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Children are unique humans and experience varied development even though they are of the same gene or the same sex but grow and develop according to their respective characteristics. Of course, this condition also demands adjustments in providing appropriate and varied stimuli and responses. This study aims to observe the growth and development of children to explore the growth and development of children and see the reactions generated by children if given a specific stimulus. This research method uses longitudinal case studies. The respondents of this study were three children. The study found that children's cognitive, psychosocial and moral development can be developed by conditioning the child and the child's environment. Children's health and a conducive environment play an essential role in determining children's growth and development. Maternal health and parental cooperation also determine the growth and development of the child.

Social studies have been marginalized in early childhood education amid the prevalence of standardized testing and political issues. However, a comprehensive approach to early education, including social studies, is gaining attention. This article emphasizes the significance of incorporating social studies into early childhood curriculum, illuminating its potential to enhance children's cognitive and social-emotional development. The second important aspect of this article focuses on the role of social studies in literacy skill development through building background knowledge, critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills of young children.

This research aims to produce integrated biology teaching materials with the values of the Al-Qur'an and As-Sunnah that are valid and effective in improving cognitive, psychomotor, and strengthening students' faith and devotion. This development research (R&D) uses the ADDIE model which consists of five stages, i.e. analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. The data collection techniques used were literature studies, observations, interviews, questionnaires, and tests. Data collection instruments used include interview sheets, validation sheets, questionnaire sheets, pre-test and post-test question sheets, observation sheets, and checklists. The teaching materials were validated by three validators (material experts, learning experts, Al-Qur'an/Hadist experts), and practitioners from several biology teachers from different schools. The data was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively (triangulation). The research results showed that the teaching materials developed met the very valid category based on the assessment of material experts, learning experts, Al-Qur'an/Hadist experts, and practitioners. Moreover, the products received excellent responses from the students. The teaching materials could improve students' cognitive and psychomotor and also increase students' values of faith and piety. Further action will be extended to schools, especially schools with Islamic nuances so that they can be used both as self-taught materials for students and as teaching materials for teachers to use in the learning process.

As the demand for opportunities to learn English grows throughout the world, parents and educators are looking for innovative ways to engage students in English-learning opportunities. Perhaps your school or municipality will seek to initiate an English Camp to be on trend with this growing need. Or perhaps, like many go-getter teachers, you wish to initiate such a program on your own. This article explains the basics of designing and organizing a themed English Camp. The process is illustrated by examples from camp programs that were designed as Open Educational Resources (OERs) by English teachers in Belarus, beginning in 2021. The programs are the product of a course organized and facilitated by the authors of this article.

It is a very important step to consider the variables that affect sibling relationships together. This study aimed to determine the effects of the variables Birth Order (First, Middle, and Last), Gender (Female, Male), and Number of Siblings ("two or three" and "four or more"), which have been suggested to affect sibling relationships in the literature, in young adults. The family is one of the essential components of society. What makes the family is the interaction and communication between mother, father, and children. Sibling relations are an essential part of these. Sibling relations play an important role in individuals' cognitive, mental and social development. It is the research defined to examine relationships. "Lifelong Sibling Relations Scale" was directed to 735 university students in the study. Data were collected from students attending a university in Turkey. The interaction of three variables for the sub-dimensions of the scale and the total scores obtained from the scale were examined separately. Aligned rank transformation ANOVA (ART anova) was used since there were three different independent variables in the study and the values did not show normal distribution. In order to carry out the research, it used the R statistics program and ARTool package. As a result of the research, while the median values of the scores in both the total and sub-dimensions of sibling relationships did not differ according to the interaction of the three variables, a significant difference was found in sibling relationships according to birth order, which is one of the main effects. When the three variables are considered together, it is observed that the highest sibling relationship for both the total score and the sub-categories belongs to female students who were born in the first place and have two or three siblings. It has been observed that individuals with four or more siblings born in the middle have the lowest scores in sub-dimensions except adult cognition. In this study, gender, birth order, and the number of siblings, which is seen to affect sibling relations of young adults in the literature, and the interactions of these variables are discussed. A scale consisting of six sub-dimensions and an overall score for lifelong sibling relations was used in the study. The differentiation of the total score obtained from the scale and its sub-dimensions according to the variables was analyzed.

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education is a 21st century learning approach that is extremely important to students and children nowadays. Many developed countries have emphasized this approach to early childhood education (ECE). Although there are some challenges in promoting children's cognitive development in preschool, there are some best practices that early childhood educators can use as a guideline in planning, implementing, and evaluating their development at school. Four databases were used to find the best practices consist of Scopus, ERIC, Web of Science, and Science Direct. These databases are consulted to analyze published articles that produce findings on the best practices and challenges of implementing STEM activities that have been recorded either in kindergarten or preschool environments. The findings revealed there were 23 themes for the best practices and 10 themes for challenges that were successfully analyzed. In order to ensure that STEM education can be implemented with better quality in the future, educators should know the best way to implement the activities by practicing the best practices. In addition, educators also need to take action wisely when there are challenges in implementing STEM activities so that children can acquire meaningful experience when participating in the activities.

