This longitudinal study (data collected from 2019 to 2023) examines the relation between Spanish-English bilingual Latino toddlers' (n=46; F=22; M=24) early gesture production (Mage=18.67 months; SDage=1.02) and later language skills (Mage=36.87 months; SDage=0.81). Video recordings at child-age 18-months yielded counts of children's speech and gesture production; the latter included gesture words

This meta‐analytic review explored the characteristics and effectiveness of combined language (e.g., vocabulary) and code (e.g., phonological awareness) interventions, including synergistic intervention effects for at‐risk preschoolers. Data from 29 randomized controlled trials, published before March 2023, reporting on 43 interventions, including 9333 children (4–6 years; 55% male, 45% African American

Growing up with multiple siblings might negatively affect language development. This study examined the associations between birth order, sibling characteristics and parent‐reported vocabulary size in 6163 Norwegian 8‐ to 36‐month‐old children (51.4% female). Results confirmed that birth order was negatively associated with vocabulary, yet exhibited a U‐shaped pattern. A data‐driven measure of “child‐to‐caregiver

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This study examines associations between enrollment in high‐quality PreK and growth in children's (N = 422; Mage = 5.63 years; 47% female; 15% Asian, 19% Black, 30% White, 31% Hispanic; 5% other or mixed race) academic, executive functioning, and social–emotional skills across kindergarten (2017–2018) and first grade (2018–2019). Associations between PreK enrollment and language and math skills were

This study examined bidirectional changes in adolescents' awareness of inequality and race consciousness between 2017 and 2018 in the USA and whether discriminatory experiences informed developmental pathways. The sample (N = 2645; Mage = 14.6, SD = 2.14; 56.5% female; > 0.01% transgender and gender diverse) was White (35.8%), Latinx (31.4%), multiple racial and ethnic groups (13.5%), Black (7.3%)

Primal world beliefs (“primals”) capture understanding of general characteristics of the world, such as whether the world is Good and Enticing. Children (N = 1215, 50% girls), mothers, and fathers from Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and United States reported neighborhood danger, socioeconomic status, parental warmth, harsh parenting, psychological control, and autonomy

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are highly impactful stressors that increase individuals' risk for a plethora of negative developmental and health outcomes. Furthermore, minoritized groups and under‐resourced individuals are at higher risk for ACEs, positioning these stressors as possible mechanisms driving health disparities. Given this fact, a strong methodological foundation is necessary to

Identifying the neural processes that underlie the association between children's early adverse experiences and cognitive development could inform more effective intervention strategies. The goal of the current study (data collected 2015–2021) was to examine relations among early experiences at 6 months, electroencephalography (EEG) theta power at 6 months and 2 years, and cognitive outcomes at 5 years

Do children and adults recognize the value of disagreement for learning? Across two preregistered studies (data collected 2023), 4‐ to 8‐year‐old children (N = 200, 101 females, mixed ethnicities) and adults (N = 200, 99 females, mixed ethnicities) were asked whether a protagonist would learn more by talking to someone who agrees or disagrees with them about different beliefs. Across studies, participants

This research with two studies examined whether young children's moral judgments of honesty and dishonesty predict their actual cheating behavior. Participants were 200 children aged 3–6 years (2021–2022. Study 1: N = 80, Mage = 4.96, 40 girls; Study 2: N = 120, Mage = 4.98, 60 girls; all middle‐class Han Chinese). Children completed a temptation resistance paradigm assessing honest or cheating behaviors

Recent studies have established that even preverbal infants can monitor and regulate their mental states, raising the question of the variables involved in this early metacognitive development. Here, the metacognition of fifty‐five 18‐month‐old (27 females; mostly White; data collection: 2023) was assessed using an eye‐tracking paradigm designed to capture children's ability to seek information (i

The Covid‐19 pandemic underscored the significance of early childhood education and care (ECEC) for children's development. We investigated the impact of attendance at ECEC programs following a closure period due to the pandemic. We used linear regression with a lagged dependent variable to examine assessments of children's cognitive and receptive language based on a sample of Chilean children (N =

