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Object exploration is considered a driver of motor, cognitive, and social development. However, little is known about how early childhood education and care settings facilitate object exploration. This study examined if children's exploration of objects during free play was facilitated by the use of particular spatial components (floor, tables, and activity centers) and types of play (solitary, social, and parallel). Participants were 61 children (aged 11 to 48 months and 50.8% boys, socioeconomic levels representative of the Dutch population). Intraindividual variability in children's object exploration was predicted by the use of particular spatial components and the social setting, with small-to-medium effect sizes. Solitary and parallel play were positively associated with complex object exploration, especially when sitting or standing at child-height tables. During social play, object exploration was mostly absent.

Why is instructional gesture ineffective in some contexts? And what is it about learners that predicts whether they will learn from gestures? This between-subjects linear measurement training study compares gesture instruction to two controls--operant action and transient action--in a diverse sample of first-grade students (N = 174, M[subscript age] = 7.01 years; N[subscript female] = 84; N[subscript male] = 90, 10% Latinx-identified; 70% White; 6% Black; 6% Asian; 18% multiple racial categories, M[subscript income] = $59,750, SD[subscript income] [approximately equal to] $25,000; data collected 03/16-03/19). Results show that instructor-manipulated gestures may be less effective than demonstrative actions in part because they are iterative and do not leave a lasting trace. Verbal working memory, but not spatial, positively predicted an ability to learn from gesture and transient action in children with the lowest context knowledge.

This study addressed whether combining tinkering with digital storytelling (i.e., narrating and reflecting about experiences to an imagined audience) can engender engineering learning opportunities. Eighty-four families with 5- to 10-year-old (M = 7.69) children (48% female children; 57% White, 11% Asian, 6% Black) watched a video introducing a tinkering activity and were randomly assigned either to a digital storytelling condition or a no digital storytelling condition during tinkering. After tinkering, families reflected on their tinkering experience and were randomly assigned to either engage in digital storytelling or not. Children in the digital storytelling condition during tinkering spoke most to an imagined audience during tinkering, talked most about engineering at reflection, and remembered the most information about the experience weeks later.

Fidget devices are often used in classrooms to help students move their bodies while attending to academic or behavioral directives. Devices range from small handheld tools such as spinners and tangle puzzles to larger full-body devices such as exercise balls. The current study provides a meta-analysis of the effects of fidget devices as academic and behavioral interventions in single-case design studies. Ten studies with a total of 59 students were included in the analysis. Results indicate that the effects of fidget devices vary widely with Tau-BC effects ranging from -1.00 to 1.00 and log-response ratio (LRR) effects ranging from -1.37 to 2.18. There is an overall positive treatment effect with LRR = 0.32 (95% CI = [0.08, 0.56]) and Tau-BC = 0.33 (95% CI = [0.02, 0.64]). The only moderating variables were, when considering the Tau-BC effect size estimates, methodological rigor and intervention implementation; studies that met What Works Clearinghouse methodological standards and were implemented within group settings had significantly higher effects than those studies that did not meet standards. Discussion explores connections to behavior analytic and sensory integration therapies and implications for fidget devices as interventions in schools.

Although there is a plethora of tools available to assess children's movement competence (MC), the literature suggests that many have significant limitations (e.g. not being practical for use in many 'real-world' settings). The FMS[superscript 2] assessment tool has recently been developed as a targeted solution to many of the existing barriers preventing practitioners from utilising MC assessments. The aim of this study was to investigate the structural and convergent validity of this new tool among 8- to 12-year-old Irish primary school children. As part of this study, 102 children (56.8% female, mean = 9.8 years) were assessed using the FMS[superscript 2], the Test of Gross Motor Development (3rd edition) (TGMD-3) (short version) and the Functional Movement Screen™ (FMS™). Structural validity was assessed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The convergent validity between the FMS[superscript 2], the TGMD-3 (short version) and the FMS™ was investigated using the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient. Results of CFA for the FMS[superscript 2] indicate a good fit model, supporting a three-factor structure (locomotor, object manipulation, and stability). Additional findings indicate a moderate, positive correlation between the FMS[superscript 2] and the TGMD-3 (short version) (r = 0.66), with a low, positive correlation between the FMS[superscript 2] and the FMS™ (r = 0.48). This study presents the first preliminary findings to suggest that the FMS[superscript 2] may be a versatile, time-efficient, and ecologically valid tool to measure children's MC in multiple settings (e.g. research, education, sport, athletic therapy, and physiotherapy). Future research should also seek to continue to implement this solution, consolidate the existing validity findings with a larger and more diverse sample, and further explore the feasibility of the tool in 'real-world' settings.

Scale errors are intriguing phenomena in which a child tries to perform an object-specific action on a tiny object. Several viewpoints explaining the developmental mechanisms underlying scale errors exist; however, there is no unified account of how different factors interact and affect scale errors, and the statistical approaches used in the previous research do not adequately capture the structure of the data. By conducting a secondary analysis of aggregated datasets across nine different studies (n = 528) and using more appropriate statistical methods, this study provides a more accurate description of the development of scale errors. We implemented the zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP) regression that could directly handle the count data with a stack of zero observations and regarded developmental indices as continuous variables. The results suggested that the developmental trend of scale errors was well documented by an inverted U-shaped curve rather than a simple linear function, although nonlinearity captured different aspects of the scale errors between the laboratory and classroom data. We also found that repeated experiences with scale error tasks reduced the number of scale errors, whereas girls made more scale errors than boys. Furthermore, a model comparison approach revealed that predicate vocabulary size (e.g., adjectives or verbs), predicted developmental changes in scale errors better than noun vocabulary size, particularly in terms of the presence or absence of scale errors. The application of the ZIP model enables researchers to discern how different factors affect scale error production, thereby providing new insights into demystifying the mechanisms underlying these phenomena.