Executive function skills are crucial for children in the 21st century, serving as indicators of their readiness for learning. Children with well-developed executive function skills can effectively accomplish various tasks, solve problems using diverse strategies, and collaborate with others happily. This research aims to: 1. Identify the necessity for fostering executive function skills among early childhood students in Nonthaburi Province. 2. Analyze the causes underlying the necessity to promote executive function skills in early childhood students. 3. Propose strategies to enhance executive function skills in early childhood students. The research consists of two phases. Phase 1 involves identifying the necessity for developing executive function skills among early childhood students, with a sample group comprising 12 volunteer kindergarten teachers randomly selected from 12 classrooms and 328 early childhood students aged 5 to 5 years 11 months (162 boys and 166 girls). The research instrument used is the MU.EF-101 assessment. Data analysis involves calculating the mean and standard deviation of T-scores for working memory, inhibitory control, and shift/cognitive flexibility. Phase 2 analyzes the causes of necessity and proposes strategies to promote executive function skills in early childhood students. The data sources for this phase are 12 teachers, and the research instruments include fishbone diagram recording forms and group discussion recording forms. Findings suggest that parental involvement is crucial in training children to perform tasks independently and in teaching children patience. Additionally, teachers should analyze children's behaviors to plan appropriate learning activities based on their context. Teachers must encourage children to think and make decisions independently, encourage when mistakes occur, and ensure the availability of suitable tools and toys that promote the development of executive function skills in early childhood students, which teachers or parents can conveniently utilize.

Early experiences in STEM education can contribute to positive cognitive development in young children. When students have the opportunities to play, inquire, follow their interests/curiosities, develop STEM identities, be creative, and operate within concrete/contextualized STEM explorations, they will experience expansive cognitive growth. Cognitive benefits include expanded thought capacity, increased creativity, better problem-solving abilities, a developing capacity for research, better exploration processes, and better observational powers. Implications for practice and recommendations for educators are discussed.

Background: Early childhood is a formative period during which distinguishable development has projections of bearing desirable outcomes within an individual. Hence, physical, language, cognitive, emotional and social independence are healthy components of a typical child's development that early childhood development (ECD) educators deem essential for Grade R readiness. Aim: This article aims to explore ECD educators' perceptions of typical 4-year-old learners' aspects of development and how this supports their readiness for Grade R. Setting: This study was conducted in an ECD centre in a marginalised rural context of the Mandlankala area, Empangeni, north of Zululand. Methods: An interpretive qualitative case study methodological design framed within Bronfenbrenner's person-proximal processes-context model was adopted. Purposive convenient sampling was used to select three ECD educators from an ECD centre. Semi-structured interviews and learners' physical, language, cognitive, emotional and social behaviour observations were used to generate data. Data were analysed thematically. Results: Findings revealed that early childhood educators perceive 4-year-old learners' readiness for Grade R differently based on criteria such as their personalities based on developmental milestones and the educator's experience in the field and training. Conclusion: This study concluded that the learner's level of physical, language, cognitive, emotional and social development influences their readiness for Grade R. Contribution: School readiness skills allow school teachers to expand and further develop learners' skills in the specific areas of social interaction, play, language, emotional development, physical skills, literacy and fine motor skills.

Developing algebraic thinking is a key factor in learning mathematics. Despite its importance, many students still struggle with algebraic concepts. This research investigates students' achievements in algebraic thinking using Demetriou's test across 7th (approximately 12-13 years old), 8th (approximately 13-14 years old), and 9th (approximately 14-15 years old) grades. The study analyzes performance in different levels of algebraic tasks (i.e., [1] extrapolation of relationships, [2] coordinating simple structures, [3] operating with undefined symbolic structures, and [4] coordination with undefined structures), revealing a significant developmental leap in algebraic abilities during the 9th grade. While no statistically significant differences were found in the first level, 9th grade students demonstrated superior performance in levels 2, 3, and 4, suggesting cognitive readiness for abstract algebraic concepts around the age of 14. The research unveils a disjointed development in algebraic abilities, indicating a progression from basic arithmetic operations to proportional reasoning before the full integration of algebraic thinking. Notably, tasks involving variables in the third level pose persistent challenges for students. The findings contribute to understanding the optimal age for introducing algebraic concepts and underscore the importance of considering cognitive development in mathematics education. The study proposes implications for educators, such as emphasizing proportional reasoning in earlier grades and employing differentiated instruction based on individual students' abilities.

Ample studies have confirmed that the concepts of Community of Practice and Lesson Study can effectively develop professional development, especially in the design of learning. This positive impact on learners is also evident. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the results that occurred with students who learned from teachers who used activities based on the concepts of Community of Practice and Lesson Study, focusing on studying cognitive competencies, including creative thinking, problem-solving, and analytical thinking. The study involved 60 elementary school students from 5 different science classrooms, taught by 5 collaborating teachers. In this research, two communities of practice were established: (i) Community of Practice A (CoP A), consisting of teachers with varying teaching experiences and teaching fifth-grade students, and (ii) Community of Practice B (CoP B), consisting of teachers with similar teaching experiences and teaching sixth-grade students. Data for this study was collected quantitatively through measures of analytical thinking, problem-solving, and creative thinking. The research results revealed that the students' thinking competencies improved significantly. In CoP A, the students demonstrate a positive trajectory in developing competencies across all thinking competency, particularly excelling in analytical thinking. In problem-solving and creative thinking, the majority exhibit proficiency ranging from high to moderate levels. Meanwhile, in CoP B, most of the students show positive progress in thinking competencies, with high and moderate proficiency in problem-solving and creative thinking. However, there's a noticeable trend of moderate to low emphasis on analytical thinking.

