Children with language difficulties are at elevated risk of mental health problems, yet tools commonly used to assess mental health rely heavily on language. It is unclear if children's language ability influences their self-report measures. We tested language-related measurement invariance using moderated non-linear factor analyses. We used self-report data from children (10-11 years) with a wide range of language abilities, living in the UK, on the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale-25 (RCADS-25; n = 342; 171 female; 80 with language difficulties) and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire-Youth Report (SDQ-YR; n = 349; 174 female; 84 with language difficulties). Language-related differences were identified in both measures: six RCADS-25 items and three SDQ-YR items functioned differently in relation to language ability. For the RCADS-25, these differences did not affect anxiety and depression factor means. For the SDQ-YR, language-related item differences did affect peer problems and prosocial factor means, but not emotional problems, conduct problems, or hyperactivity. RCADS-25 factor scores appear robust for children with language difficulties, though item responses should be interpreted cautiously. In contrast, language-related differences in the SDQ-YR may limit comparisons of peer problems and prosocial subscales across children with differing language abilities.
Even young toddlers coordinate actions with a partner. But coordinating choices or decisions is more challenging, particularly in multi-party groups. In this pre-registered study (data collected from Fall 2023 to Spring 2025), 2- and 3-year-olds (n = 100, 50% female, 26% underrepresented minority) needed to select "keys" that matched in color to open a box. Children coordinated with one another in same-aged dyads or triads. In dyads, children of both ages were mostly successful, whereas 3-year-olds were much more successful than 2-year-olds in triads. This was especially true in a generalization trial in which only one of ten 2-year-old triads was successful, while all other groups were successful. Success at both ages was predicted by rates of cooperative communication about their choice of key. These results demonstrate that even 2-year-olds can coordinate choices with a single partner, but doing so in groups tends to emerge at around age three, when children begin to develop more advanced ways of thinking about and working with others.
This systematic review and meta-analysis examined the impacts of interventions targeting social-emotional outcomes for young children (<8 years) living in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Eighty-six (quasi-)experimental studies published prior to May, 2024 were included, reporting on 107 school-, home-, and community-based interventions with 27,378 children from 26 LMICs. Included interventions ranged in their content (social-emotional vs. not), setting of implementations (homes, schools, communities), target recipients (children vs. adults), and dosage. On average, interventions improved children's social-emotional outcomes by 0.47 SD (95%CI [0.36, 0.58]) in the short term (<6 months since intervention) and 0.09 SD [0.01, 0.18] in the long term (≥6 months). However, large variability in intervention effectiveness was only partially explained by the study and intervention characteristics examined. Prediction intervals also crossed zero, implying that future implementations of similar interventions are unlikely to yield universally positive impacts. Evidence for publication bias was also found. Taken together, results suggest that interventions can improve LMIC-based children's measured social-emotional outcomes, but attention to cultural considerations is needed to ensure meaningful and locally prioritized developmental gains.
Toddlers must rapidly acquire new skills. However, these attempts frequently come with experiences of failure which can be frustrating and lead to disengagement. Given that young children are naturally inclined to enact novel exploratory strategies in response to failure, independent exploration may sustain toddlers' persistence by shaping their perceptions of task success and offering them opportunities to experience a sense of agency. Here, these relations are examined using both archival data from the United States (n = 71, 18-month-olds; 26 female, 45 male; 72% white, originally tested in 2018) and an experimental intervention in Canada (n = 60, 18-24-month-olds; 30 female, 30 male; 25% white, tested in 2024 and 2025). The number of unique strategies that toddlers generated related to their overall persistence (ηp2 = .57). Further, experimentally encouraging exploration caused toddlers to persist longer (ηp2 = .24), and this effect was mediated by the number of unique strategies toddlers enacted (ab = 13.33, 95% CI [9.84, 16.72]). These findings provide converging correlational and causal evidence that exploration supports persistence during problem-solving, suggesting that encouraging exploration may be an effective intervention to foster persistence in early childhood.
