used naturalistic audio–visual recordings from early care and education (ECE) settings to examine the associations between toddlers' (76 toddlers, 40 female, Mage = 32.94 months, SD = 4.92 months) multimodal emotion expressions and emotion‐related vocalizations with contingent teacher interventions. Findings indicated a correspondence between multimodal emotion expressions and emotion‐related

Children comprehend iconic gestures relatively later than deictic gestures. Previous research with English‐learning children indicated that they could comprehend iconic gestures at 26 months, a pattern whose extension to other languages is not yet known. The present study examined Turkish‐learning children's iconic gesture comprehension and its relation to their receptive vocabulary knowledge. Turkish‐learning

As a development‐enhancing or a risk‐promoting environment, coparenting may shape the association between maternal prenatal depressive symptoms and infant regulatory capacity. This study aimed to analyse the moderator role of coparenting cooperation and conflict in the association between maternal prenatal depressive symptoms and infant regulatory capacity at 3 months. The sample comprised 103 primiparous

This study investigated the potential influences of administration context on the measurement of child skills. The Brief Observation of Social‐Communication Change (BOSCC) was administered at two time points to preschool‐aged children with autism in two contexts: (1) at school by trained research staff and (2) at home by the parent. Participants were of ages 3–5 years (M = 4.27 years) old with a confirmed

Children with elevated behavioural inhibition (BI) show context‐inappropriate fear and dysregulated RSA across stressor tasks. However, few studies have examined dynamic RSA within tasks and relations to parent and child anxiety. Using piecewise growth modelling and multimethod baseline data from an intervention study of 151 3.5–5‐year‐old children and their parents, we examined relations between child

This study examined whether parental sensitivity during distressing and non‐distressing mother–infant interactions predicts changes in young children's respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) activity. Baseline RSA levels were collected from 83 children (49% female, 51% male) when children were 7 and 18 months old. Children's RSA reactivity and RSA recovery during the still‐face paradigm were collected

Perspective taking and cognitive flexibility are important abilities for navigating our everyday lives. In this longitudinal study with 108 children (61 girls, mostly White), we investigated the developmental relation between Level 1 perspective taking at 27 months of age and Level 2 perspective taking at 52 months of age as well as relations to cognitive flexibility at 52 months of age. We found that

This study examines metacognitive monitoring in Turkish preschoolers aged 48–66 months, crucial for their learning and development. A specialised paired‐association task was designed to assess higher‐order thinking skills in this age group. Data from 160 children (52.5% girls, 47.5% boys; mean age 57.6 months, standard deviation 4.8) were analysed. The Metacognitive Thinking Test includes Recall and

Caregiver executive functions (EFs) play an integral role in shaping cognitive development. Here, we investigated how caregiver EF abilities (86 caregivers; mean age = 33.4 years, SD = 4.5) was associated with visual working memory (VWM) in infants (86 infants females; mean age = 250.6 days, SD = 35.8). The BRIEF‐A was used to assess caregiver EFs, and a preferential looking task along with fNIRS was

The transition to and through kindergarten is consequential for the academic, social, and emotional wellbeing of children. Policies and practices are in place to smooth that transition. Researchers are working to understand which practices work best and for whom, particularly as the student population in U.S. schools continues to diversify. In this study, we analysed data from a large longitudinal

Limited longitudinal studies have explored the development of reading, along with its predictors, in a language characterized by shallow orthography and a simple syllabic structure. In a 5‐year longitudinal study, we investigated the development of reading skills in 327 Italian‐speaking children (male: n = 180, 55%) from Grade 1 (mean age = 6.16 ± 0.28) to Grade 5 (mean age = 10.82 ± 0.31). We tested

During the COVID‐19 pandemic, research indicated increased psychological distress among adolescents. However, limited research has investigated the association between COVID‐19‐related stress and the adolescent hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, a critical stress response system. To address this gap, we conducted a longitudinal study exploring the relationship between COVID‐19 stressors and

Generic descriptions (e.g., ‘girls are emotional’) are argued to play a major role in the development of essentialist reasoning about social categories. Although generics are prevalent across languages, studies exploring if and how generic language leads to essentialism have almost exclusively been conducted in English‐speaking communities and among Western samples. This is a significant limitation