Online learning has become a daily mode of modern education, and its effect on learning outcomes has also been widely discussed. Engagement, satisfaction and academic performance are often used to measure learning outcomes, while factors such as physical motorization, information presentation and embodied learning experiences are often used to explore learners' learning processes. In this study, we examined 120 college students who underwent different information presentation and physical motorization interventions and measured data on multiple variables. A hypothetical model based on embodied learning experiences mediating information presentation and physical motorization to influence learning outcomes was fitted and tested using structural equation modeling. Results confirmed hypotheses that learning outcomes are not directly influenced by information presentation and physical motorization; On the contrary, they are indirectly influenced through embodied learning experiences. Pay attention to the embodied learning experience of learners in online learning, optimize information presentation and physical motorization, provide opportunities for learners to encourage engagement, stimulate satisfaction and improve academic performance to enhance learning outcomes. Taken together, it is recommended that a deeper understanding of the fully mediating role and characteristics of embodied learning experience be gained and that its use be supplemented to help improve learning outcomes and teaching practice.

Previous studies found that bodily states have an impact on divergent thinking, but it remains to be seen how generalizable this effect could be, how exactly it depends on cognitive control, and whether similar effects can be found on convergent thinking. To address these questions, we examined the bodily state effect on divergent thinking, convergent thinking, and cognitive control in two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants performed the Alternate Uses Task, the Remote Associates Task, and an auditory Stroop task under one of the three bodily states: sitting, standing, or roaming. In Experiment 2, participants completed the three tasks while standing and while roaming. Results showed that bodily state had no significant effect on divergent thinking and the Stroop effect, while roaming shorten the reaction times (Experiment 1) and increased accuracy (Experiment 2) comparing with sitting or standing in the convergent thinking task. Bayesian analysis provided strong or moderately strong evidence for the null hypothesis for these effects. Taken together, the present experiments showed no stable bodily state effect on divergent thinking or convergent thinking and Stroop effect. Possible explanations for the discrepancy between the current results and those reported in previous studies were discussed.

How do age and the acquisition of independent walking relate to changes in infants' everyday experiences? We used a novel ecological momentary assessment (EMA) method to gather caregiver reports of infants' restraint, body position, and object holding via text messages sparsely sampled across multiple days of home life at 10, 11, 12, and 13 months of age. Using data from over 4,000 EMA samples from N = 62 infants recruited from across the United States and sampled longitudinally, we measured changes in the base rates of different activities in daily life. With age, infants spent more time unrestrained. With the onset of walking, infants spent less time sitting and prone and more time upright. Although rates of object holding did not change with age or walking ability, we found that infants who can walk hold objects more often in an upright position compared with nonwalkers. We discuss how accurately measuring changes in lived experiences serves to constrain theories about developmental mechanisms.

"Research Findings:" Promoting children's science knowledge by adequate measures such as guided or free play is a cardinal goal of preschool. However, there is considerable variability in preschool teachers' instructional quality in block play, which might be associated with children's domain-specific science skills but also their mathematic and language achievement. To examine preschool teachers' instructional quality in a free block play episode we used a video-based assessment. We assessed children's knowledge in block play along with mathematics, language capacity, self-concept and cognitive skills. In order to obtain first insights into the association between teachers' practice and children's knowledge, we took a correlational approach. The sample consisted of N = 73 preschool teachers and N = 431 children. The results revealed considerable differences between preschool teachers' instructional quality. Overall instructional quality during block play as well as specific dimensions such as the use of spatial language, math language and cognitive activating scaffolding were positively associated with children's stability knowledge in block play. Moreover, preschool teachers' general language use and stimulation of communication as well as their sensitivity were positively associated with children's self-concept in block play. "Practice and policy:" Our study emphasizes the importance of preschool teachers' support for children's knowledge and self-concept and expands prior findings on early science learning.

Manual exploratory behaviors during object interaction that form the basis of tool use behavior, are mostly qualitatively characterized in terms of their frequency and duration of occurrence. To fully understand their functional and clinical significance, quantitative movement characterization is needed alongside their qualitative analysis. However, there are two challenges in quantifying them--(a) reliably classifying the type of movement and (b) performing this classification on a time series automatically. Here, we propose a machine learning-based classification method to address these challenges. We measured three common exploratory behaviors (object rotation, fingering, and throwing) in college-aged adults using "sensorized objects" that had wireless Inertial Measurement Units embedded in them. We then calculated several statistical features based on linear acceleration and angular velocity data to train machine learning classifiers to identify these behaviors. All classifiers identified the behaviors with a substantially higher accuracy (average accuracy = 84.95 ± 4.16%) than chance level (33.33%). Of all models tested, Support Vector Machine Quadratic, Support Vector Machine Medium Gaussian, and Narrow Neural Network were the best models in classifying the three behaviors (average accuracy = 89.34 ± 0.12%). This classification method shows potential for automating movement characterization of exploratory behaviors, thereby may aid early assessment of neurodevelopmental disorders.