This study, involving 120 children (Mage = 4.25; SD = 0.83; 53% Female, 49% White, 23% multiracial, 16% Black, 9% Asian American, and 3% Latine) and their parents, examined parent talk constructs and their relation to children's early academic skills in 2021. Parents' talk was best represented as a three‐factor structure (general, number, and mathematical language), suggesting that mathematical language

Children's evaluations of empathizers were examined using vignette‐based tasks (N = 159 4‐ to 7‐year‐old U.S. children, 82 girls, 52% White) between March 2023 and March 2024. Children typically evaluated empathizers positively compared to less empathic others. They rated empathic responses as more appropriate, selected empathizers as nicer, and inferred more positive relationships between empathizers

Children rely on their Approximate Number System to intuitively perceive number. Such adaptations often exhibit sensitivity to real‐world statistics. This study investigates a potential manifestation of the ANS's sensitivity to real‐world statistics: a negative power‐law distribution of objects in natural scenes should be reflected in children's expectations about number, or in more Bayesian terms

DNA‐methylation profile scores (MPSs) index biology relevant for lifelong physical and cognitive health, but information on their longitudinal stability in childhood is lacking. Using two waves of data collected from 2014 to 2022 (Mlag between waves = 2.41 years) from N = 407 participants (Mage = 12.05 years, 51% female, 60% White), test–retest correlations were estimated for four salivary MPSs related

Learning takes time: Performance usually starts poorly and improves with practice. Do children intuit this basic phenomenon of skill learning? In preregistered Experiment 1 (n = 125; 54% female; 48% White; collected 2022–2023), US 7‐ to 8‐year‐old children predicted improved performance, 5‐ to 6‐year‐old children predicted flat performance, and 4‐year‐old children predicted near‐instant success followed

We investigated the role of children's conflict monitoring skills in revising an intuitive scientific theory. Children aged 5 to 9 (N = 177; 53% girls, data collected in Germany from 2019‐2023) completed computer‐based tasks on water displacement, a concept prone to misconceptions. Children predicted which of two objects would displace more water before receiving feedback. With increasing age, children

This study examined the impact of the Head Start Research‐based, Developmentally Informed (REDI) preschool intervention on high school outcomes and explored longitudinal mediation. 356 children (58% White, 25% Black, 17% Latinx; 54% female, 46% male; Mage = 4.49 years) were recruited from Head Start classrooms which were randomized to intervention (N = 192) or “usual practice” (N = 164). REDI effects

Research with Western samples has uncovered the rapid development of infants' visual attention. This study evaluated spatial attention in 6‐ to 9‐month‐old infants living in rural Malawi (N = 511; = 255, = 427) or suburban California, United States (N = 57, = 29, = 37) in 2018–2019. Using the Infant Orienting With Attention (IOWA) task, results showed that infants were faster and more accurate to fixate

Joint attention (JA) has been found to correlate with many developmental outcomes. However, little is known about how naturalistic JA is established and develops during early infancy. In this study, free‐flowing tabletop toy play between infants at 5 and 15 months and their mothers (N = 48 dyads; 65% white) was observed to (1) examine changes in JA, (2) investigate whether infants become better leaders

The out‐group homogeneity effect has been found to contribute to adults' inter‐group biases. Three studies examined whether 5‐ and 8‐year‐old Arab (i.e., minority) children in Israel also manifest this effect (March 2017–January 2020). Arab children from different religious affiliations and social environments (N = 272, 54% females) were asked to choose either a homogeneous or a heterogeneous sample

Counterfactual emotions such as regret may aid future decision‐making by encouraging people to focus on controllable features of personal past events. However, it remains unclear when children begin to preferentially focus on controllable features of such events. Across two studies, Australian 4–9‐year‐olds (N = 336, 168 females; data collected during 2021–2022) completed tasks that led to positive