Within the framework of prototype and revisionist models of attachment, the present study initiated an exploratory effort to examine the commonalities and differences in patterns of perceived attachment experiences-incorporating child-father, child-mother, and peer attachments-and their associations with self-esteem, self-control, and prosocial behavior across three school-aged cohorts (elementary, middle, and high school). Data were collected from 1,646 Chinese youth (Mage = 11.90; 48% girls) in November 2021 and May 2023. Latent profile analyses were conducted within each cohort, followed by the latent profile similarity analysis that enables a systematic examination of multiple levels of (dis)similarity in attachment profile across the cohorts. Results indicated that (1) the elementary and middle school cohorts demonstrated configural, structural, and dispersion similarity, yet distributional similarity was not supported; (2) the high school cohort exhibited configural differences relative to the two younger groups; and (3) explanatory similarity was established between the elementary and middle school cohorts. The findings suggest both convergence and divergence in perceived attachment patterns from late childhood to mid-late adolescence. The study, although cross-sectional, contributes novel pattern-level evidence relevant to advancing the understanding of the dynamic nature of attachment and further substantiating the significance of secure attachment for youths' psychosocial functioning.
Children's numeracy skills at school entry predict future educational attainment. Deaf and hard-of-hearing students are reported to underperform compared with typically hearing peers in mathematics. This study examined the impact of language experience on cardinal principle (CP) knowledge and accuracy in generating large sets in 58 hearing and 120 deaf and hard-of-hearing children ages 3.1-7.6 years who were learning spoken English and/or American Sign Language (ASL). The 178 children represented diverse racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds; 77 were assigned male at birth. Logistic regression models showed that chronological age and age of access to language significantly predicted CP knowledge; however, age of language access was no longer significant after including highest count as a predictor. Logistic regressions further revealed that age and the timing of children's access to language (early/later)-but not language modality or socioeconomic status-significantly predicted accuracy in generating large sets. After including the age at which children began receiving greater access to language, both highest count and language access, along with age, significantly predicted performance. These findings show that both ASL and spoken English support number knowledge development and CP acquisition and that early exposure to accessible language is critical to promoting equity in mathematics outcomes.
The current study explores whether monolingual (n = 32, 17 girls, 15 boys) and multilingual (n = 23, 12 boys, 11 girls) toddlers in French-speaking Switzerland are able to recognize correct pronunciations and detect subtle mispronunciations of familiar words, and whether these early skills are connected to later language abilities. In a looking-while-listening eye-tracking paradigm at 20 months of age, both monolingual and multilingual participants showed significantly higher looking time increases (medium effect size) for pictures of familiar objects (e.g., a foot) when the object was labeled correctly (e.g., pied [pje] "foot") than when it was mispronounced (here, vied [vje]). Notably, processing of correct labels and mispronunciations was moderately correlated with nonword repetition skills, but not vocabulary size, at 36 months, highlighting the predictive value of word recognition tasks for phonological processing.
COVID-19 disrupted early reading development, especially for under-resourced students. Few studies have evaluated early reading skill recovery after the return to in-person instruction. This study tracked reading achievement among 236,701 kindergarten through second-grade students from the academic year 2019-2020 to 2023-2024 (48.7% female; 69.8% Latine). Children had lower reading performance and less growth during remote instruction (2020-2021) compared with the pre-COVID cohort. Reading scores improved once in-person learning resumed. Kindergarten students who experienced remote instruction during COVID-19 demonstrated reading achievement recovery by the second grade. We also assessed if increased school-level (N = 467) support services were related to reading skill growth. Results demonstrated that early reading skill recovery is possible after mass disruptions.
This study leverages a randomized clinical trial to test whether intervention-related changes in cognitive and socioemotional parenting behaviors during mother-child reminiscing support children's self-regulation (emotion regulation [ER] and executive function [EF]) in middle childhood among families with and without maltreatment exposure. At baseline (T1), 248 children (36-86 months; 50.4% male; 39.7% Black, 25.9% White, 34.5% Latinx/other) and their mothers were enrolled. Half of maltreated families were randomized to Reminiscing and Emotion Training (RET) to enhance maternal reminiscing. Dyads were assessed postintervention and longitudinally 5 years later. RET had a significant indirect effect on child ER at the 5-year follow-up through postintervention maternal elaboration (ß = 0.10, SE = 0.04, p = .008). Findings highlight the importance of maternal reminiscing for child self-regulation.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 racial awakening posed challenges to adolescents' academic functioning. Culturally relevant school supports are one potential source of resilience in the dual pandemic. This study examined whether heterogeneous culturally relevant school support profiles buffered declining grade point average (GPA) trajectories from 2019 to 2021 among sixth- and ninth-grade students in the U.S. Southwest (N = 717; Mage = 13.7; 49.9% girls; 31.8% Hispanic/Latinx, 31.5% Multiethnic, 25.7% White, 11.1% Black/African American, Asian American, American Indian, or AMENA). Ninth-grade students experiencing high general, moderate cultural, & critical support or low general, devoid cultural, & critical support had significantly better GPA trajectories than those experiencing moderate general & cultural, devoid critical support. Among sixth-grade students, no differences emerged. Discussion of these complex patterns focuses on implications for academic resilience after the dual pandemic.
