Using data from the All Our Families study, a longitudinal study of 1992 mother‐child dyads in Canada (47.7% female; 81.9% White), we examined the developmental pathways between infant gestures and symbolic actions and communicative skills at age 5. Communicative gestures at age 12 months (e.g., pointing, nodding head “yes”), obtained via parental report, predicted stronger general communicative skills

Spanking remains common around the world, despite evidence linking corporal punishment to detrimental child outcomes. This study tested whether children (Mage = 11.60) who were spanked (N = 40) exhibited altered neural function in response to stimuli that suggest the presence of an environmental threat compared to children who were not spanked (N = 107). Children who were spanked exhibited greater

Although professional development is widely used to improve the impacts of early childhood education, little is known about the conditions under which such interventions promote child outcomes. This study applies newly developed methods for quantifying intervention impact heterogeneity to understand whether educators’ collective workplace stress moderates professional development’s impacts on children’s

Distractibility is the propensity to behaviorally react to irrelevant information. Although children are more distractible the younger they are, the precise contribution of attentional and motor components to distractibility and their developmental trajectories have not been characterized yet. We used a new behavioral paradigm to identify the developmental dynamics of components contributing to distractibility

This article used self‐regulated learning as a theoretical lens to examine the individual and interactive associations between a growth mindset and metacognition on math engagement for adolescent students from socioeconomically disadvantaged schools. Across three longitudinal studies with 207, 897, and 2,325 11‐ to 15‐year‐old adolescents, students’ beliefs that intelligence is malleable and capable

Structuring is a parental response to young children’s behavior that may foster children’s attempts to use cognitive skills to engage in self‐regulation. Using a rural, economically strained sample, parental structuring in response to 127 eighteen‐month‐olds’ negative emotion was observed during a home visit. Children’s distraction, a useful cognitive strategy when waiting for a reward, was assessed

The Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence, 4th ed. includes two measures of working memory normed on children 2;6–7;7. The present analyses of the typically developing children (N = 1,591, 812 female, 779 male, with an ethnic distribution approximating the United States) provide new, theoretically important information about these working memory tasks, Picture Memory and Zoo Locations

This study examines whether changes in classroom quality predict within‐child changes in achievement and behavioral problems in elementary school (ages spanning approximately 6–11 years old). Drawing on data from a longitudinal study of children in predominantly low‐income, nonurban communities (n = 1,078), we relied on child fixed effects modeling, which controlled for stable factors that could bias

If you have come here in search of the submission requirements at Child Development, this is perhaps not the editorial you are looking for. Consider visiting instead our revised instructions to authors. Nor does this essay simply detail the priorities of the incoming board and the initiatives we will be implementing over the next 6 years, though these are summarized in Table 1. Rather, this editorial

This meta‐analysis examined associations between the quantity and quality of parental linguistic input and children’s language. Pooled effect size for quality (i.e., vocabulary diversity and syntactic complexity; k = 35; N = 1,958; r = .33) was more robust than for quantity (i.e., number of words/tokens/utterances; k = 33; N = 1,411; r = .20) of linguistic input. For quality and quantity of parental

This meta‐analysis synthesizes the empirical data on problem behaviors among foreign‐ (G1) and U.S‐born (G2+) youth and explores the effects of immigrant status on youth internalizing and externalizing problems. A random effects meta‐regression with robust variance estimates summarized effect sizes for internalizing and externalizing problems across 91 studies (N = 179,315, Mage = 13.98). Results indicated

There is growing interest in the role of linguistic cues (accents, dialects, language) in driving children’s social preferences. This meta‐analysis integrated 131 effect sizes involving 2,680 infants and children from 2 days old to 11 years. Overall, children prefer native‐accent, native‐dialect, and native‐language speakers over non‐native counterparts (d = 0.57). Meta‐regression highlighted that