Quality early childhood education (ECE) can improve children's learning and development in low‐ and middle‐income countries, but little evidence exists of programs targeting marginalized girls in vulnerable rural communities. This study used a matched‐pair mixed‐methods community‐randomized trial to evaluate a preschool program for marginalized girls (N = 466, Mage = 5‐years; W1 = 2022; W2 = 2023)

The present study examined the justifications used by children, adolescents, and adults to justify eating animals. Children (n = 100, Mage = 9.82, SD = 0.77, female n = 49) as compared to adolescents (n = 76, Mage = 14.0, SD = 1.62, female n = 36) and adults (n = 113, Mage = 44.1, SD = 14.4, female n = 54) were more ambivalent or opposed to eating animals, and they showed a distinct reasoning pattern

The late positive potential (LPP), an event‐related potential reflecting affective processing, may exhibit developmental shifts in magnitude and scalp location. In the present longitudinal study, 501 youth (47.3% female; 89.4% White; 12.0% Hispanic) completed the emotion interrupt task to elicit the LPP to neutral, positive, and negative images at approximately 9, 12, 15, and 18 years old (data collected

In critical approaches to the study of whiteness, white ignorance refers to systematic and intentional ways of (not) knowing that function to perpetuate racism. The current critical qualitative analysis examines how white ignorance surfaces in the racial identity narratives of white adolescents (N = 69, Mage = 15.91, SD = 0.49, data collected 2017–2019). Using semi‐structured interview data, we identified

This study used a natural experiment design to examine the impact of ethnic studies courses on students' ethnic‐racial identity (ERI) development, multicultural attitudes, and civic engagement during the 2021–2022 school year in Minneapolis, MN (N = 535; 33.5% White, 29.5% Black, 21.1% Latine, 10.7% multi‐racial; 44.7% female, 7.1% non‐binary). Compared to students who were quasi‐randomly assigned

Empirical findings on the associations of positive and dysfunctional parent–child relationship (PPCR/DPCR) characteristics with child shame, adaptive guilt, and maladaptive guilt were synthesized in six meta‐analyses. The 65 included samples yielded 633 effect sizes (Ntotal = 19,144; Mage = 15.24 years; 59.0% female; 67.7% U.S. samples, n = 12,036 with 65% White, 12.3% Hispanic and Latinx, 10.8% Black

Research examining relations between language skills and social competence has yielded mixed findings. Three meta‐analyses investigated links between language skills (overall, receptive, and expressive) and social competence in 2‐ to 12‐year‐old children. Data from 130 studies representing 62,120 children (M age at language assessment = 4.70 years; 52% male), predominantly from North America and Europe

Young children's helping can benefit both recipient and helper. This study examined how children and caregivers incorporate helper and recipient interests in evaluations of household helping. Data were collected throughout 2022. US children 4–6 years (N = 87; 47 girls, 40 boys; 71% European American, 23% Asian American, 14% Latinx, 3% Black, 2% Native American) and their caregivers were evaluated whether

Using data from the Human Connectome Project in Development (N = 1304; ages 5–21 years; 50% male; 59% White, 17% Hispanic, 13% Black, 9% Asian), multiple measures (self‐report, salivary hormones) and research designs (longitudinal, cross‐sectional) were used to characterize age‐related changes and sex differences in pubertal development. Both sexes exhibit a sigmoid trajectory of pubertal development;

This response to a Commentary by Delgado‐Ron, Jeyabalan, Watt, and Salway (2024) on Cimpian, Timmer, and Kim's (2023) paper discusses and clarifies some key issues in applying the new data‐validity sensitivity analysis proposed by Cimpian et al. (2023). The differences in the applications of the method by Delgado‐Ron et al. (2024) and Cimpian et al. (2023) present an opportunity to recognize the possibilities

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This study examined children's self‐assessment of their prosociality, relative to average peers, in situations where the recipient is described as “needy” versus “not needy” (at a school of average socioeconomic level in south Israel; N = 158; aged 6–12 years; 51% males, December–May 2021). The results show that older children exhibited the better‐than‐average (BTA) effect by seeing themselves as more