The cognitive reflection test (CRT) assesses an individual's capacity to restrain impulsive and intuitive responses and to engage in critical reflection on mathematical problems. The literature indicates that several factors influence students' performance on CRT, including gender, age, and prior knowledge of mathematics. In this study, our objective was to investigate the correlation between CRT scores and students' achievements in both mathematics and physics. We conducted our research with a sample of 150 Italian high school students, and the findings revealed a positive predictive relationship between CRT scores and students' performance in both mathematics and physics. Furthermore, we employed an ordinal logistic regression to evaluate the impact of CRT scores, gender, and school level on students' achievements in mathematics and physics. The results showed that both CRT scores and school level had statistically significant effects on predicting these achievements. In contrast, gender emerged as a statistically significant factor only in predicting students' mathematics achievements.

Bayesian Knowledge Tracing (BKT) is a popular interpretable computational model in the educational mining community that can infer a student's knowledge state and predict future performance based on practice history, enabling tutoring systems to adaptively select exercises to match the student's competency level. Existing BKT implementations do not scale to large datasets and are difficult to extend and improve in terms of prediction accuracy. On the other hand, uninterpretable neural network (NN) student models, such as Deep Knowledge Tracing, enjoy the speed and modeling flexibility of popular computational frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, Tensorflow, etc.), making them easy to develop and extend. To bridge this gap, we develop a collection of BKT recurrent neural network (RNN) cells that are much faster than brute-force implementations and are within an order of magnitude of a fast, fine-tuned but inflexible C++ implementation. We leverage our implementation's modeling flexibility to create two novel extensions of BKT that significantly boost its performance. The first merges item response theory (IRT) and BKT by modeling multidimensional problem difficulties and student abilities without fitting student-specific parameters, allowing the model to easily generalize to new students in a principled way. The second extension discovers the discrete assignment matrix of problems to knowledge components (KCs) via stochastic neural network techniques and supports further guidance via problem input features and an auxiliary loss objective. Both extensions are learned in an end-to-end fashion; that is, problem difficulties, student abilities, and assignments to knowledge components are jointly learned with BKT parameters. In synthetic experiments, the skill discovery model can partially recover the true generating problem-KC assignment matrix while achieving high accuracy, even in some cases where the true KCs are structured unfavorably (interleaving sequences). On a real dataset where problem content is available, the skill discovery model matches BKT with expert-provided skills, despite using fewer KCs. On seven out of eight real-world datasets, our novel extensions achieve prediction performance that is within 0.04 AUC-ROC points of state-of-the-art models. We conclude by showing visualizations of the parameters and inferences to demonstrate the interpretability of our BKT RNN models on a real-life dataset.

This study aimed to determine and describe the influence of psycholinguistics and metacognition on the ability of physics education students to use verbal language in the learning process. Quantitative research is used to measure the level of influence between variables, and then the case study is used to determine the sample. Based on the data, it could be concluded that the ability of psycholinguistics had a positive correlation with language skills, with a correlation of 0.924 and a significance value (2-tailed) of 0.000 <0.05. Thus, it could be understood that there was a positive correlation between psycholinguistics toward language skills with a very strong correlation category. The correlation between metacognition and language skills was 0.874 with a significance value (2-tailed) of 0.000 < 0.05. Therefore, this article argues that the ability of psycholinguistics and metacognition, so the language skills of physics students in carrying out physics learning would be better. This meant that the two variables affected the verbal language skills in learning physics together and not separately. Because language skills are related to metacognitive abilities, including intellectual abilities, teachers need to consider the use of verbal language in the classroom for the cognitive development of students. To achieve this, a psycholinguistic skill development program was needed for physics education students and other prospective teacher students; they could use verbal language in both the declarative, imperative, and interrogative aspects appropriately and accurately.

The current study explores the impact of visual arts education on early childhood, highlighting its role in enhancing creativity, imagination, and emotional expression in pre-school children. It explores the perspectives of pre-school teachers on the importance of visual arts in children's development and the challenges they face when integrating the arts into the curriculum. The study used quantitative and qualitative research methods. The study highlights how pre-school educators value the visual arts for its potential to enhance cognitive and social skills and how demographic factors influence these perceptions. In addition, it explores the practical aspects of art education, including classroom management and resource allocation, to offer a comprehensive view of the current state and future potential of visual arts in early childhood education. Finally, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of the central role of the visual arts in early education. It highlights the need for supportive educational policies and resources to enrich the learning environment.