The development of audiovisual speech perception in tone-language-speaking children remains debated, and this study addressed this issue by examining Cantonese-speaking children, extending prior work on Mandarin speakers to a tone language with greater phonological complexity. Using the McGurk paradigm, 82 typically developing Cantonese-speaking children (42 girls, 40 boys; aged 4-11 years) and 21 adults (11 females, 10 males) from Hong Kong completed audiovisual speech perception tasks in quiet, moderate background noise (10 dB speech-to-noise ratio, SNR), and severe background noise (-10 dB SNR). Results showed developmental shifts in sensory dominance among Cantonese-speaking children around age 10: from relying mainly on auditory cues to integrating auditory and visual cues in quiet and 10 dB conditions, and from audiovisual-integrated to visual-dominant processing in the -10 dB condition. This developmental pattern aligns with the predictions of the Statistically Optimal Hypothesis. These findings also indicate that Cantonese-speaking children undergo this shift later than Mandarin-speaking peers, highlighting the adaptive nature of this developmental process.
The study examined the transmission of Confucian-influenced gender role beliefs from Chinese American fathers to their adolescent sons, through fathers' parenting hostility and the cultural construct of shaming. Participants included fathers, mothers, and adolescents from Wave 2 (adolescent Mage = 17.04 years; 58% female and 42% male; collected in 2006) and Wave 3 (collected in 2010) of a study of 444 Chinese American families from the West Coast of the United States. Fathers' gender role beliefs indirectly predicted increases in male adolescents' beliefs from adolescence to emerging adulthood, through fathers' reports of hostility (b = .042, 95% CI = [0.001, 0.097]) and adolescents' reports of shaming (b = .038, 95% CI = [0.002, 0.090]). Gender socialization occurs through general parenting practices, and cultural measures are integral for understanding Chinese American male adolescents' gender development.
This multi-method, multi-informant, quasi-experimental study examines trajectories of child psychopathology over an 8-year period pre-and post-COVID-19 pandemic. We examined parenting as a moderator of the COVID-19 impact. Participants were 310 low-to-middle-income families from the United States with a target child followed over 6 waves (Wave 1, Mage = 2.97, SD = 0.38; 55.3% girls; 55.2% White, 21.3% African American, 16.2% mixed race; Wave 6: Mage = 9.32, SD = 0.76). Findings indicated that children exhibit significant linear growth and COVID-related growth above and beyond the linear growth in internalizing problems. Pre-COVID parenting moderated this effect, such that low paternal structure and consistency and low parental secure-base provision strengthened the association between COVID impact and the growth of internalizing problems, yielding greater increases under high impact and lower increases under low impact.
This cluster randomized controlled trial evaluated a brief parenting program for recently settled immigrants in Sweden, focusing on improving parent-child relationships, parental efficacy in supporting schooling, resilience, optimism, societal belonging, and mental health. The four sessions, delivered in Arabic, Dari, and Somali, involved 92 parents in the intervention (13 clusters) and 40 in the control group (7 clusters, Mage = 42, 80% mothers). Participants were recruited between May 2023 and February 2025. Compared to the control group, intervention participants showed significant improvements in resilience (β = .17, p = .026) and efficacy in supporting their child's schooling (β = .42, p = .005). Those with greater initial challenges benefited more from the program. These findings underscore the program's potential to promote resilience and efficacy among recently settled immigrant families.
This study investigated the development of young children's normative stances and moral self-concept (MSC) over 1 year and their relations with sharing behavior. Five hundred children in Germany (approximately 5 years at T1, mostly White, 51% girls) were assessed at 3 measurement points. Latent profile and transition analyses identified 7 distinct profiles of normative stances-MSC: (1) low-moderate, (2) moderate-exceptionally low, (3) high-moderate, (4) moderate-low, (5) moderate-high, (6) moderate-moderate, and (7) moderate-exceptionally high. Only the low-moderate profile was found across all 3 measurement points. MSC increased over time, while normative stances remained stable or declined. Children who transitioned from high-moderate (T1) to moderate-low (T2) to moderate-moderate (T3) shared more at T3 than those who remained at low-moderate levels. Gender and socioeconomic differences were found, highlighting the role of individual and family characteristics on moral development. Overall, no consistent pattern was found between profiles and sharing behavior, emphasizing the complex nature of moral development and prosocial behavior in early childhood.