In a series of meta‐analyses, paternal sensitivity was associated with children’s (age range: 7 months–9 years) overall cognitive functioning (N = 3,193; k = 23; r = .19), including language skills (k = 9; r = .21), cognitive ability (k = 9; r = .18), and executive function (k = 8; r = .19). Paternal sensitivity was not associated with children’s overall socioemotional functioning (N = 2,924; k = 24;

Adolescents’ ability to function well under adversity relies on a network of interrelated support systems. This study investigated how consecutive age groups differ in the interactions between their support systems. A secondary data analysis of cross‐sectional studies that assessed individual, caregiver, and contextual resources using the Child and Youth Resilience Measure (Ungar & Liebenberg, 2005)

Children acquire language embedded within the rich social context of interaction. This paper reports on a longitudinal study investigating the developmental relationship between conversational turn‐taking and vocabulary growth in English‐acquiring children (N = 122) followed between 9 and 24 months. Daylong audio recordings obtained every 3 months provided several indices of the language environment

Although the ability to understand speech in adverse listening conditions is paramount for effective communication across the life span, little is understood about how this critical processing skill develops. This study asks how the dynamics of spoken word recognition (i.e., lexical access and competition) change during soft speech in 8‐ to 11‐year‐olds (n = 26). Lexical competition and access for

Ethnic/racial context in peer groups is poorly understood. Using daily data from 178 ethnically/racially diverse adolescents (Mage = 14.53) over 2 weeks, this study investigated peer processes related to ethnicity/race (peer ethnic/racial processes) in everyday life. On average, peer ethnic/racial processes occurred about 1 to 4 days over the 2 weeks. On days when adolescents reported more negative

Children often judge that strange and improbable events are impossible, but the mechanisms behind their reasoning remain unclear. This article (N = 250) provides evidence that young children use a similarity heuristic that compares potential events to similar known events to determine whether events are possible. Experiment 1 shows that 5‐ to 6‐year‐olds who hear about improbable events go on to judge

The current study experimentally investigated the impact of causal‐explanatory information on weight bias over development. Participants (n = 395, children ages 4–11 years and adults) received either a biological or behavioral explanation for body size, or neither, in three between‐subjects conditions. Participants then made preference judgments for characters with smaller versus larger body sizes

Four‐, 5‐, and 6‐year olds (N = 102) observed agents perform a reasoning task that required gathering hidden evidence. An agent who made sound inferences was contrasted with an agent who made either unsound inferences (UI; failed to base conclusion on gathered evidence) or guesses (failed to gather evidence). Four‐year olds attributed knowledge to all agents and endorsed their conclusions widely. However

Societies are rife with out‐group discrimination and mistreatment. One way that children might acquire social biases that lead to such outcomes is by overhearing derogatory or disparaging comments about social groups. Children (n = 121) overheard a video call between a researcher and an adult or child caller who made negative claims (or no claims) about a novel social group. Immediately and following

This study examined the development of autobiographical memory specificity (AMS) in a longitudinal randomized controlled trial of 242 maltreated and nonmaltreated children (aged 36–86 months; 50.4% male; 39.7% Black, 25.9% White, 34.5% Latinx/other) and their mothers. Half of the maltreated families were randomized to receive an intervention to improve maternal reminiscing. The effects of maltreatment

This study replicated and extended the Feldman (2009) study by applying the developmental hierarchical‐integrative model to understand the emergence of self‐regulation. Participants included 360 children (48.6% boys; 62.8% identified as Caucasian and 36.9% African American) and their families, predominantly from a low‐income, rural background. Families completed assessments on child physiological,

When deciding whether to explore, agents must consider both their need for information and its cost. Do children recognize that exploration reflects a trade‐off between action costs and expected information gain, inferring epistemic states accordingly? In two experiments, 4‐ and 5‐year‐olds (N = 144; of diverse race and ethnicity) judge that an agent who refuses to obtain low‐cost information must

Nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Class of 2011 (n = 14,370) were used to examine the grade‐level and cumulative outcomes of school absenteeism between kindergarten and fifth grade for students’ school performance in the United States. Students who were more frequently absent in any year of elementary school demonstrated lower academic, executive