Children's emotional well‐being may emerge as a result of the dynamic interplay between individual factors, such as temperament and environmental factors, such as parenting stress. The current study aimed to investigate the contributions of child temperament and parenting stress to children's emotional well‐being. This study also examined the moderating role of parenting stress on the association between

Executive function (EF) skills are consistently associated with global mathematics assessments. However, less is known about which specific mathematics skills invoke EF in early childhood. We adapted batteries of EF, numerical, and patterning tasks to be conducted via synchronous video conferencing with typically developing 4‐year‐old children (N = 115, 56.6% female, 85.2% White, non‐Hispanic, 7.8%

Previous research on children's knowledge about the mind has primarily focused on their comprehension of false beliefs, leaving the conceptualization of thoughts and thinking less explored. To address this gap, we developed a new assessment tool, the interview about the mind (IaM), to assess children's understanding of the mind. Two studies involving Polish preschool and early school‐aged children

Maternal substance use and unpredictable maternal sensory signals may affect child development, but no studies have examined them together. We explored the unpredictability, frequency and duration of maternal sensory signals in 52 Caucasian mother–child dyads, 27 with and 25 without maternal substance use. We also examined the association between unpredictable maternal signals and children's cognitive

We examined if there were profiles of infants' behavioural and physiological responses during the still‐face and if these profiles were predicted by maternal sensitivity. Participants included 230 mothers (40.4% non‐white) and their 2‐month‐old infants (48.7% female). Three profiles were identified: continually increasing negative affect and decreasing respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) (17.39%); modest

During the Covid‐19 pandemic new stressors were added to the usual challenges parents face, changing habits and reduced physical activity, all factors that negatively affect sleep quality in adults and children. This study examines (1) possible changes in the sleep‐wake patterns of parents and children before and after the March–May 2020 lockdown and during the new restrictions imposed by the Italian

Poor early childhood self‐regulation is related to many mental health problems and antisocial behaviours, so it is important to use psychometrically sound instruments to assess children's self‐regulation and behavioural development. The aim of this study is to report the translation, adaptation, as well as explore the construct validity of the child self‐regulation & behaviour questionnaire (CSBQ)

The pervasiveness of racism in the U.S. and its negative relations with key development outcomes has led researchers to uncover mediators, of which this article argues efficacy should be considered. Self‐efficacy, one's belief in their capability to accomplish a task or goal, can be measured in multiple domains of functioning and contexts to predict behaviour. The current study examines possible specificity

Child temperament is a predictor of non‐verbal ability (i.e. thinking and problem‐solving skills that do not fundamentally require verbal language production and comprehension). Given that temperament scores might vary depending on whether the reporter is a parent or a teacher, this study analyses (a) whether those reports are different and (b) how each report predicts child non‐verbal ability in a

Children's early experiences have potential to shape their development through early childhood, middle childhood, and into adolescence. Family structure at birth and material hardship may offer insight into how children's health and well‐being are shaped within their family of origin. The current paper examined (a) the association between family structure at birth and material hardship 1‐year post‐birth

It is surprising how little we know about the relationships that matter to emerging adults, and we propose research to bridge that gap. First, we will ask emerging adults to generate a list of the individuals who matter. The list will be submitted via open‐ended text that we will code for relationship type. Our first aim is to gain information about the frequency and diversity of relationships that

Using a sample of 286 mothers and fathers from ethnically and socioeconomically diverse backgrounds, we tested the associations between the frequency and quality of parents' shared book reading (SBR) with infants aged 9 months, and language skills of infants aged 18 months, and whether infants' attention during SBR at 9 months mediated these associations. Frequency of SBR was parent‐report and quality

Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) is rapidly becoming ubiquitous in many contexts. There is limited scholarship, however, in the fields of Developmental Psychology and Early Childhood Education exploring the implications of generative AI for babies and young children. In this Perspectives piece, we discuss potential use cases, opportunities, and risks for the application of AI in early childhood

Increasingly, researchers have operationalized Adult Attachment Interview (AAI)‐derived attachment representations as reflecting individual differences in secure base script knowledge (AAIsbs) – the degree to which individuals show awareness of the temporal‐causal schema that summarizes the basic features of seeking and receiving effective support from caregivers when in distress. In a series of pre‐registered