This paper follows an earlier report of young children's object play activities investigated in a cross-sectional sample of 289 typically developing children. Thirty-minute videotaped observations were taken of children at 8, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 42, 48, 54, and 60 months of age in their homes. Forty-nine percent were boys. Children were identified as White (70%); mixed racial/cultural backgrounds (14%); Asian (7%); Black (6%); and Latinx (3%). This study reports patterns of cognitive development based on mastery scores derived from frequency and variety of activities in the 27 categories identified in the earlier study. Mastery scores afforded evaluation of the robustness of certain play categories, and the retention and reduction of others, yielding a final set of 14 to describe and assess developments in play. Discussion centers on the value of differentiated categories along with scores that yield a standard for an assessment of children's play.

Introduction: Cognitive psychology courses are rich in content that can be useful to broad audiences. Much of the foundational research presented in course texts is conducted in highly constrained laboratory settings, making the concepts difficult to apply or use in the real world. Statement of the Problem: Students in cognitive psychology classes may not readily notice practical applications for the content. Standard assessments (e.g. written research papers) fail to capture the real-world applications of cognitive phenomena. Literature Review: Using an applied framework can motivate engagement in cognition. The use of an Unessay project in undergraduate cognitive psychology courses requires students to present a key construct in any format except an essay. Unessay projects originated in the humanities, and are an excellent fit for psychology. Teaching Implications: The Unessay is a useful vehicle for identifying and presenting the application of a cognitive construct in the real world. Students are required to convey that information in a creative, non-essay format. Instructions, a rubric and examples are provided. Conclusion: The Unessay is a novel approach to a course project in cognitive psychology that can motivate student interest while aligning with several APA outcomes for psychology majors.

The aim of this paper was to examine the influence of picturebooks on children's "physical literacy" (PL). Fostering PL in early childhood can promote a physically active lifestyle in children and later adults. Picturebook use is a great opportunity for movement exploration in physical education classes, and recent research findings suggest that the joint use of read-aloud picturebooks and movement activities can enhance children's motor, cognitive, and affective development. Thus, following the research evidence and the emerging importance of PL, in this paper we provide suggestions and support for the effective use of picturebooks as a tool to cultivate PL in early childhood.

Motivation is a key factor for child development, but very few studies have examined child and family predictors of both child task and perceived motivation. Thus, the three aims of this 6-month longitudinal study in preschoolers with global developmental delays (GDD) were to explore: 1) differences between task and perceived motivation in cognitive domain; 2) differences among three domains of perceived motivation: cognitive, gross motor, and social; and 3) early child and family predictors of cognitive task motivation and the three domains of perceived motivation 6 months later. Results indicated that preschoolers with GDD showed higher cognitive task motivation than cognitive perceived motivation, and lower perceived cognitive motivation than the other two perceived motivation domains. Different child and family factors predicted cognitive task motivation and the three domains of perceived motivation. Practitioners should educate caregivers on how to observe children's motivation to enhance children's active participation.

Extracorporeal life support, such as pediatric cardiac extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), is associated with significant mortality and morbidity risk. This study evaluated cardiac ECMO survivors with central cannulation and found that 51.1% were discharged from the hospital. The study also revealed high rates of developmental delay (82.7%), motor dysfunction (58.8%), and cognitive dysfunction (70.6%) among survivors. No significant correlation was found between the duration of ECMO, age at ECMO, pre-ECMO maximum lactate levels, and cognitive scores. Participants with motor dysfunction were significantly younger (p = 0.04). PRISM scores of those with an abnormal developmental status were significantly higher (p = 0.03). Logistic regression analysis did not show a significantly increased risk. Factors such as age, disease severity, and ECMO itself were identified as potential contributors to neurodevelopmental delay.

Childcare services are widely used by families and thereby exert an important influence on many young children. Yet, little research has examined whether childcare may impact the development of child executive functioning (EF), one of the pillars of cognitive development in early childhood. Furthermore, despite persisting hypotheses that childcare may be particularly beneficial for children who have less access to optimal developmental resources at home, research has yet to address the possibility that putative associations between childcare and EF may vary as a function of family factors. Among a sample of 180 mostly White middle-class families (91 girls), we examined if childcare participation in infancy was related to two aspects of EF (Delay and Conflict) at 3 years, and whether two aspects of maternal parenting behavior (sensitivity and autonomy support) moderated these associations. The results showed positive associations between participation in group-based childcare and Delay EF specifically among children of relatively less autonomy-supportive mothers. These findings suggest that out-of-home childcare services may play a protective role for children exposed to parenting that is less conducive to their executive development.

Background: Despite the increased risk for people with an intellectual disability developing dementia, post-diagnostic psychosocial supports such as cognitive stimulation therapy (CST) are not routinely offered and there is limited research examining this intervention with people with intellectual disabilities. The aim of this study was to explore the feasibility of CST for older adults with intellectual disability to support active ageing. Methods: Five client participants attended a 14-session CST group and four staff attended a focus group. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to investigate the client and staff narratives. Results: Three key themes were generated--(1) Brain Health, (2) Connecting with others, and (3) Barriers and Enablers. Conclusion: Findings indicated the suitability of CST as a way of supporting active ageing for older adults with intellectual disability. This study adds to the growing knowledge about service provision for older adults and their changing needs as they age and identifies clinical implications such as staff training to support intervention adherence.