Providing effective mathematics instruction to learners with disabilities is challenging enough in a classroom. Providing the same level of high quality instruction can be more difficult in an online environment. This article describes an effective use of virtual tools for mathematics that can both engage students and provide the supports they need to learn the material. Throughout the article, the authors follow Tim's transition from teaching in his classroom at school to implementing his lesson plans through an online portal. A discussion of the concrete-representational-abstract methodology and explicit instruction adapted to use in an online environment guides recommendations.

Applying the fundamentals of motor skill development for children in the classroom setting can prove beneficial for both student and teacher. Herein, the authors will focus on what motor development is, how this manifests itself in young learners, the concept of the nonlinear pedagogy design principles, and the importance of the movement as it applies to educational principles and practice.

This study aims to improve the ability to catch in children using the ball thrower learning media. The method used in this study was experimental using a one-group pretest-posttest design. The research was conducted using manipulative motion learning to catch the ball using the throwing media. To measure and find out the results of the data obtained by researchers using the statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) software. The sample in this study was upper-grade elementary school students. Twenty students were chosen with a random sampling technique. This study's data collection technique using the instrument is a ball catch test. The data analysis technique used a t-test with a significance level of 0.05. This study concluded that there was a significant effect of learning outcomes using the ball throwing learning media on the ability to catch the ball of elementary school students.

This article uses the concept of literacy-as-event to explore the embodied meaning-making of a young child during small world play. Recent developments in literacy research, influenced by relational thinking, have led to a reconsideration of how meaning-making unfolds in home and school settings. The concept of literacy-as-event suggests that meaning-making is unpredictable and dynamic, responding to novel socio-material interactions between texts, people, objects and moments. This view suggests that there is a need to ensure children have opportunities to engage with embodied and material meaning-making beyond shared reading events. In this article, small world play after a shared reading event is positioned as enabling socio-material meaning-making through embodied and material encounters with people and objects. A single episode of small world play is presented for analysis. A multimodal analytical approach is used, drawing attention to the embodied interactions between a child, her adult and objects. Analysis of the data shows that the young child's meaning-making involved moments of physical and material "almost-hiatus," followed by erratic movements. These often unexpected fluctuations, between stillness and motion, created generative tensions between the child and her adult, enabling creative "swerves" in engagement between narrative action, character traits and story themes.

Learning to walk leads to an increase in language abilities; however, the underlying mechanisms accounting for this relation remain unclear. Investigating the quality of early gait control may offer some insights. The purpose of this study was to: (1) quantify how 13-month-olds (n = 39; 39% male) and 24-month-olds (n = 39; 59% male) adapt gait based on task (carrying vs. not carrying objects), object characteristics (size and weight), and environmental constraints (free play vs. structured); and to (2) assess how changes in gait relate to language abilities. To assess gait differences, Midwestern participants engaged in a free-play session and structured task with toys varying in size and weight while wearing motion capture markers. Parents completed an age-appropriate version of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory to measure language abilities. During free play, 13-month-olds were selective when choosing what to carry basing their decisions on object weight over size and adapting their upper-body control based on weight. Neither age group modified lower-body gait due to object characteristics but did reorganize their upper-body control. These upper-body adaptations were dependent upon age, environmental context, and task. Importantly, more mature upper-body control and more time spent in motion during free play were significant predictors of 13-month-olds' language abilities. Gait improvements may offer new opportunities for language learning; increased stability may allow young children to better focus on the objects, potentially enhancing word learning opportunities. Early movements and functional behavior during free play may be important predictors underlying the association between the onset of walking and language development.

Providing all students with equitable treatment and access has been a cornerstone of mathematics education reform (Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators, 2015; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2014). Studies in mathematics classrooms show that using hands-on and interactive materials (i.e., "manipulatives") support students' conceptual understanding (Carbonneau et al., 2013), even for those who have learning difficulties and disabilities (Jitendra et al., 2017; Marita & Hord, 2017). Unfortunately, instructional approaches that incorporate manipulatives have not been implemented on a regular basis in high school mathematics classrooms (Swan & Marshall, 2010), likely due to the misconceptions of the effectiveness of manipulatives with older students (Carbonneau et al., 2013) and teachers' belief that manipulatives can be distracting (Corkin et al., 2019). The concrete-representation-abstract instructional approach, which involves the use of manipulatives, provides a promising instructional method for use in high school mathematics classrooms.

This article discusses a case study combining the qualitative analysis of documents and videofootage. The data was collected during a short collaborative task within an ideation phase with 9-10 year old pupils customizing a store-bought t-shirt. The combination of video and document analysis allows tracing back the emergence of some of the kernel ideas visible in prototypes and final designs. The analysis also shows that the pupils in the case study have developed a pool of ideas during several collaborative phases that they could draw back on for their final designs. The close observation of both verbal and embodied dialogue in video analysis shows that the individual, simultaneous and conjoint handling of materials in an exploratory way--touching and examining, arranging and rearranging--as well as the verbal dialogue taking place during the design process plays an important role within the ideation phase in Crafts and Design lessons. Thus, the article supports previous studies in this area. This small-scale case study can also be taken as an example for how to practice studying subject-specific learning and teaching for students in teacher education with documents and video footage providing a rich resource. Additional materials available on an online-portal as of June 2020 serve as a starting point for this endeavor.