This study utilised the Early Growth and Development Study (N = 561 adoptive children; 57.2% male, 55.3% White), a study of children adopted at birth, to examine heritable (birth parent psychopathology) and prenatal risk (prenatal maternal distress and smoking during pregnancy), infant negative affectivity, adoptive parent over‐reactivity and warmth as independent predictors of childhood externalising

This study investigated relations between emerging adults' memories of parental acceptance–rejection during childhood and the adults' dispositions towards forgiveness and vengeance, as mediated by psychological (mal)adjustment. South Asian (Pakistani) participants, including 242 (25.6%) men (Mage = 21.69, SD = 2.34) and 704 (74.4%) women (Mage = 21.14, SD = 2.09), responded to the short forms of the

In this study, maternal socialization goals in early childhood were linked to qualities of children's self in middle childhood, while also considering maternal education and child gender. Estonian mothers (N = 209; Mage = 33.6; 52.2% had university education) provided ratings of their socialization goals for children (52.2% girls; Mage = 6.2), children's self was gauged 4 years later. The more mothers

Events of the past decade have revealed substantial limitations in our standard approach to evaluating manuscripts for publication. Preference for ‘positive results’ and findings that are surprising or novel has led to a substantial publication bias that casts doubt on large portions of the existing literature (Davis-Kean & Ellis, 2019; Scheel et al., 2021). Registered Reports represent a major initiative

The present study sought to evaluate the reproducibility of prominent findings stated by Fehr et al. in their developmental resource allocation experiment "Egalitarianism in Young Children", published in 2008. The experiment involved children making decisions about distributing sweets between themselves and either an in‐group or an out‐group recipient. Fehr et al. found that (1) inequity aversion develops

Different components of emotional responding may be affected by using specific emotion regulation strategies that enable children's volitional self‐regulation. This study examined the affective, cognitive, and physiological effects of experimentally instructing children to deploy distraction or reappraisal to regulate negative emotion during an evocative film clip. One‐hundred eighty‐four 4‐ to 11‐year‐old

Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia Reactivity (RSA‐R) correlates both positively and negatively with externalizing behaviour in autistic individuals. These inconsistencies may result from task‐based differences. This pilot study measured RSA‐R in 4‐to 6‐year‐olds, across two timepoints, using four validated tasks with matched baseline and challenge periods. Social, cognitive, sensory and emotional tasks

High‐frequency heart rate variability (hf‐HRV) theoretically provides a biomarker for self‐regulation, although studies with young children offer mixed findings regarding the relevance of emotional demands in this link. We aimed to describe variation in children's hf‐HRV during tasks with relatively high and low emotional load and to determine the relation of hf‐HRV during these tasks to different

Emphasis on continuous infant sleep overnight may be driven by parental concern of risk to child mental health outcomes. The Mercy Pregnancy and Emotional Wellbeing Study (MPEWS) examined whether infant sleep at 6 and 12 months postpartum predicts anxiety disorders at 2–4 years, and whether this is moderated by maternal depression, active physical comforting (APC) or maternal cognitions about infant

Symbolic and situational mathematics are the two major representations of mathematical knowledge. Although previous literature has studied the relationship between the two from the perspective of teaching practice, learning effectiveness and behavioural performance, there is still a lack of empirical psychological research on cognitive mechanisms to explore the psychological processes of the two. The

In the still‐face episode of the Face‐to‐Face/Still‐Face (FFSF), parents are asked to become unresponsive. However, infant–parent interaction may be irrepressible, and there is some evidence that interaction during the still‐face is associated with attachment outcome. To explore these questions, we independently coded the continuous affective valence (negative to positive) of seventy‐three 6‐month‐old

Because the COVID‐19 pandemic has been implicated in increased mental health concerns for families of low income, we aimed to describe maternal perspectives about the pandemic's impact on their kindergartener's mental health during the 2020–2021 school year. We conducted 22 in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews with U.S. mothers with low income who had kindergarten‐age children (50% male and 50% female)