Lifespan is a pool of stories that, in the beginning, sets the tone. It lays the foundation for students' long-life learning, attitudes formation, behavioral modifications, and shapes the trajectories of students' early childhood development (an important thread of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Target 4.2 bedrock on "access to quality early childhood development, care pre-primary education" till 2030 with specific thread 4.2.1). Predominantly, a child's healthy dynamics nail down to his/her cognitive development and emotional regulations are excogitated as a building block that gets a load on the teachers' socio-demographic attributes. They are tossed around a supreme indicator and paramount countenance which works as an appetizer and nurtures infants' cognitive and emotional empathy in schools. Knuckle down to the excellence of teachers' socio-demographic attributes, the authors iced on the cake through quantitative ex-post-facto research leading to the positivist paradigm, on a sample of randomly selected 800 participants. The current research is planned in the sweat of the authors' brow to ramify how teachers' socio-demographic attributes prioritizes to promoting early childhood development and transitioning children's cognitive and emotional empathy into school. After obtaining unfetter and unrestricted permission from the authors and ensuring ethical considerations, the researchers piloted a questionnaire to confirm Cronbach's Alpha reliability statistics 0.798, 0.805, and 0.797. After applying the regression analysis technique, the researchers unmasked that teachers' socio-demographic attributes affected 78.10% of children's early childhood development, 59.70% of cognitive, and 72.40% of emotional development. Based on the results, the present research recommends that the Government of the Punjab has a lot on their plate through hiring experienced staff and providing them with induction and in-service training with good incentives to promote extra children's social, emotional, cognitive and intellectual growth for empathy in schools. Moreover, the current quantifiable stumbling blocks might be examined through conducting qualitative and mixed-method research in public and private educational institutions; a burning dilemma neglected since independence and is a cause of concern for stakeholders.

Individual characteristics of neighborhood context, like concentrated socioeconomic disadvantage, are associated with children's cognitive development, including their academic skill development and executive functions. However, questions remain regarding how neighborhood structural, process, and physical features uniquely predict children's cognitive skills when measuring neighborhoods more holistically. Exploiting within-child changes in neighborhood conditions over time in a nationally representative sample of children followed from kindergarten through fifth grade (N ˜ 13,550), this study examined unique associations between structural (i.e., concentrated disadvantage), process (i.e., violent crime, learning resources, and aspects of school quality), and physical (i.e., green space and pollution) characteristics of neighborhoods and children's achievement skills and executive functions. Fixed-effects models demonstrated that increases in neighborhood violent crime and pollution predicted decreases in children's reading and math skills, while increases in neighborhood school quality, learning resources, and green space predicted increases in reading and math. Children's executive functions were better when neighborhood pollution was lower and when school quality was better. Our results suggest that improving neighborhood structure, processes, and physical conditions may foster children's cognitive skill development, especially academic achievement.

In this article we experimentally evaluate Colombia's Think Equal program, which teaches socioemotional skills to children ages 3 to 6. Given the context of COVID-19, the original design was adapted as a hybrid model, alternating in-person and remote instruction and engaging families in the implementation of the curriculum. We found that the program had positive effects on children's prosocial behavior, self-awareness, and cognitive learning. The intervention also had an impact on the education center's personnel (community mothers) and caregivers implementing the activities. Treated community mothers had higher levels of empathy, lower negative health symptoms, better pedagogical practices, and a closer relationship with the children's caregivers compared with those in the control group. Treated caregivers had better stimulation practices and lower negative health symptoms compared with those in the control group. These findings suggest that a well-designed intervention has the potential to develop socioemotional skills in children at an early age and, at the same time, to develop capacities in those who implement the activities. Our results have important implications for the design, implementation, and evaluation of early childhood socioemotional learning programs and provide novel evidence about the challenges faced by interventions combining face-to-face and remote learning.

Background: Historical trauma and cultural loss resulting from colonialism have contributed to educational and health disparities among Pacific youth. Recognizing the protective factors is essential for mitigating disparities and enhancing the overall well-being of these youth. Objective: This review provides evidence about the current state of youth development among Pacific youth. Methods: We conducted a systematic review of the literature published between 2010 and 2020, including the fields of education, social, psychological, and medical sciences. We employed qualitative data analysis of 35 peer-reviewed studies. Results: The majority (69%) of the studies focused on program interventions among 10-19-year-old youth at-risk primarily in New Zealand among Maori (51%) and in the U.S. among Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (46%). Health interventions were common in Hawai'i, while the New Zealand studies focused more on measuring youth resilience. Among the three outcomes identified, health/well-being was the most studied area, followed by social-emotional, and cognitive development. The outcomes suggest mainly positive effects on health and well-being, socio-emotional, and cognitive development related to Pacific youth. Conclusions: While the last decade has seen a growth of culturally anchored programs, more research is needed to account for wider social, economic, and political dynamics that impact youth development, which was largely unaccounted for in the extant studies. There is a need for broader developmental frameworks that would, first, align with the context and culture of the youth's community, and second, expand our horizon of the developmental patterns as they occur in diverse sociocultural contexts.

