We studied the timing of the spontaneous vocalization that occurs in dyadic interactions of fathers and their neonates. We recorded 21 fathers speaking to their 2 to 4-day-old newborns at the maternity ward and accurately coded all beginnings and endings of paternal and neonatal vocalization, using sound visualization software. Temporal relations between successive and overlapping newborn and father

In Germany and continental Europe, more broadly, race and ethnicity are concepts that are not widely used and are increasingly erased from the legislation. Nevertheless, race and ethnicity are still used as social markers and often merely replaced with other terms (e.g., cultural background). The goal of this paper is threefold. First, we point to the danger of treating race and ethnicity as essentialist

In this essay we argue that the over-reliance on age effects in the field of developmental psychology belies attention to actual development, obscuring attention to actual developmental processes. We use examples from diverse content areas in developmental psychology, such as narrative and autobiographical memory, personality trait development, Piagetian conservation tasks, pubertal timing, and Dynamic

Representational theory of mind—the ability to represent others' mental states and understand that these beliefs can be different from one's own and reality—emerges in early childhood alongside other meta-representational abilities, such as understanding that an image can be perceived in multiple ways. Limited research has suggested that individual differences in theory of mind and pictorial meta-representation

Conceptual and methodological differences resulted in unclear evidence of whether parents do differ in how they engaged in joint play with their children. The purpose of the study was to examine whether mothers and fathers differed in how they support their child's playfulness through joint play experience. One-hundred thirty-two English-speaking parent–child dyad with predominately married Caucasian

Children born preterm are at increased risk for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and subclinical attention problems. The ADHD profile that presents following prematurity has been characterized by inattention without impulsivity or hyperactivity. This supports the existence of a preterm attentional phenotype. This review aims to examine the preterm attentional profile regarding three

In this commentary, I argue that study participants, authors, and editorial members in developmental science are biased toward Western populations. First, I analysed the study participants and first authors of articles in Infant and Child Development between 2006 and 2010 and between 2016 and 2020. The results suggested that most study participants and first authors were from the Western population

Developmental science poses some of the most profound problems in all of science and some of the most difficult ones. Because the answers are so important to human health and well-being, it's essential that researchers do everything possible to accelerate discovery and promote reproducibility and rigour. In this essay, we argue that fully embracing open practices—especially data and materials sharing—will

Although the field of developmental psychopathology has traditionally focused on mental health, there has been increasing interest in exploring how psychological and developmental factors are associated with physical health. I argue that the principles of developmental psychopathology may be particularly useful for understanding physical health across development. I discuss how researchers can apply

Recent research revealed rich socio-cognitive abilities in toddlerhood. The current study investigates whether 21-month-olds expect that wealthy agents help agents needing food or shelter. By using the violation of expectation (VoE) implicit paradigm, toddlers' expectations on helping behaviors were explored upon the arrival of agents that need food (food condition) and shelter (shelter condition)

The study examined the relation between the security of attachment and trust beliefs in close others during middle childhood. In the study, 133 children (63 girls, Mage = 9.5 years) completed standardized measures of the security of attachment and three bases of trust beliefs in close others (reliability, honesty, and emotional). Correlational analyses showed that children's security of attachment

How do researchers of cognitive development work to make sure that our field evolves so that our contribution to humanity is emancipatory? We can take inspiration from researchers near and far. Inspiration may be found in other areas of psychological research (social, cultural, etc.) and other social sciences (public health, sociology, etc.). Frameworks developed in other fields (e.g., intersectionality

Commonly proven abnormalities in the structure and functioning of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) are related to cognitive deficits in children with ADHD. The purpose of the randomized controlled study was to assess the efficacy of intervention using hemoencephalographic biofeedback (HEG BFB) in PFC in ADHD and neurotypical children. The final cohort consisted of 120 children aged 9–15 years, including

Gender inequality in housework divisions is persistent. This study examined early-emerging patterns in gender roles via children's gendered housework time in the Irish context using time-use diary and questionnaire data, controlling for key demographic variables. This study utilized longitudinal “Growing up in Ireland” data, comparing the same children's behaviour at age 9 and 13. Participants were

Research distinguishes three types of arithmetic: exact arithmetic, computational estimation and approximate arithmetic. Little is, however, known about the interrelationship among these three arithmetic skills and the general cognitive and early numeracy skills that underlie these arithmetic skills. The current study investigates this interrelationship and underlying processes in 389 kindergartners

No abstract is available for this article.