Introduction: The introduction of competence-based approach in international educational official documents has been justified by the development of more active learning methods to respond to social and equality challenges for students. Competence is defined as a situated activity composed of several components, especially knowledge built in action that is transferrable between familiar contexts. Purpose: From an activity analysis in situation, the study investigated students' lived experience in learning situations proposed by the teacher when they seek to develop competences. The aim was to identify, from the students' point of view, (i) how they built and typified knowledge during each lesson of a teaching unit and (ii) how they perceive the role of artefacts in supporting this process of developing competences. Method: Based on the theoretical framework of course of action [Theureau, J. 2006. "Le cours d'action: Méthode dévelopée." Toulouse: Octarès], a case study was conducted in a French school with two students, Mary and Maisy (Both aged 14 years; changed names) during a unit of six lessons in table tennis. Three types of data were collected: the teacher's objectives for each learning experience in the unit; audio-video records of the activity of students and teacher; students' verbalizations during self-confrontation interviews after each lesson. Three steps were undertaken for data analysis: transcription of data and construction of a two-level protocol; identification of the components involved in the process of typifying knowledge (perceptions and knowledge) and their categorization; analysis of constructed and transferred knowledge with regards to the teacher's objectives to identify meaningful moments of typifying knowledge and to understand the role of artefacts in student learning. Findings: Three meaningful moments for the students are analyzed here. Two moments referring to knowledge built were expected by the teacher. One was related to 'exchanges quality improvement' with students by using a symbolic artefact (for counting the score) and the development of various learner perceptions. The other moment was related to 'services quality improvement,' by using a material artefact (a cone) to help develop good services. The third meaningful moment referred to knowledge that was unexpected by the teacher. It is related to the misuse of an artefact by the students (the time-out introduced by the teacher). This artefact focused the student on winning 10 points without typifying knowledge expected by the teacher. Those results show how students construct and typify knowledge in action from their perception of artefacts introduced by the teacher, to develop competences. Discussion: Those findings are discussed around the risk of 'over complexification' of learning designs through use of many artefacts for developing competences in PE; the importance of developing various perceptions in typifying knowledge; and the teacher's guidance for an appropriate use of artefacts for learning. Implications: The observations in this study raised questions over the conditions in which artefacts are introduced for helping developed competence in learners. Several implications are discussed, including the stability, number and shape of artefacts; the teacher's guidance for helping students in learning artefact use and the meaning they give in action, and the development of various perceptions to help typify knowledge.

Early object name learning is often conceptualized as a problem of mapping heard names to referents. However, infants do not hear object names as discrete events but rather in extended interactions organized around goal-directed actions on objects. The present study examined the statistical structure of the "nonlinguistic" events that surround parent naming of objects. Parents and 12-month-old infants were left alone in a room for 10 minutes with 32 objects available for exploration. Parent and infant handling of objects and parent naming of objects were coded. The four measured statistics were from measures used in the study of coherent discourse: (i) a frequency distribution in which actions were frequently directed to a few objects and more rarely to other objects; (ii) repeated returns to the high-frequency objects over the 10-minute play period; (iii) clustered repetitions and continuity of actions on objects; and (iv) structured networks of transitions among objects in play that connected all the played-with objects. Parent naming was infrequent but related to the statistics of object-directed actions. The implications of the discourse-like stream of actions are discussed in terms of learning mechanisms that could support rapid learning of object names from relatively few name-object co-occurrences.

The current study examined children's spontaneous private speech during the vertical and the horizontal Tube Task to shed light on the cognitive, motivational, and emotional processes underlying tool innovation. Tool innovation is defined as solving a novel problem by using or modifying objects in a new and useful way without prior instructions. Relations between private speech of 3- to 4-year-old children (N = 89) and their task performance (i.e., success and latency to success) were analyzed using Bayesian statistics. Children who were successful at the task produced more metacognitive and cognitive speech compared to children who were unsuccessful at the task. Latency to success did not relate to (meta)cognitive speech, but it was associated to negative speech: Children who expressed negative emotions more often and who evaluated the task as being difficult needed more time to find a solution than children who used less negative speech. These findings indicate that cognitive skills and emotion regulation are closely related in preschoolers' tool innovation.

Teacher education and social education are increasingly challenged to adopt student-centred approaches by focusing on learning spaces and materiality. This study reports on an integrative literature review to determine how space and materiality are approached in the research literature on playful learning in higher education. A thematic analysis of the selected studies was carried out and we identified three themes encompassing playful learning, space and materiality, one with studies explicitly approaching playful learning in higher education, another approaching "materiality as a catalyst for playful learning" and a third with an approach concerning "established educational methods including play, playfulness and materiality". We conclude that materials are invisible parts of playful learning, space is vaguely explored and no studies on play, learning, space and materiality address teacher education and social education.

Research Findings: Although work across developmental and educational psychology reveals that trust impacts children's acceptance of claims and that teacher-student relationships impact learning outcomes, little work has integrated these literatures to better understand how students' trust in their teacher facilitates learning. In the present work, we conceptualize and measure two distinct types of trust -- epistemic trust and interpersonal trust -- in order to better understand trust and learning in the classroom. Study 1 (N = 63 3- and 4-year-olds) manipulated the behavior of an adult teacher in order to test for predicted differences in children's epistemic and interpersonal trust in the teacher. Study 2 (N = 43 3- to 5-year-olds) extended these findings beyond the laboratory by examining children's trust in their lead classroom teacher at a university-based preschool. We found evidence for distinguishing between epistemic and interpersonal trust but did not discover associations between trust and learning. Taken together, these studies offer new insights for exploring children's trust in applied contexts. Practice or Policy: Our approach highlights the importance of measuring distinct dimensions of trust from the students' perspective and has implications for educational practices related to trust-building.