Purpose: We examined the neurocognitive bases of lexical morphology in children of varied reading abilities to understand the role of meaning-based skills in learning to read with dyslexia. Method: Children completed auditory morphological and phonological awareness tasks during functional near-infrared spectroscopy neuroimaging. We first examined the relation between lexical morphology and phonological processes in typically developing readers (Study 1, N = 66, M[subscript age] = 8.39), followed by a more focal inquiry into lexical morphology processes in dyslexia (Study 2, N = 50, M[subscript age] = 8.62). Results: Typical readers exhibited stronger engagement of language neurocircuitry during the morphology task relative to the phonology task, suggesting that morphological analyses involve synthesizing multiple components of sublexical processing. This effect was stronger for more analytically complex derivational affixes ("like + ly") than more semantically transparent free base morphemes ("snow + man"). In contrast, children with dyslexia exhibited stronger activation during the free base condition relative to derivational affix condition. Taken together, the findings suggest that although children with dyslexia may struggle with derivational morphology, they may also use free base morphemes' semantic information to boost word recognition. Conclusion: This study informs literacy theories by identifying an interaction between reading ability, word structure, and how the developing brain learns to recognize words in speech and print.

Purpose: Transcription of conjoined independent clauses within language samples varies across professionals. Some transcribe these clauses as two separate utterances, whereas others conjoin them within a single utterance. As an inquiry into equitable practice, we examined rates of conjoined independent clauses produced by children and the impact of separating these clauses within utterances on measures of mean length of utterance (MLU) by a child's English dialect, clinical status, and age. Method: The data were archival and included 246 language samples from children classified by their dialect (African American English or Southern White English) and clinical status (developmental language disorder [DLD] or typically developing [TD]), with those in the TD group further classified by their age (4 years [TD4] or 6 years [TD6]). Results: Rates of conjoined independent clauses and the impact of these clauses on MLU varied by clinical status (DLD < TD) and age (TD4 < TD6), but not by dialect. Correlations between the rate of conjoined clauses, MLU, and language test scores were also similar across the two dialects. Conclusions: Transcription decisions regarding conjoined independent clauses within language samples lead to equitable measurement outcomes across dialects of English. Nevertheless, transcribing conjoined independent clauses as two separate utterances reduces one's ability to detect syntactic differences between children with and without DLD and document syntactic growth as children age.

The aim of this study was to examine genetic variations underlying the early neurodevelopmental outcome of developmental disabilities (DDs). The study cohort consisted of 191 children with DDs. Diagnosis was assessed at baseline and at the index age (72-84 months). Exome sequencing was conducted and putative risk variants were identified. According to the diagnostic improvement, children were categorized into the improvement group (n = 19) and the non-improvement group (n = 172). Compared to the non-improvement group, the improvement group had lower number of risk variants in known DD genes and haploinsufficient genes, and lower number of overall putative risk variants. Our results may serve as a preliminary basis for developing a model that informs clinical outcome by sequencing analysis.

During human childhood, brain development and body growth compete for limited metabolic resources, resulting in a trade-off where energy allocated to brain development can decrease as body growth accelerates. This preregistered study explores the relationship between language skills, serving as a proxy for brain development, and body mass index at three distinct developmental stages, representing different phases of body growth. Longitudinal data from 2002 children in the EDEN mother-child cohort were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Our findings reveal a compelling pattern of associations: girls with a delayed adiposity rebound, signaling slower growth rate, demonstrated better language proficiency at ages 5-6. Importantly, this correlation appears to be specific to language skills and does not extend to nonverbal cognitive abilities. Exploratory analyses show that early environmental factors contributing to enhanced cognitive development, such as higher parental socio-economic status and increased cognitive stimulation, are positively associated with both language skills and the timing of adiposity rebound in girls. Overall, our findings lend support to the existence of an energy allocation trade-off mechanism that appears to prioritize language function over body growth investment in girls.

Few studies have examined differences in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) phenotype between children from multiplex and simplex families at the time of diagnosis. The present study used an age- and gender-matched, community-based sample (n = 105) from the southwestern United States to examine differences in ASD symptom severity, cognitive development, and adaptive functioning. No significant differences between children from multiplex and simplex families were observed. Exploratory analysis revealed that parents underreported receptive and expressive language and fine motor skills compared to professional observation, especially among children from multiplex families. These findings suggest that diagnosticians may need to consider family structure when choosing and interpreting assessments of receptive language, expressive language, and fine motor skills.