This study employs the Specificity Principle to examine the relative impacts of external (input quantity at home and at school, number of books and reading frequency at home, teachers’ degree and experience, language usage, socioeconomic status) and internal factors (children’s working memory, nonverbal intelligence, learning‐related social‐skills, chronological age, gender) on children’s English‐language

The ability to learn from expectations is foundational to social and nonsocial learning in children. However, we know little about the brain basis of reward expectation in development. Here, 3‐ to 4‐year‐olds (N = 26) were shown a passive associative learning paradigm with dynamic stimuli. Anticipation for reward‐related stimuli was measured via the stimulus preceding negativity (SPN). To our knowledge

We investigated whether individual differences in future time perception and the detail with which future events are imagined are related to children’s delay of gratification. We administered a delay choice task (real rewards), a delay discounting task (hypothetical rewards), a novel future time perception measure, an episodic future thinking (EFT) interview and IQ measures to a sample of 7‐ to 11‐year‐olds

Children struggle with exact, symbolic ratio reasoning, but prior research demonstrates children show surprising intuition when making approximate, nonsymbolic ratio judgments. In the current experiment, eighty‐five 6‐ to 8‐year‐old children made approximate ratio judgments with dot arrays and numerals. Children were adept at approximate ratio reasoning in both formats and improved with age. Children

Three hundred and ninety‐one children (195 girls; Mage = 9.56 years) attending Grades 1 and 5 completed implicit and explicit measures of math attitudes and math self‐concepts. Math grades were obtained. Multilevel analyses showed that first‐grade girls held a strong negative implicit attitude about math, despite no gender differences in math grades or self‐reported (explicit) positivity about math

We examined the longitudinal relations among parental socialization practices—including acceptance or harsh parenting and ethnic socialization—ethnic identity, familism, and prosocial behaviors in a sample of U.S. Mexican youth. Participants included 462 U.S. Mexican adolescents (Mage at Wave 1 = 10.4 years old; 48.1% female), their mothers, and fathers at the 5th, 7th, 10th, and 12th grades. Results

Children raised in neighborhoods with low socioeconomic status (SES) are at risk for low academic achievement. Identifying factors that help children from disadvantaged neighborhoods thrive is critical for reducing inequalities. We investigated whether children’s prosocial behavior buffers concurrent and subsequent academic risk in disadvantaged neighborhoods in Bradford, UK. Diverse children (N = 1

This study investigated age‐dependent improvements of monitoring and control in 7/8‐ and 9/10‐year‐old children. We addressed prospective (judgments of learning and restudy selections) and retrospective metacognitive skills (confidence judgments and withdrawal of answers). Children (N = 305) completed a paired‐associate learning task twice, with a 1‐year delay. Results revealed improvements in retrospective

Children, mothers, and fathers in 12 ethnic and regional groups in nine countries (N = 1,338 families) were interviewed annually for 8 years (Mage child = 8–16 years) to model four domains of parenting as a function of child age, puberty, or both. Latent growth curve models revealed that for boys and girls, parents decrease their warmth, behavioral control, rules/limit‐setting, and knowledge solicitation

A problematic way to think about social categories is to essentialize them—to treat particular differences between people as marking fundamentally distinct social kinds. From where do these beliefs arise? Language that expresses generic claims about categories elicits some aspects of essentialism, but the scope of these effects remains unclear. This study (N = 204, ages 4.5–8 years, 73% White; recruited

Two‐ and 3‐year‐old children (N = 96) were tested in an object‐choice task with video presentations of peer and adult partners. An immersive, semi‐interactive procedure enabled both the close matching of adult and peer conditions and the combination of participants’ choice behavior with looking time measures. Children were more likely to use information provided by adults. As the effect was more pronounced

Given the detrimental effects associated with problematic internet use (PIU) and the need to better understand its nature and evolution, the present study examined the development of PIU in a sample of 1,750 adolescents (aged 16–19) from Finland over a 3‐year period. We documented the social (loneliness, perceived maternal and paternal behaviors) and individual (sex) antecedents, as well as the outcome