Overparenting—taking over and completing developmentally appropriate tasks for children—is pervasive and hurts children's motivation. Can overparenting in early childhood be reduced by simply framing tasks as learning opportunities? In Study 1 (N = 77; 62% female; 74% White; collected 4/2022), US parents of 4-to-5-year-olds reported taking over less on tasks they perceived as greater learning opportunities

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The present study investigated how Black and White American children, ages 6 to 9.5 years and 9.5 to 12 years (N = 219, MAge = 9.18 years, SDAge = 1.90; 51% female) evaluated vignettes in which peers included a same- or cross-race peer in a high-intimacy or low-intimacy context. These data were collected from 2021 to 2022. Children expected characters to be less likely to include cross-race peers in

Changes in family life related to globalization may include reduction in the collaborativeness observed in many Indigenous American communities. The present study examined longitudinal changes and continuities in collaboration in a Guatemalan Maya community experiencing rapid globalization. Fluid collaboration was widespread 3 decades ago among triads of mothers and 1- to 6-year-olds in 24 Mayan families

Few studies have focused on off-reserve Indigenous children and families. This nationally representative, cross-sectional study (data collected from 2006 to 2007) examined Indigenous- and non-Indigenous-specific determinants associated with positive socioemotional and behavioral well-being among First Nations children living off-reserve in Canada. The parents or other caregivers of 2990 two-to-five-year-old

A focus on positive child development among Indigenous children has largely been absent from developmental science. In this special section of Child Development, we sought to address continuing inequity in representation and valuing Indigenous knowledge and voices by soliciting articles that identified cultural and strengths-based factors Indigenous children, youth, and families cultivate and leverage

Indigenous populations, including American Indians, Alaska Natives, First Nations, and other first peoples worldwide, have been largely overlooked in child development research. This commentary examines how Indigenous relationality intersects with developmental science, advocating for a shift from human exceptionalism to an interconnected relationality among people, land, and more-than-human beings

All children navigate the world by searching for information in their sociocultural contexts (e.g., schools, media, laws) to make sense of their experiences and potential futures. In doing so, Native children, however, must contend with the legacy and ongoing oppression of their Peoples, communities, and ways of being. In this manuscript, we highlight how sociocultural contexts stemming from settler

Little is known about how discrimination contributes to health behaviors in childhood. We examined the association between children's exposure to discrimination and their snacking behavior in a sample of youth of color (N = 164, Mage = 11.5 years, 49% female, 60% Black, 40% Hispanic/Latinx). We also explored whether children's body mass index (BMI) or sleepiness moderated the association between discrimination

Infants differ in their level of eye movement control, which at the extreme could be linked to autism. We assessed eye movements in 450 twins (225 pairs, 57% monozygotic, 46% female, aged 5–6 months) using the gap-overlap eye-tracking task. Shorter latency in the gap condition was associated with having more parent-rated autistic traits at 2 years. Latency across the task's three conditions was primarily

This study explored young children's mental health trajectories during the pandemic (May 2020 to April 2021) as well as associations with family functioning (i.e., cohesion, conflict, chaos, and routines) using data reported by 204 parents (children Mage 5.49; 45% girls, 90% White). Children's internalizing problems decreased early on with the onset of the pandemic, but then leveled off, while no change

Speech-in-noise perception is consistently reported to be impaired in learning disorders, which stresses the importance of documenting its developmental course in young children. In this cross-sectional study, ninety children (41 females, 5.5–11.6 years old) and nineteen normal-hearing adults (15 females, 20–30 years old) were tested with a newly developed closed-set speech perception in babble-noise

To address the widespread mental health crisis facing adolescent girls, this study examined whether a growth emotion mindset lesson can enhance emotional competence. During 2018–2022, adolescent girls (Mage = 15.68 years; 66.3% White) were randomized to a growth mindset (E-MIND; N = 81) or brain education (control; N = 82) lesson, completed the Trier Social Stressor Test, and reported on various aspects