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings faced significant disruption during the COVID-19 pandemic, compromising the continuity, stability and quality of provision. Three years on from the first UK lockdown as pandemic-era preschoolers enter formal schooling, stakeholders are concerned about the impact of the disruption on children's cognitive and socioemotional development, especially those from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. Using parent-report data from 171 children aged 5 to 23 months (M = 15 months) in March to June 2020 living in the UK, we investigate whether previously attested positive associations between ECEC attendance and the development of language and executive functions was maintained as early years settings navigated operational challenges over the first full year of the pandemic. In response to concerns about 'school readiness', we analyse the relationship between ECEC attendance and children's communication, problem-solving and personal-social development. ECEC was associated with greater growth in receptive vocabulary over the 12-month period. In children from less advantaged backgrounds, ECEC was also associated with greater growth in expressive vocabulary. Our data suggest a similarly positive association between ECEC attendance and the communication and problem-solving skills of children from less advantaged backgrounds and between ECEC and the personal-social development of all children. Overall, results suggest that ECEC had sustained learning benefits for children growing up during the pandemic despite ongoing disruption to settings, with specific benefits for children from less affluent home environments. As pandemic-era children progress to primary school, we discuss the importance of adapting their learning conditions and adjusting the expectations placed on them.

Background: Children with Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) display impaired pretend play abilities, reflective of broader social-cognitive challenges. Pretend play interventions for children with PWS demonstrate preliminary efficacy for improving cognitive and affective processes in play. It is unknown which specific intervention strategies, such as prompting, summarization, and modeling, most effectively improve these skills. The present study examined the effectiveness of different interventionist strategies on eliciting child behaviors within pretend play intervention sessions. Methods: Participants included 21 children (ages 6-12) with PWS who participated in a pretend play intervention. Recorded intervention sessions were coded for interventionist strategies and child pretend play skills. By pairing each interventionist strategy with the immediately following child behavior, it was possible to discern the frequency of how often certain intervention strategies immediately preceded various child pretend play skills. Results: All intervention strategies were followed by child pretend play over 50% of the time. Interventionist summarizing/reflection and modeling most often preceded child pretend play, as well as specific skills of imagination and organization. Prompting, followed by modeling, most often preceded affect expression. Conclusions: Interventionist strategies of summarization and modeling may most effectively facilitate pretend play. Prompts for emotions may be more effective to elicit affect expression, potentially due to social-cognitive difficulties inherent in PWS. Children with developmental differences may benefit from adults who engage in play as a partner, rather than direct the play, to help the child stay on-task and learn target behaviors. This insight may strengthen future efforts to support socioemotional skills through pretend play.

The recent development of AI Chatbot -- specifically ChatGPT -- has gained dramatic attention from users as evident by ongoing discussion among the education fraternity. We argue that prior to making any conclusion, it is important to understand how ChatGPT is being used in higher education across the globe. This paper makes a significant contribution by systematically reviewing the global literature on the use of ChatGPT in higher education using PRISMA guidelines. We included 69 studies in the analysis based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. We presented the scope of published literature in three aspects: (i) contextual, (ii) methodological, and (iii) disciplinary. Most of the studies have been carried out in HICs (n = 53; 77%) representing the field of higher education (n = 37; 54%) without specifying the discipline, while only a few studies were based on empirical data (n = 19; 27%). The findings based on included studies reveal that ChatGPT serves as a convenient tool to assist teachers, students, and researchers in various tasks. While the specific uses vary, the underlying motivation remains consistent: seeking personal benefits and reducing academic burdens. Teachers use it for personal and professional learning and resource generation while students use it as personal tutors for various learning purposes. However, concerns related to accuracy, reliability, academic integrity, and potential negative effects on cognitive and social development were consistently highlighted in many studies. To address these concerns, we have proposed a comprehensive framework for universities along with directions for future research in higher education as an optimal response.

This paper reports on research that extends knowledge about higher education students' perceptions of online engagement. In particular, the study aimed to identify what students thought engagement was and how they experienced it. Understanding students' views about online engagement will provide a more comprehensive understanding of the topic and should assist instructional designers to support academic staff to develop online courses that are more likely to engage their students. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study found that students felt most engaged with learning when doing practical, hands-on activities. Additional findings from the qualitative and quantitative data are highlighted, with some differences between the students' perceptions in the different types of data, particularly concerning social engagement. This suggests that further research is warranted. The paper offers several practical implications for student learning.

Adverse experiences throughout development confer risk for a multitude of negative long-term outcomes, but the processes via which these experiences are neurobiologically embedded are still unclear. Adolescence provides an opportunity to understand how these experiences impact the brain's rapidly changing structure. Two models are central to current adversity conceptualizations: a cumulative risk model, where all types of experiences are combined to represent accumulating stress, and a dimensional model, where certain features of experience (e.g., threat or deprivation) exert unique neurophysiological influence. In this registered report, we extended upon previous research by using a form of representational similarity analysis to examine whether the dimensional and cumulative risk models of adversity predict cortical thinning in frontoparietal and frontotemporal networks and volumetric changes in subcortical regions throughout adolescence. Drawing from a longitudinal sample of 179 adolescent girls (ages 10-13 years at the first wave) from Lane County, Oregon, United States, and up to four waves of follow-up data, we found that operationalizing adversity by similarity in threat and deprivation provided better prediction of brain development than similarity in overall adversity. However, these dimensions do not exhibit unique associations with developmental changes in the hypothesized brain changes. These results underscore the significance of carefully defining adversity and considering its impact on the entire brain.