Research has shown that using the Internet to access information can influence memory, metacognition, and how people choose to access information in the future. The current experiment sought to expand this line of work by investigating the impact of using the Internet on creative thinking. A total of 378 participants completed a version of the Alternative Uses Test in which they were asked to list five uncommon uses for each of four objects (e.g., a brick). Half of the participants did this on their own, without help from the Internet. The other half of the participants used the Internet to generate uses for the first two objects, and then generated uses for the last two objects without the Internet. Responses were considered on a number of measures (e.g., creativity, effectiveness, fluency, flexibility). Although creative performance was similar between the two conditions, some differences were observed, particularly with regard to the distributions of uses generated. For example, a subset of object uses generated by participants in the Internet condition were rarely generated by participants in the No Internet condition.

Providing equitable informal science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning opportunities to young children from diverse backgrounds may be a way to increase access and interest in STEM and can help to address the broader goal of increasing representation. Importantly, these learning experiences must be meaningful and engage everyday cultural practices. Guided by a strengths-based approach, the current study examines how oral stories as a cultural resource can be harnessed to support Latine children's engagement in a tinkering activity. The project explores whether and how setting an at-home tinkering activity within a story context engenders rich parent--child conversations that provide engineering learning opportunities for young children. Fifty-two Latine parents and children (M[subscript age] = 7.69 years; 23 girls; 90.4% Mexican heritage) were randomly assigned to either hear a story as a frame for a hands-on tinkering activity or to engage in the same tinkering activity without the story. After families finished tinkering, a researcher elicited the children's reflections about their tinkering experience. Approximately 2 weeks after the activity, children were asked to share their tinkering reflections with a second researcher. Parents and children in the story condition talked more about engineering during tinkering, and these children also talked more about engineering during both reflections than did children in the no-story condition. These findings suggest that integrating oral storytelling into tinkering activities is a promising future direction for the creation of more equitable informal engineering learning opportunities for Latine children and families.

Infants build knowledge by acting on the world. We conducted an ecologically grounded test of an embodied learning hypothesis: that infants' active engagement with objects in the home environment elicits caregiver naming and cascades to learning object names. Our home-based study extends laboratory-based theories to identify real-world processes that support infant word learning. Frame-by-frame coding of 2-hr video recordings of 32 mothers and their 18- to 23-month-old infants focused on infant manipulation and mother and infant naming of 245 unique objects. Objects manipulated by infants and/or named by mothers were more likely to appear in infants' vocabularies and spontaneous speech relative to nonmanipulated objects and objects that mothers did not name. Furthermore, the vocabularies of 5,520 infants hosted on Wordbank revealed an early age of acquisition of words for objects that mothers named and infants manipulated. Infants actively build object-word mappings from everyday engagements with objects in the context of social interactions.

The exploration and/or manipulation of objects and materials, referred to as object-oriented play (OOP), is one of the most prominent activities children engage in during early childhood. Especially within early childhood education, it is important to be able to assess and understand OOP, its developmental trajectory, and developmental value. This can support early childhood educators to successfully guide or enrich children's OOP, so it becomes a context in which learning can take place. During the past decades, three dominant theoretical perspectives have explained and assessed certain (developmental) aspects of OOP: (1) genetic epistemology, (2) cultural historical psychology, and (3) evolutionary psychology. After reviewing the literature concerning OOP according to each theoretical perspective, this paper aims to synthesize these existing theories into a unified theoretical framework. This theoretical framework can be a starting point for future research on OOP in early childhood (education). We answer the following research questions: Q1. What are the defining labels and features of the exploration and/or manipulation of objects and materials by children in early childhood?; Q2. What is the developmental trajectory of the exploration and/or manipulation of objects and materials by children in early childhood?; Q3. What is the developmental value of the exploration and/or manipulation of objects and materials by children in early childhood?

This study, a sub-study of a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded research project, applies a modified strategy of the U[superscript 2]MC for an eight-week afterschool robotics curriculum to promote upper elementary students' computational thinking in the second grade. Twenty-one students in second grade participated in a Life on Mars project which lasted for ten days with one class hour per day. They participated in activities learning coding concepts, basics of robotics, as well as exploring life on Mars. Most notably, the study found a significant increase in participants' computational thinking skills. In addition, participants came to understand basic robotics, including operation, composites, and codes. Implications for future research and robotics curriculum design are discussed in the presentation.

Spatial play in early childhood is associated with a variety of spatial and cognitive skills. However, these associations are often derived from studies in which different tasks are used across different age ranges, leaving open the question of how children's natural behaviors during spatial play develop from infancy into the early preschool years. We used an open-ended spatial play task to establish typically developing children's behaviors from 12 to 48 months (N = 66, 36 girls). Specifically, we observed young children's insertions into a commercially available shape sorter that included six geometric solids with corresponding apertures. Approaches to this task changed with age. Younger children primarily inserted solids into the large top opening, a strategy that did not require spatial alignment for success. Between 24 and 30 months, children shifted to inserting solids into their corresponding side openings, a more spatially and motorically difficult strategy that required aligning solids to their appropriate apertures. This pattern suggests that at 24 months, children begin to adopt more sophisticated strategies for this motor problem-solving task. Older children also completed a higher proportion of successful insertions compared to younger participants, and children successfully inserted rotationally symmetrical shapes (e.g., circle) at younger ages than rotationally asymmetrical shapes (e.g., triangle). This study represents an important first step in providing a detailed baseline of children's natural play behaviors over a wide developmental period that can be used to inform how spatial and cognitive systems contribute to spatial play.