Children's foundational mathematical skills are critical for future academic attainment. While home mathematical activities (HMAs) have been proposed to support these skills, the extent to which engaging in them supports mathematical skills remains unclear. This preregistered systematic review and multilevel meta-analysis identified 351 effect sizes from 72 samples in 20 countries, exploring the relation

This study examines paternal and maternal sensitivity as predictors of toddlers' attachment security in two naturalistic contexts. Seventy-three mostly White middle-class families participated between 2015 and 2019 when children (49.3% girls) were approximately 29.48 months old. Each child–parent dyad completed a home and playground visit. Findings revealed paternal and maternal sensitivity were significantly

This study examined long-term mediating effects of the smalltalk parenting intervention on children's effortful control at school age (7.5 years; 2016–2018). In 2010–2012, parents (96% female) of toddlers (N = 1201; aged 12–36 months; 52% female) were randomly assigned to either: standard playgroup, smalltalk playgroup (group-only), or smalltalk playgroup with additional home coaching (smalltalk plus)

This study examines when the vocabulary knowledge of Japanese heritage speakers (HSs; N = 427, Mage = 9.96, female = 213) begins to diverge from monolingual counterparts (N = 136, Mage = 6.69, female = 65) and what factors explain individual differences in HS development. Vocabulary of HSs began to diverge from 5.61 years and this difference lasted until they were young adults. We also administered

While most research focused on empathic responses to negative emotions, little is known about empathy to positive emotions. We aimed to bridge this gap by examining infants' and children's empathic responses to distress and happiness, while differentiating between cognitive and emotional empathy. We conducted three studies with N = 119 3-month-old infants; N = 169 10-19 months-old infants; and N = 61

The longitudinal relation between toddlers' behaviors in uncertain situations (e.g., information seeking, hesitation) and preschoolers' uncertainty monitoring was investigated (between 2014 and 2019 in Northern California; Time 1: N = 183, M = 28.99 months, 53% female, 67.8% White; Time 2: N = 159, M = 41.64 months, 52.2% female). Eye movements and response latencies were recorded as children identified

Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) hyperscanning methodology, this study investigated whether parent emotional support moderated the relation between parent–child interbrain synchrony and interaction quality (via behavioral observation and child-report), controlling for individual emotional distress. Eighty-eight parent–child dyads (96.6% Han ethnicity), including a school-age child

Recent studies suggest that cognateness boosts bilingual lexical acquisition. This study proposes an account in which language co-activation accelerates accumulation of word-learning instances across languages. This account predicts a larger cognate facilitation for words in the lower-exposure language than in the higher-exposure language, as the former receive co-activation from their translations

This comprehensive longitudinal study explored for the first time the interrelations between neonatal brainstem abnormalities, focused attention (FA), and learning—following a preterm cohort (N = 175; 46.3% female; predominantly White) from birth (2003–2006) to 17 years. The findings indicated that FA during early childhood was associated with language outcomes in toddlerhood (n = 131) and academic

Our study on 328 five- to six-year-old kindergarteners (mainly White European living in France, 152 girls) shows that children who do not count on their fingers and undergo finger counting training exhibit drastic improvement in their addition skills from pre-test to post-test (i.e., accuracy from 37.3% to 77.1%) compared to a passive control group (39.6% to 47.8%) (p < .001, ηp2 = .15). This result

Cyr, E. N., Kroeper, K. M., Bergsieker, H. B., Dennehy, T. C., Logel, C., Steele, J. R., … Spencer, S. J. (2024). Girls are good at STEM: Opening minds and providing evidence reduces boys' stereotyping of girls' STEM ability. Child Development, 95(2), 636–647. In Table 2, two non-focal covariate labels (“Site” and “Year”) were reversed. Row 3 should say “Year” and Row 4 should say “Site (F)”. No intervention-related