How should one respond to ubiquitous economic inequalities? The legend Robin Hood suggests to take away from the wealthy to benefit the poor, whereas another strategy holds the opposite (Matthew effect). Here, 3‐ to 8‐year‐old children (N = 140) witnessed protagonists performing redistributions (e.g., Robin Hood, Matthew) of necessary and luxury resources between a wealthy and a poor child. Results

A double‐blind randomized controlled trial of n‐3 long‐chain polyunsaturated fatty acid (n‐3 LCPUFA) supplementation or matching placebo during third trimester of pregnancy was conducted within the COPSAC2010 mother‐child cohort consisting of 736 women and their children. The objective was to determine if maternal n‐3 LCPUFA pregnancy supplementation affects offspring neurodevelopment until 6 years

This research tests the role of visual perspective taking (VPT) in mediating the relation between spatial ability and theory of mind (ToM). Study 1 demonstrated such mediation correlationally in seventy 3.5‐ to 4‐year olds. In Study 2, twenty‐three 3.5‐ to 4‐year‐olds were trained on using play blocks to copy preassembled models as a way to promote spatial ability. Resultant increases in VPT and ToM

Accurate time perception is crucial for hearing (speech, music) and action (walking, catching). Motor brain regions are recruited during auditory time perception. Therefore, the hypothesis was tested that children (age 6–7) at risk for developmental coordination disorder (rDCD), a neurodevelopmental disorder involving motor difficulties, would show nonmotor auditory time perception deficits. Psychophysical

The study examines whether and why parental job loss may stifle early child development, relying on cohort data from the population of children born in Ireland in 2007–2008 (N = 6,303) and followed around the time of the Great Recession (2008–2013). A novel approach to mediation analysis is deployed, testing expectations from models of family investment and family stress.

An important aspect of executive functioning is the ability to flexibly switch between behavioral rules. This study explored how considering the multidimensionality of objects affects behavioral rule switching in 3‐year‐old children. In Study 1 (N = 40), children who participated in a brief game separating and aggregating an object’s dimensions (i.e., color and shape) showed improved performance on

This study conducted two meta‐analyses to synthesize the association between children’s language skills and two broad‐band dimensions of psychopathology: internalizing and externalizing. Pooled estimates across 139 samples (externalizing k = 105; internalizing k = 90) and 147,305 participants (age range: 2–17 years old; mean % males: 53.75; mean % White participants: 55.59; mean % minority participants:

Similes require two different pragmatic skills: appreciating the intended similarity and deriving a scalar implicature (e.g., “Lucy is like a parrot” normally implies that Lucy is not a parrot), but previous studies overlooked this second skill. In Experiment 1, preschoolers (N = 48; ages 3–5) understood “X is like a Y” as an expression of similarity. In Experiment 2 (N = 99; ages 3–6, 13) and Experiment

Females generally attend more to social information than males; however, little is known about the early development of these sex differences. With eye tracking, 2‐month olds’ (N = 101; 44 females) social orienting to faces was measured within four‐item image arrays. Infants were more likely to detect human faces compared to objects, suggesting a functional face detection system. Unexpectedly, males

Children need to learn to persist through challenges, yet adults sometimes step in to solve problems for them. Here, we looked at how adult taking over related to children’s persistence. In an observational study (N = 34, ages 4–8), we found that parents who took over more often during a challenging puzzle task rated their children as dispositionally less persistent. To establish whether taking over

To investigate the role of early regulatory problems (RP), such as problems in feeding, sleeping, and calming down during later development, the association between parent‐reported RP at 3 months (no‐RP, n = 110; RP, n = 66) and attention to emotional faces at 8 months was studied. Eight‐month‐old infants had a strong tendency to look at faces and to specifically fearful faces, and the individual variance