Fifty-one 23-to-55-month-old-infants faced two apparatuses that required the use of a rigid (box apparatus) or flexible (hose apparatus) stick-like tool to retrieve a toy stuck inside. Before attempting the extraction, however, they had to pick the only one tool (of three) on display that had the appropriate rigidity/flexibility to be effective. To inform their decisions, they could either manipulate the three tools themselves (haptic information) or observe the experimenter bending and unbending them for just five seconds each (visual information) before selection. Children found more difficulties in selecting appropriate flexible tools, as compared to rigid ones. Moreover, infants' own haptic inspection of each tool did not significantly improve their selection accuracy, which indicates that observing the experimenter's demonstration conveyed all the information required to make correct choices. [Translation from English by Mercè Rius.]

In early childhood, young children frequently engage in object-oriented play. According to cultural-historical activity theory, object-oriented play provides children with opportunities to learn about the characteristics and cultural applications of objects and materials. These characteristics are referred to as rules or affordances of objects and materials. To date, what kind of rules children explore and follow, and how they do so, has not been extensively studied, even though the understanding of children's learning in object-oriented play is important for early childhood education. In the current explorative study, we analysed how six children aged between two and four years explore, follow, and impose rules during a 10-minute play activity in which they were presented with a fixed set of objects (e.g. oddly shaped blocks, boxes, abstract shaped puppets, etc.). Thematic analysis of video-observations revealed two themes: (1) children explore, follow and impose different types of rules using different strategies, increasing in complexity with age; and (2) children explore, follow or impose rules by various forms of repetition, with older children showing longer and more complex forms of repetition. In the discussion, these themes were interpreted using CHAT.

The present study deals with the influence of specific motor experiences on efficient grasp planning. Forty 5- to 6-year-old children learned to use an unfamiliar tool with either a thumb-up or a thumb-down grip to accomplish a task. Before and after training, the extent to which children would rotate the tool using an awkward initial grip (thumb-down) to ensure a comfortable end-grip (end-state comfort), a pattern that has been interpreted as representing efficient grasping, was measured. The number of thumb-down grips increased only in the group that had trained to use the tool with this specific grip, but did not change after a training with an incongruent thumb-up grip. This demonstrates how the experience with specific tool-use-related grips influences efficient grasping.

Repetition is a salient strategy used by human and non-human cohorts for learning and controlling behavior. It this research project, a case study was conducted to explore deliberate voluntary repetition in younger cohorts during their spontaneous solitary play with single or multiple objects. Two main types of repetition -- blocked and random -- were considered. Among random repetitions, three goals were identified, namely cognitive, social, and motor goals. In this case study, we followed 15 infants longitudinally to explore the nature of repetition types. We pinpointed 123 repeating play acts with objects, and the analysis showed that each play act was repeated at least three times. The most prevalent repetition was blocked repetition, which captured two-thirds of the entire rehearsal quantity. The most preferred play act used by the infants to execute the repetitions was single-object play. The infants' tendency to use blocked repetition mainly during play with a single object explained.

Object play yields enormous benefits for infant development. However, little is known about natural play at home where most object interactions occur. We conducted frame-by-frame video analyses of spontaneous activity in two 2-h home visits with 13-month-old crawling infants and 13-, 18-, and 23-month-old walking infants (N = 40; 21 boys; 75% White). Regardless of age, for every infant and time scale, across 10,015 object bouts, object interactions were short (median = 9.8 s) and varied (transitions among dozens of toys and non-toys) but consumed most of infants' time. We suggest that infant exuberant object play--immense amounts of brief, time-distributed, variable interactions with objects--may be conducive to learning object properties and functions, motor skill acquisition, and growth in cognitive, social, and language domains.

Purpose: This study examined whether 2-year-olds are better able to acquire novel verb meanings when they appear in varying linguistic contexts, including both content nouns and pronouns, as compared to when the contexts are consistent, including only content nouns. Additionally, differences between typically developing toddlers and late talkers were explored. Method: Forty-seven English-acquiring 2-year-olds (n = 14 late talkers, n = 33 typically developing) saw scenes of actors manipulating objects. These actions were labeled with novel verbs. In the varied condition, children heard sentences containing both content nouns and pronouns (e.g., "The girl is ziffing the truck. She is ziffing it!"). In the consistent condition, children heard the verb an equal number of times, but only with content nouns (e.g., "The girl is ziffing the truck. The girl is ziffing the truck!"). At test, children were shown two new scenes and were asked to find the novel verb's referent. Children's eye gaze was analyzed as a measure of learning. Results: Mixed-effects regression analyses revealed that children looked more toward the correct scene in the consistent condition than the varied condition. This difference was more pronounced for late talkers than for typically developing children. Conclusion: To acquire an initial representation of a new verb's meaning, children, particularly late talkers, benefit more from hearing the verb in consistent linguistic contexts than in varying contexts.