A student's socioeconomic status (SES) has a significant relation to their academic achievement. Much of this work has explored this in math and reading, but less is known about how SES relates to science achievement, particularly in the early grades. Using quantile regression with nationally representative data, we explored this relation in 12,676 kindergarten students (51.2% boys, 52.2% White, 21

Shy‐withdrawn behaviours place preschoolers at increased risk of experiencing adverse developmental outcomes. Positive teacher‐child relationships play a protective role against these negative socioemotional outcomes. This study aimed to understand, in‐depth, the beliefs, practices and support needs of preschool teachers toward shy‐withdrawn children. Thirty preschool teachers of children aged 3–5

It is known that infant‐directed speech (IDS) plays a key role in language development. Previous research, however, has also identified significant variability across societies in terms of how often IDS occurs. For example, some studies report very little IDS in non‐western, small‐scale societies – including children growing up in small‐scale societies in Tanna, Vanuatu. This is surprising given that

It has been over 10 years since the replicability crisis and open science movement entered the mainstream of psychology (e.g., Simmons et al., 2011). In that time, psychologists have been identifying and describing the nature of the problems with how we do our science (e.g., a lack of transparency, replicability and diversity) and debating proposed solutions for how to right the course. Two main themes

Children whose families experience socioeconomic disadvantage are at risk for poor sustained attention, a foundational skill related to goal-oriented behaviour, self-regulation and kindergarten readiness. Maternal parenting behaviours and parenting stress are theorised developmental pathways linking socioeconomic status (SES) to children's sustained attention. However, research has yet to empirically

From an early age, children are highly motivated to learn from others how ‘we’ do things in our cultural communities, and in a variety of domains (Csibra & Gergely, 2009; Schmidt & Tomasello, 2012; Tomasello, 2016). The human unique propensity for rapid acquisition of knowledge from others allows us to develop and maintain a vast array of belief systems, arbitrary conventions, cultural tools and complex

The purpose of this study was to examine how the members of children's peer groups resemble each other in terms of behavioural and emotional strengths, academic achievement and behaviour at school. The participants were 739 9- to 10-year-old children (354 boys, 385 girls) from 30 Finnish elementary schools. 431 children (241 girls, 190 boys) were part of peer groups. Less than 5% of participants were

The home numeracy environment is an essential construct that helps explain children's numeracy skills. However, this field has been developed mostly focusing on monolingual English-speaking families, and cultural differences that contextualize the home environment have not been considered. This study describes the home numeracy environment of Latine families by (1) identifying the more and less common

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic shut-down of in-person research laboratories, remote data collection became mainstream in developmental psychology research. The aim of this study was to test the feasibility of two remote data collection methods for studying sleep and motor development in infancy and the relationship between the two. We asked 1371 parents of infants aged 4–17 months who used the

Shift-&-persist (S&P) coping has been shown to buffer against the effects of discrimination on psychosocial functioning in racially and ethnically minoritized youth. However, existing measures of S&P refer broadly to coping with stress and are not specifically tailored to the type of stressor individuals are coping with (e.g., discrimination). The current study evaluated the measurement properties

Reading comprehension depends on oral language competence and word reading ability, as per the simple view of reading. While this theory has been studied in Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic contexts, its applicability in different educational settings characterized by multilingualism, a lack of explicit reading instruction, and the challenges of poverty (as in South Africa) remains

Object retrieval skills requiring means-end exploration are an area of relative weakness in young children with Down syndrome (DS). The current pilot study examined the object retrieval skills of a small sample of young children with DS for tasks with varying level of complexity. Thirteen children with DS (31.55 ± 4.14 months) and 13 mental age-matched typically developing (TD) children (17.31 ± 1

Despite increasing advocacy for gender equality, gender prejudice and discrimination persist. The origins of these biases develop in early childhood, but it is less clear whether (1) children's gender attitudes predict discrimination and (2) gender attitudes and discrimination vary by ethnicity and US region. We examine these questions with an ethnically (Asian, Black, Latinx and White) and geographically

The current study explores whether individual differences in the dimensional adjectives (e.g., big, tall) children understand, relates to individual differences in two non-verbal spatial abilities, spatial scaling and mental transformations, in bilingual children. The inclusion of English–Spanish bilingual children broadens the work in this area which has previously focused strictly on English language