Object word learning can be based on infant-related factors such as their manual actions and socio-linguistic factors such as parental input. Specific input for spatial features (i.e., size, shape, features of objects) can be related to object word comprehension in early vocabulary development. In a longitudinal study, we investigated whether fine motor abilities at 14 months and parental input for

High-quality, centre-based education and care during the early years benefit cognitive development, especially in children from disadvantaged backgrounds. During the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated lockdowns, access to early childhood education and care (ECEC) was disrupted. We investigate how this period affected the developmental advantages typically offered by ECEC. Using parent-report data

We investigate when infants exhibit knowledge of the familiar size of well‐known objects and whether this knowledge is affected by stimulus format, that is, whether the stimuli are presented as real objects or matched pictures. Infants (130 7‐ and 12‐month‐olds) saw everyday objects such as sippy cups and pacifiers in their familiar size and novel sizes (larger or smaller than the familiar size) placed

The convergence between sensitivity scores on the Ainsworth and Emotional Availability Scales was examined, along with their associations with maternal warmth, children's language ability and likeability by peers in preschool. Participants were 167 mothers and their child aged 4–6 (55.7% girls) from the four major ethnic groups in Singapore (Chinese, Malay, Indian and Other). Emotional availability

Metaphor understanding is a pragmatic inferential skill that serves a social function in adulthood. The present longitudinal study was designed to investigate the existence and the direction of the associations between metaphor understanding and peer relationships in children. One‐hundred twenty‐six typically developing 9‐year‐old children were tested at baseline and a year later for their ability

To understand socialization pathways in the development of specific, self‐relevant emotions, we examined the socialization of third‐grade children's experience and expression of pride in a sample of 196 mother–child dyads, including children's gender and race as instantiations of cultural contexts. Mothers' self‐reported beliefs about the value of positive emotions, beliefs about the value of negative

This study aimed to develop an illustration‐based developmental motor screening questionnaire (DMSQi) for young children and examined its psychometric properties. 463 young children and their caregivers were collected and received the DMSQi assessment. DMSQi is made up of two domains. The gross motor (GM) domain includes body coordination and stability/mobility subdomains. The fine motor (FM) domain

Digital technologies are drastically changing the lives of children and young people. For years, the default psychological approach to addressing questions about digital technology's effects on development was to try and establish evidence‐based time use guidelines, that is, concrete amounts of time that children and adolescents are recommended to spend on digital technologies to avoid negative impacts

No abstract is available for this article.

Overimitation is imitating relevant and irrelevant actions to achieve a final goal (Lyons et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2007, 104(50), 19751–19756). We investigated whether the order of demonstration (the irrelevant action is demonstrated before or after the final goal) induces overimitation when using explicit instruction (saying the instrumental

Developmental programming of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis is theorized as a mechanism through which early life experiences are linked to later health outcomes. Despite the importance of understanding early stress responses, reliably eliciting stress responses in young children can be challenging. The current study measured salivary cortisol reactivity in a diverse sample of preschoolers

This study examined the associations between perceived and observed coparenting and toddlers' adaptive functioning. Seventy-seven typically developing toddlers aged between 21 and 27 months and their biological parents residing in Ireland participated in the study. Participating families were Caucasian and English speaking. Parents' perceived coparental relationship was assessed via self-report. In

References to internal states (e.g., thoughts, feelings, and desires) indicate children's appreciation of people's inner worlds. Many children spend time playing video games; however, the nature of children's speech when doing so has received little attention. We investigated the use of internal state language (ISL) as 251 seven-year-olds played with toy figures and a video game designed for the study

Diverse mechanisms account for the familial aggregation of certain personality traits and externalizing psychopathology. We explored the roles of positive and negative parenting as mediators of longitudinal associations between parents' maladaptive personality traits and their children's inattention/hyperactivity problems. We collected self, informant and observational measures of parent personality

This study examines the association between teacher–child interaction quality and children's self-regulation in Finnish and Portuguese toddler classrooms. The participants included 230 Finnish (M = 29; SD = 3 months) and 283 Portuguese (M = 30, SD = 4 months) toddlers and their teachers (n = 43 Finland; n = 29 Portugal). The children's behavioural self-regulation (attention, working memory, and inhibition

This prospective longitudinal study examined how maternal prenatal substance use disorder (SUD) and early mother–infant interaction quality are associated with child social cognition (emotion recognition and mentalization) at school age. A sample of 52 poly-substance-using mothers receiving early interventions and 50 non-users, along with their children, was followed from pregnancy to school age. First-year

No abstract is available for this article.