The emerging field of mathematics educational neuroscience provides researchers with new approaches to understanding mathematical development, as well mathematics itself. This paper focuses on the role of the hand in constructing mathematics through activity. We rely on Piaget's distinction of three kinds of activity: sensorimotor activity, internalized actions, and interiorized operations--to review results from neuroscience studies. These distinctions and related neuroscience findings contribute to a new sense of mathematical embodiment. They also provide implications for mathematics instruction.

Structured abstract: Introduction: Difficulties in science and mathematics may stem from intuitive interference of irrelevant salient variables in a task. It has been suggested that such intuitive interference is based on immediate perceptual differences that are often visual. Studies performed with sighted participants have indicated that in the comparison-of-"perimeters" task, "area" was the irrelevant salient variable. Such studies have consistently shown that accuracy is higher and reaction times for correct responses are shorter in congruent trials (no interference of area), than in incongruent trials (interference of area). Methods: Fifteen participants who are blind completed a comparison-of-area and a comparison-of-perimeters tasks, each in a different session. In each comparison trial, the participants explored two tactile geometrical shapes using both hands. To collect the participants' responses and reaction times, the researchers used a Microsoft Excel Macro file designed for this study. Results: Findings demonstrated that for both rate of correct responses and their reaction times, the performance pattern resembled the one observed previously for sighted participants. In addition, reaction times that were observed there were about five times longer compared to those observed previously for sighted participants. Discussion: These findings indicated that interference of area in comparison to perimeters is evident for participants who are blind. They further suggest that, in mathematics, people who are blind experience interference that had previously been assumed to be tied to visual perception. Implications for practitioners: The study suggests that interference of salient irrelevant variables could cause difficulties in science and mathematics for students who are blind. This knowledge could guide educators and curriculum developers for these students in selecting appropriate learning and instruction methods. In addition, the current findings point to the additional amount of time needed to access graphical information tactilely compared to visually.

This paper pays attention to the meaning of things in educational space. Students learn not only from words but also things with which they interact in the learning process. Especially in art education various things such as materials, tools, art works are indispensable. This paper tries to analyze the process of both creation and appreciation of art in the viewpoint of folding and unfolding of things. The methodology is the hermeneutic approach to the relationship between art works and viewers, materials or tools and their users, and created image and creators. In creating art works the process of unfolding things which means the interaction with materials and the learning of skills and tools can emerge only by folding the image of the creator into the things. On the other hand, it is important for appreciation to receive the image of art works by developing it freely in the inner world. As in the case of creation, appreciation needs both folding a new meaning and unfolding the multilayered art works. In conclusion both creation and appreciation of art are so complicated processes that need a high degree of intelligence. Art education can be regarded as the process of fostering intelligence as well as sensibility.

Based on theories of multimedia learning, the present study investigated whether the haptic sense serves as an additional channel to enhance the learning experience and learning outcomes. We therefore set up an experimental exhibition with two showrooms. In the first showroom, the sensory access of the participants to the exhibition objects was systematically varied in a 2 × 2 design with the between-subjects factors vision and haptics. While one group of participants could touch and see the objects, others could either only see or only touch them. The fourth group of participants found a showroom without objects. To address the auditory access, all participants were provided with information about each object via an audio guide. In the second showroom, further information was presented using posters. This showroom was the same for every participant. We aimed to investigate whether the haptic experience in the first showroom served as a motivator to engage further with the topic. The participants filled out questionnaires before visiting the first showroom, after visiting the first showroom, and after visiting the second showroom. To investigate the differences between the experimental groups on different outcomes, a memory test, a knowledge test, and various motivational-affective scales were used. The long-term effects of the information presentation were measured after 3 weeks. We found an advantage for recalling the objects and a heightened negative affect due to the haptic experience. Implications and further directions for this research will be discussed.

The importance of culture and social interactions in disciplinary learning and language development within specific social practices and contexts is now an agreed-upon notion in the science education literature. In a pivotal article in 1990, Lemke introduced the idea of manual-technical operations as one of four modes making up the "hybrid language of science". Our aim in this paper is to further unpack the concept of manual-technical operations as a mode, thereby contributing to the more complex understanding of when and how this mode enhances meaning-making and communication of ideas. Drawing from researchers in diverse disciplines, we present a visual of the complex and integrated manual-technical operations mode. It is our hope that the theoretical model proposed in this manuscript will allow researchers to develop analytic frameworks to capture and assess change in the manual-technical operations mode of the hybrid language of science.

STEM instruction often uses visual representations. To benefit from these, students need to understand how representations show domain-relevant concepts. Yet, this is difficult for students. Prior research shows that physical representations (objects that students manipulate by hand) and virtual representations (objects on a computer screen that students manipulate via mouse and keyboard) have complementary advantages for conceptual learning. However, physical and virtual representations are often embedded into different social classroom contexts, which may affect social mechanisms through which students construct connections between concepts and representations. Therefore, this paper focuses on the social events that precede concept-representation connections. Twelve high-school students worked collaboratively with physical and virtual representations of chemistry. Frequent pattern mining of discourse data was used to identify social events that often preceded concept-representation connections. Qualitative analysis investigated social mechanisms through which these events may enhance concept-representation connections. Results show that students construct concept-representation connections incrementally. Further, meta-cognitive strategies and instructor prompts often preceded concept-representation connections. Finally, differences between physical and virtual representations were mainly due to different social supports being available in the context in which the representations were embedded. I discuss contributions to literature on learning with multiple representations and to interventions that blend representation modes.