Pre‐mobile infants and caregivers spontaneously engage in a sequence of contingent facial expressions and vocalizations that researchers have referred to as a social “dance.” Does this dance continue when both partners are free to move across the floor? Locomotor synchrony was assessed in 13‐ to 19‐month‐old infant–mother dyads (N = 30) by tracking each partner’s step‐to‐step location during free play

Although many U.S. children can count sets by 4 years, it is not until 5½–6 years that they understand how counting relates to number—that is, that adding 1 to a set necessitates counting up one number. This study examined two knowledge sources that 3½‐ to 6‐year‐olds (N = 136) may leverage to acquire this “successor function”: (a) mastery of productive rules governing count list generation; and (b)

Preferences for pink and blue were tested in children aged 4–11 years in three small‐scale societies: Shipibo villages in the Peruvian Amazon, kastom villages in the highlands of Tanna Island, Vanuatu, and BaYaka foragers in the northern Republic of Congo; and compared to children from an Australian global city (total N = 232). No sex differences were found in preference for pink in any of the three

Maintaining learning engagement throughout adolescence is critical for long‐term academic success. This research sought to understand the role of metacognition and motivation in predicting adolescents' engagement in math learning over time. In two longitudinal studies with 2,325 and 207 adolescents (ages 11–15), metacognitive skills, interest, and self‐control each uniquely predicted math engagement

Having one’s funding cut in the course of conducting a longitudinal study has become an increasingly real challenge faced by developmental researchers. The main purpose of the current work is to propose “post hoc” planned missing (PHPM) data designs as a promising solution in such difficult situations. This study discusses general guidelines that can be followed to search for viable PHPM designs within

Drawing on data from a longitudinal study of 204 Mexican‐origin adolescent mothers, their mother figures, and their children, the current investigation examined (a) adolescent mothers’ educational re‐engagement and attainment beginning during their pregnancy and ending when their child was 5 years old; and (b) the influence of the family economic context on adolescent mothers’ educational re‐engagement

The current work investigated the extent to which children (N=171 6‐ to 8‐year‐olds) and adults (N = 94) view punishment as redemptive. In Study 1, children—but not adults—reported that “mean” individuals became “nicer” after one severe form of punishment (incarceration). Moreover, adults expected “nice” individuals’ moral character to worsen following punishment; however, we did not find that children

This study examined the effects of daily parental autonomy support on changes in child behavior, family environment, and parental well‐being across 3 weeks during the COVID‐19 pandemic in Germany. Day‐to‐day associations among autonomy‐supportive parenting, parental need fulfillment, and child well‐being were also assessed. Parents (longitudinal N = 469; Mage = 42.93, SDage = 6.40) of school children

We explore the developmental origins of intervention against gender‐based pay inequality in 4‐ to 9‐year‐old children in the United States (N = 123; Study 1) and Peru (N = 115; Study 2), two countries characterized by different norms surrounding gender pay equity. We presented children with scenarios that featured gender‐based pay inequality, and they could intervene at a cost to redistribute the earnings

Two studies ask whether scaffolded children (n = 243, 5–6 years and 9–10 years) recognize that assistance is needed to learn to use complex artifacts. In Study 1, children were asked to learn to use a toy pantograph. While children recognized the need for assistance for indirect knowledge, 70% of scaffolded children claimed that they would have learned to use the artifact without assistance, even though

This meta‐analysis investigated the link between lying and theory‐of‐mind (ToM) by integrating findings from 81 studies involving 7,826 children between 2 and 14 years of age from 14 different collectivist and individualist cultures. Overall, there was a small, significant positive association (r = .23). Four main moderators were examined: facet of lying (understanding, instigated production, spontaneous

This study examines associations between childhood maltreatment and developmental trajectories of sexual risk behaviors (SRBs) in a sample of 882 sexually active adolescent girls, predominantly Hispanic or Black, assessed every 6 months between 13 and 23 years. Latent profile analyses revealed four distinct maltreatment profiles: Low Maltreatment (76%), Moderate Emotional Neglect Only (15%), Severe