The last thing I wanted to do was take on another editorship. I had just finished up a 4‐year stint as Editor‐in‐Chief of Emerging Adulthood and was looking forward to some time off from the rewarding yet majorly tiresome work of editing. But Sarah Oates and Sarah Scoffield from Wiley convinced me otherwise: they wanted Infant and Child Development to be a forward‐thinking journal and were willing

The following authors have provided manuscript reviews during the year January to December 2020. The Editors are very pleased to take this opportunity to record their sincere gratitude for such invaluable support of the journal. Julie Aikins Lauren Altenburger Nazli Altinok Iryna Babik Bruce Baker Kim Bard Gabriela Bento Annie Bernier Nathaniel Blanco Grégoire Borst Sandra Bosacki Janet Boseovski Marie

Four‐and‐a‐half‐month‐olds look longer at silent mouth movements corresponding to a language they previously listened to. The perceptual narrowing hypothesis suggests this general ability to decline as a consequence of experience with the infant's native language. We tracked eye‐gaze of German and Swedish infants longitudinally in an intersensory matching procedure at 4.5 and 6 months of age. Infants

The most used frames of reference in spatial memory, which allows us to move through the environment, are the egocentric, related to one's own perspective, and the allocentric, based on environmental cues. Although many tasks have been proposed, those that evaluate the two frames of reference separately and compare adults and children are scarce. Our aim was to assess egocentric and allocentric spatial

Little is known about influences on gender typicality. To address this issue, the present study examined developmental antecedents of preadolescents' gender typicality. Using a longitudinal multi‐method design, we investigated the prospective associations between the quality of parent–child relationships in childhood and preadolescents' subsequent gender typicality. It was hypothesized that feelings

Humans adjust behaviour in the presence of others in a phenomenon called social influence, which can be categorized into social facilitation (promotional effects) and social loafing (inhibitory effects). The study examined whether the productivity level of the partner in individual and collaborative tasks produced a social influence on children's task performance. The participants were aged 4‐ to 6‐years‐old

As children learn how to manage their reputation, they must assess when it is appropriate to make positive claims about themselves. To navigate this challenge effectively, they need to learn that these statements can have reputational costs as well as benefits. Although it is well established that children develop this understanding during middle childhood, it is not known whether they understand that

No abstract is available for this article.

When identifying parental socialization processes influencing children's reading achievement, building self‐regulation is a potential underlying mechanism. Yet socialization (i.e., warmth, stress) of self‐regulation may vary based on the sociocultural context of ethnic minority families. Using the ECLS‐K: 2011 (N = 17,020; MAge = 73.43 mos, SD = 4.48 mos), we explored: (RQ1) Do kindergarten approaches

Fluent reading, which involves visual serial processing of letters/characters (i.e., visual temporal processing, VTP), greatly contributes to our daily life. The present study thus explored the underlying mechanism of reading fluency from the perspective of VTP. A longitudinal method was adopted to examine whether VTP skills in preschool (mean age of 5.03 ± 0.06 years) could predict reading fluency

This study investigated how mothers' depressive symptoms were related to their children's depressive symptoms through children's perceived attachment security to their mother. Ninety‐six mothers reported on their depressive symptoms. Children reported on their depressive symptoms and their attachment security with their mothers. The results indicated that children's perception of security with their

This study investigated the possible unique effects of pre‐and postnatal maternal depressive symptoms in relation to parenting and children's effortful control in predicting children's adjustment. Contextual risk factors (income, negative life events) were modelled. Mothers and children (N = 306) were assessed four times, including T1 maternal reports of depressive symptoms, T2 observed parenting,

No abstract is available for this article.