For children with moderate or severe cerebral palsy (CP), a foundational early goal is independent sitting. Sitting offers additional opportunities for object exploration, play and social engagement. The achievement of sitting coincides with important milestones in other developmental areas, such as social engagement with others, understanding of spatial relationships, and the use of both hands to explore objects. These milestones are essential skills necessary for play behavior. However, little is known about how sitting and play behavior might be affected by a physical therapy intervention in children with moderate or severe CP. Purpose: Therefore, our overall purpose in this study was to determine if sitting skill could be advanced in children with moderate to severe CP using a perceptual motor intervention, and if play skills would change significantly as sitting advanced. Methods: Thirty children between the ages of 18 months and 6 years who were able to hold prop sitting for at least 10 s were recruited for this study. Outcome measures were the sitting subsection of the Gross Motor Function Measure (GMFM), and the Play Assessment of Children with Motor Impairment play assessment scale, which is a modified version of the Play in Early Childhood Evaluation System. Results: Significant improvements in GMFM sitting scores (p < 0.001) and marginally significant improvement in play assessment scores (p = 0.067) were found from pre- to post-intervention. Sitting change explained a significant portion of the variance in play change for children over the age of 3 years, who were more severely affected by CP. Implications: The results of this study indicate that advances in sitting skill may be a factor in supporting improvements in functional play, along with age and severity of physical impairment.

Spatial skills are important for student success in STEM disciplines at the K-12 educational level. Teachers' spatial skills and feelings about completing spatial tasks influence their teaching as well as their students' spatial learning. However, the relation between teachers' spatial skills and their spatial anxiety is not well understood. Here we investigated if teachers' spatial skills influence two kinds of small-scale spatial anxiety: (a) anxiety for tasks involving visual imagery and (b) anxiety for tasks involving mental manipulations. In addition, we investigated if teachers' spatial skills in conjunction with their small-scale spatial anxiety influence the integration of spatial practices, such as gestures and diagrams, into their teaching. Eighty-two K-12 teachers completed two subscales of small-scale spatial anxiety, a measure of spatial skills, and a teaching activities questionnaire. Results indicate that teachers' spatial skills are negatively associated with their spatial anxiety for mental manipulation tasks, and positively associated with their use of spatial practices. These findings highlight the need to account for teachers' spatial skills when considering how to improve students' spatial learning.

This study examines the impact of manipulation on the performance of 3.5- and 4-year-old children in the Give-N task with concrete representations (sets of bottle caps and pictures of dots) and spoken number words. In this task, children were asked to give a certain number of items (cookies) using the three representational formats. Children were assigned to one of two conditions: manipulation (children could physically interact with the objects and pictures) or observation (children watched as the experimenter presented the representations). Results show that manipulation had different effects according to the age of the children. For 3.5-year-olds, manipulation with objects but not with pictures consisted in task-irrelevant actions, and hindered performance. For 4-year-olds, however, manipulation with both concrete representations were task related and did not disrupt performance. The mere contemplation of the objects and pictures, without physically interacting with them, facilitated performance in both age groups, in comparison with number words. Emerging cardinal comprehension seems to be influenced not only by the kind of representations used by children, but also by the type of physical exploration afforded during the task.

Fundamental motor skill development is crucial in preventing preschool children from early adoption of obesogenic lifestyles. This study aims to determine the motor skill level in preschool children and its gender differences in rural of Sarawak. This was a cross sectional study with a total of 153 children from 9 kindergartens. Children in this study performed better for object control skills (14.7 ± 3.60) than loco-motor skills (13.2 ± 4.14). Girls achieved better in loco-motor skills (15.0 ± 3.79) such as run, gallop and hop; whereas boys produced better in object control skills (15.5 ± 3.26) namely kick, throw, and roll. These findings help to highlight the need to provide gender-separated games or sports, so that both boys and girls can achieve equal level of motor skills for participation in wider range of physical activities.

The current study is the first to examine the role of exploration in play milestones development using a multi-measure micro-analytic approach. Fifteen infants, between the ages of 8 and 17 months, were observed in their natural home environment once a month for a one--hour session; their spontaneous mouthing and fingering and their play level with objects were recorded. Four types of play acts were coded: single--object play, single--object sequences, multi--object play, and multi--object sequences. The relative degree of usage of each type of behaviour at each month was examined. The results show that a combination of mouthing and fingering supported most play acts. Mouthing alone supports the simplest type of play act while fingering supports an advanced type that involves a single or several objects combined in sequences of actions. The benefits of exploring the object orally and manually in the development of play behaviour are discussed.

Children with intellectual disability (ID) tend to have difficulty with mastering fundamental movement skills, associated with cognitive deficits that impair skill acquisition. In this case study, motor learning evidence was transformed into an object control skills training program for children with ID in a school context. An implementation framework was used for program design, pilot, and evaluation. Research evidence on error-reduced motor learning was combined with practitioners' insights to inform the program design. Children with ID in the participant school were allocated to a training or control group for the pilot; object control skills proficiency was the measured outcome. The lead trainer was interviewed and their notes were reviewed for process evaluation. Significant improvements in participants' object control skills proficiency were found following training. The process evaluation confirmed fidelity and identified implementation factors. The systematically designed application was found beneficial for children with ID. Implementation criteria were identified for future iterations of an error-reduced approach to training movement skills of children with ID.