Does knowledge of other people's minds grow from concrete experience to abstract concepts? Cognitive scientists have hypothesized that infants' first-person experience, acting on their own goals, leads them to understand others' actions and goals. Indeed, classic developmental research suggests that before infants reach for objects, they do not see others' reaches as goal-directed. In five experiments (N = 117), we test an alternative hypothesis: Young infants view reaching as undertaken for a purpose but are open-minded about the specific goals that reaching actions are aimed to achieve. We first show that 3-month-old infants, who cannot reach for objects, lack the expectation that observed acts of reaching will be directed to objects rather than to places. Infants at the same age learned rapidly, however, that a specific agent's reaching action was directed either to an object or to a place, after seeing the agent reach for the same object regardless of where it was, or to the same place regardless of what was there. In a further experiment, 3-month-old infants did not demonstrate such inferences when they observed an actor engaging in passive movements. Thus, before infants have learned to reach and manipulate objects themselves, they infer that reaching actions are goal-directed, and they are open to learning that the goal of an action is either an object or a place.

Habituation and dishabituation are the most prevalent measures of infant cognitive functioning, and they have reliably been shown to predict later cognitive outcomes. Yet, the exact mechanisms underlying infant habituation and dishabituation are still unclear. To investigate them, we tested 106 8-month-old infants on a classic habituation task and a novel visual learning task. We used a hierarchical Bayesian model to identify individual differences in sustained attention, learning performance, processing speed and curiosity from the visual learning task. These factors were then related to habituation and dishabituation. We found that habituation time was related to individual differences in processing speed, while dishabituation was related to curiosity, but only for infants who did not habituate. These results offer novel insights in the mechanisms underlying habituation and serve as proof of concept for hierarchical models as an effective tool to measure individual differences in infant cognitive functioning.

Serious game-based learning is a high-fashioned topic in educational technology which helps children learn and train their skills. Most existing literature focuses on the improvement of children's specific abilities or skills, such as reading comprehension, attention, memory, etc. However, for cognitively impaired children, it is necessary to train their comprehensive cognitive ability. In this paper, serious game-based learning is defined as the integration of cognitive theory, instructional content and gaming elements to create educational games that leverage the motivational and immersive nature of gaming to enhance learning outcomes. We classify the gamification elements involved in cognitive training and then combine them with Piaget's theory of cognitive development in order to develop a cognitive training framework consists of four sessions which is expected to enhance the cognitive function of children with cognitive deficits. In total 50 cognitively impaired children are recruited to participate in the test. Evaluation results reveal that our cognitive training framework is helpful in improving the cognitive ability of children with cognitive deficits. However, the issue of how long this cognitive improvement will last still remains to be explored in future research.

The concept of intellectual need, which proposes that learning is the result of students wrestling with a problem that is unsolvable by their current knowledge, has been used in instructional design for many years. However, prior research has not described a way to empirically determine whether, and to what extent, students experience intellectual need. In this paper, we present a methodology for identifying students' intellectual need and report the results of a study that investigated students' reactions to intellectual need-provoking tasks in first-semester calculus classes. We also explore the relationship between intellectual need, affective need, and students' learning. Although the overall percentage of students who reported experiencing an intellectual need was low, we found positive associations between intellectual need and learning.

The aim of this study was to analyse whether specialised musical training influences auditory discrimination, working memory, learning strategies and academic performance. Sixty students (30 with at least four years of musical training and 30 without) of the same socioeconomic level were compared. Significant differences were found between students with and without musical training in terms of learning strategies, working memory and academic performance (p= <0.05). This study shows the benefits of musical training offered at specialised centres, the development of students' cognitive skills and the contributions of neuroscience to improving professional practice.

Children in out-of-home care persistently show poorer educational and developmental outcomes than their peers. This study investigates the effect of the comprehensive educational intervention, "LUKoP," in a randomized controlled trial, compared to treatment-as-usual (TAU). Outcome measures included reading and math abilities, IQ and executive function, learning skills, and psychosocial functioning. One hundred foster children (66% female) aged 6-14 (M = 10.5, SD = 2.1) from 80 regular schools participated in the study. We applied a fixed-effects regression analysis. Regardless of group allocation, the children demonstrated significant progress in cognitive development, including IQ (ES = 0.40, p < 0.001), verbal comprehension (ES = 0.29, p = 0.02), and perceptual reasoning (ES = 0.60, p < 0.001) over time. The children who received the LUKoP intervention also had a significant increase in word-reading speed (ES = 0.21, p = 0.02) and a significant additional gain in IQ (ES = 0.34, p = 0.02) and verbal comprehension (ES = 0.41, p = .03), compared to TAU. No significant effect was found on the other outcome measures for either the TAU group (ES range = - 0.13 to 0.47, p > 0.05) or the LUKoP group (ES range = - 0.15 to 0.42, p > 0.05). We found no compelling evidence that the LUKoP intervention gives overall benefit to academic achievement; however, LUKoP demonstrated a greater effect on cognitive abilities than TAU. The findings and future directions for educational interventions for children in out-of-home care are discussed.