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

Most research on children's play takes a context‐dependent, adult‐focused observational approach to the measurement of play. The current two studies present the development and psychometric properties of the Child Self‐Report Playfulness (CSRP) scale, which was presented via “puppet‐show” to two samples of children. Study 1, across 98 children between 5 and 7 years of age, showed that the items of

Maternal emotional and physiological dysregulation has been found to influence child stress physiology. This study characterizes diurnal cortisol and basal heart rate variability (HRV) patterns in a predominately high‐risk sample of mothers with a full range of emotion dysregulation and assessed the magnitude of concordance (N = 68 mother‐preschooler dyads). Overall, dyads exhibited concordance in

How do young children decide which events can happen within fictional stories (extension) and learn new information from these stories (export)? In two studies, we investigate these two issues as well as the influence of story genre (realistic or fantastical) on these processes. Preschoolers (N = 192) heard either a realistic or fantastical story and were asked (a) whether a target piece of information

This research explored children's attitudes towards gossipers in relation to gossip valence. Four‐ to 8‐year‐old children (N = 214) read three storybooks containing positive, neutral, or negative gossip statements. Following each book, children were interviewed on whom they viewed as nicer and more honest (ascription of desirable traits), whom they preferred to interact with (social preference), and

The aim of the present study was to examine the role of induced empathy and parent‐reported empathy (i.e., affective and cognitive) as underlying motives for children's prosocial lie‐telling tendencies. An experimental paradigm was used to elicit prosocial lies in children (N = 146, 7–11 years) in varying cost (low‐cost/high‐cost) and induction (empathy/neutral) conditions. Results indicate that induced

The development of a mind‐reading ability, known as theory‐of‐mind (ToM), has been recognized as following a universal process, but the age at which the false‐belief task is passed has been reported to have wide inter‐group variabilities. Japanese children have been reported to acquire a false‐belief understanding at a slightly older age than their western counterparts. The present study investigated

No abstract is available for this article.

Adolescent mothers have greater difficulty bonding with their baby; their infants are more likely to be difficult and their parenting is less sensitive, responsive, or positive. Research suggests that enhanced physical contact, or infant carrying, can promote positive mother‐infant interactions. Adolescent mothers, randomly assigned to two conditions at 2‐4 weeks' post‐partum: intervention (n=16; used

Maternal singing is considered vital to infant well‐being. This study focuses on vocal emotion expressions in infant‐directed singing among mothers in war conditions. It examines the questions: (a) how traumatic war events and mental health problems are associated with the content and valence of vocal emotion expressions and (b) how these emotion expressions are associated with infant development.

This study examined emotion understanding and motor skills as predictors of children's understanding of faux pas. Faux paus situations are those in which someone causes unintentional offence or behaves inappropriately. Understanding of faux pas requires knowledge of social norms in specific situations as well as emotion understanding. Misunderstanding faux pas can prevent smooth social functioning

The aim of this study was to explore associations between time spent using various media devices and executive abilities in preschoolers. Participants were 190 children (44.2% female; mean age 58.75 months, SD = 7.27). The Shape School, the Missing Scan and the Head and Feet tasks were administered to children to assess three core executive functions (mental set shifting, working memory, and inhibitory

The waist‐to‐hip ratio (WHR) is correlated with health and associated with sex, attractiveness, and age judgments by adults. We examined the development of sensitivity to the WHR by testing 3.5‐month‐old infants' (N = 71) preference between images depicting different WHRs. Female 3.5‐month‐olds exhibited a preference for the WHR associated with attractiveness and mate value by adults (0.7) over a larger

Temperament is important to consider when investigating factors influencing communicative development in infancy. Existing research supporting the assumption that temperament and verbal language development are interrelated covers mainly verbal development in toddlerhood onward, but few studies focus on these relations in infancy. The present study of 91 infants from a general population pregnancy

Executive function (EF) is a multifaceted construct of neurocognitive processes including inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility (Diamond, 2013). Research on children's EF aetiology (Friedman et al., 2008), assessment (Carlson, 2005; Willoughby, Blair, Wirth, & Greenberg, 2012), and intervention (Tang, Yang, Leve, & Harold, 2012) has grown tremendously over the past several years. Moreover

A beneficial effect of physical activity on cognitive functioning is supposed, although to a certain extent, literature remains inconsistent. Furthermore, the mediating effect of aerobic fitness on this association remains unclear, especially in children. This review presents data from 26 articles on the relation between aerobic fitness and executive functions (i.e., inhibition, working memory, and

When children transition to school between the ages of 4 and 6 years, they must learn to control their attention and behaviour to be successful. Concurrently, executive function (EF) is an important skill undergoing significant development in childhood. To understand changes occurring during this period, we examined the role of parenting in the development of children's EF from 4 to 6 years old. Participants

No abstract is available for this article.

In adults, substantial and consistent sex differences during mental rotation favouring men are obtained as long as certain methodological boundary conditions are met. In recent years, a number of studies using different stimuli and experimental approaches investigated sex differences in mental rotation in infants with inconclusive results. The goal of the present study was to examine on the basis of

Benefits of synchronous presentation of multisensory compared to unisensory cues are well established. However, the generality of such findings to children's learning with visual and haptic sensory cue pairings is unclear. Children aged 6 to 10 years (N = 180) participated in a novel tabletop category‐learning paradigm with visual, haptic, or visuohaptic informative cues. The results indicated that

Cooperation is fundamental to human society; thus, it may come as little surprise that by their second birthdays, infants are able to perceive when two human agents are working together towards a shared goal. However, far less is known about whether infants view nonhuman agents as being capable of cooperative shared goals. Thirteen‐month‐old infants were habituated to a cooperative interaction involving

The current study examined the effect of children's positive relationships and interactions with their teachers and the development of executive function (EF) skills in first grade. A primary objective was to examine externalizing behaviour problems (EBPs) as a potential moderator of the link between teacher–child relationships and interactions and EF skills. Participants for the study included 1,364