This study investigated the influence of spontaneous focusing on numerosity (SFON) tendency on the performance and estimation patterns on number line estimation (NLE). To examine this question, 147 preschoolers (3.51–4.52 years) completed two types of SFON task (referenced SFON task and non‐referenced SFON task) and three conditions of NLE (non‐symbolic area, number‐to‐position, and position‐to‐number)

Values (e.g., achievement, helping) describe what is important to people in their lives. Past studies show that children's values are similar across ages and resemble the values of adults, but this study investigated areas in which concepts of values may vary with age. N = 122 children aged 5 to 12 (mean = 8.97, SD = 1.88) were interviewed regarding values important and unimportant to them. Responses

We examined infant activity level and attention in 45 eight‐month‐old infants (mean age 8.8, SD = 2.07) living in two diverse socio‐cultural contexts: rural island societies in the South Pacific and urban Western societies in North America. Infants and mothers were observed for 10 minutes in a face‐to‐face interaction and later coded for the frequency of infants' motor movements and gaze shifts. Results

Using a sample of 1,117 families living in low‐wealth rural areas, the current study focused on how home literacy practices for 3‐year‐old children were related to the children's language skills at ages 3 and 4. Three types of home literacy practices were explored: parent‐to‐child literacy practices, child literacy practices, and parent literacy practices. Results indicated that a variety of parent‐to‐child

Developmental delays (DD) are missed early childhood developmental milestones in cognitive, motoric or linguistic domains. DD associated with behaviour problems may compound to impact parenting. This study investigated whether DD would moderate the relation between behaviour problems and parenting in families of toddlers. Data were drawn from an Early Head Start (n = 564) sample. The Ages and Stages

The relation between children' lying behaviour and their mental state understanding was investigated among a group of 3‐ and 4‐year‐olds (total N = 97). Two types of lying were examined: concealing‐transgression lying, which was assessed using a temptation resistance paradigm, and competitive game lying, which was assessed using a hide and seek paradigm. Mental state understanding was examined using

Maternal depression is associated with disrupted responsiveness during mother–infant dyadic interactions. Less research has evaluated whether responsivity between mother and offspring is altered in interactions during the preschool years, a period of vast socio‐emotional development. In the current study, 72 mothers and preschoolers engaged in a positive emotion‐eliciting task, in which they drew and

Two experiments examined first, third, and fifth graders, (seventh graders in Experiment 2), and adults' ratings of an actor's mood, instrumental, social, and a variety of simple and complex psychological goals as explanations of an actor's positive or negative behaviour toward a recipient in the absence (Experiment 1) or presence of bystanders (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, for positive stories

There has long been a hypothesized link between pretend play and self‐regulation in childhood, and several recent studies have confirmed a positive relation between the two in children as young as preschool‐age. However, no research to date has investigated whether this relation is present in toddlerhood. The purpose of the present study is to explore whether toddlers' pretence is correlated with emerging

The aim of this study was to test the relationship of theory of mind (ToM) and maternal emotional expressiveness with children's aggressive behaviours (i.e., relational aggression, physical aggression). ToM is vital to relational aggression, which involves harming others through purposeful manipulation and damaging peer relationships. However, little is known about how ToM and family emotional environment

Executive functions (EF) have been identified as important predictors of children's proximal and distal development. Recent research highlights pretend play as a potential mechanism for EF development, and there has been a call to identify for whom pretense in most beneficial. The current study investigated whether an association found between children's propensity towards pretend play in preschool

Toddlers show high sensitivity to creator's intention when they interpret pictures. Previous research suggest that toddlers' performance can be facilitated in a picture comprehension task by making available the creator's intention that is, the social origin of picture‐creation. The present study aims to test the generalizability of this facilitative effect in two very young age groups (24‐ and 26‐month‐olds)

At preschool age, motor skills and cognitive functions are regularly examined at well‐child visits. Although reliable screening depends on the stability of the assessed developmental domains, little is known about the stability of motor and cognitive performance in preschool children. The aim of the present study was to investigate how stable motor skills and cognitive functioning are in the preschool

Direct and moderated connections among symptoms of inattention, High‐Frequency Heart Rate Variability (HF‐HRV), and reading comprehension scores were examined. Children age 7 to 12 were rated by both parents and teachers on symptoms of inattention with the Behavior Assessment System for Children. Reading was assessed with the Peabody Individualized Achievement Test, and HF‐HRV was examined during a