Emotion inference is not purely reactive but is supported by conceptual priors that contribute to active sampling of meaningful cues as social events unfold, yet how children learn to anticipate when and where such cues will emerge remains unclear. This study examined whether conceptual emotion knowledge serves as a prior supporting developmental increase in anticipatory attention, and whether such attention facilitates more adult-like emotion inferences. Children aged 5-11 years (N = 180, Mage = 8.02 years, 84 female; data collected 2024-2025) from China viewed videos while eye movements were simultaneously recorded and continuously rated the target character's emotion on a valence-arousal grid. Anticipatory attention was indexed by the extent to which children's saccades were directed toward regions about to contain meaningful information. Conceptual emotion knowledge was assessed with a composite that combined emotion granularity, diversity, and performance on a standardized emotion understanding test. Multilevel, moderated mediation models revealed that conceptual emotion knowledge mediated age-related increases in anticipatory saccades toward meaningful regions, which in turn predicted more adult-like emotion judgments. Together, these findings suggest that conceptual knowledge acts as a developmental mechanism bridging children's prior experience and growing attentional strategies, enabling more mature emotion understanding in social environments.
Variation in how people use language provides powerful cues to social identity. As children join a language community, they must acquire such sociolinguistic knowledge. Prior work shows that children link broad language varieties to social groups, but little is known about whether they can use variation in specific language features to infer speakers' group membership. 40 English-speaking children aged 5-6 years (M = 72.2 months; Nfemale = 22, Nmale = 18; NWhite = 35, NAsian,White = 3, NBlack,White = 1; Nother = 1; all non-Hispanic) participated between October 2024 and August 2025 in a semi-artificial language learning study in which they were exposed to 2 alien groups that differed in plural marking. Children were then tested on their ability to determine which group new aliens belong to based solely on their plural usage. Children succeeded when the group-marker mappings were deterministic, but not when they were probabilistic. These findings suggest that young children use consistent morphosyntactic patterns to infer group membership and highlight a novel approach to studying sociolinguistic learning. Future research will extend this paradigm to include more realistic social categories that are meaningful to children.
This systematic review and meta-analysis provides the first comprehensive synthesis of research on emotion regulation (ER) in children and adolescents with developmental language disorder (DLD), based on 16 independent samples (NDLD = 1,616; ages 5-16). Individuals with DLD showed significantly greater ER difficulties than typically developing peers, representing a medium effect size (g = 0.563). This effect remained statistically significant, although reduced to a small-to-medium effect size, in sensitivity analyses excluding studies from the same research group (g = 0.317). Informant discrepancies emerged, with teachers reporting more ER difficulties than parents and children's self-reports. No clear evidence of publication bias was observed on formal testing; however, converging evidence from small-study effects, risk of bias analyses, and publication year trends suggests that the observed effect size may represent an overestimate of the true effect. These findings underscore the need for more rigorous, theory-driven, multi-method research to accurately estimate the magnitude of ER difficulties in DLD.
Understanding place value (e.g., how digits represent tens, hundreds, and thousands) is a key foundation for children's later success in mathematics. However, many children struggle to fully grasp how the base-ten system works. Developmental trajectories can inform formative assessment and structure instruction of place value understanding. In this paper, the longitudinal validity of a hierarchical model of typical steps in children's development of place value understanding was challenged. Students' development of place value understanding was assessed during a longitudinal study across one school year (N = 195; 87 girls; Grades 3 and 4) at three measurement time points. Significant gains in place value understanding over the course of 1 year were found at the group and individual level. Individual development was visible in terms of raw scores as well as the level of place value understanding in terms of a development model. Whereas prior knowledge had no effect on the development of place value understanding, intelligence was positively associated with a steeper development. Individual developmental trajectories emphasize the heterogeneity of place value development. The results support the utility of the model as a developmental progression of place value understanding for guiding instruction and assessment.
Autonomy is a core developmental task of adolescence, shaped by daily parent-adolescent interactions involving need support and conflict. Guided by Self-Determination Theory, this study examined the bidirectional day-to-day associations between adolescents' perceived parental need support, conflict with parents, and autonomy. Using a daily diary design, this study employed a Dynamic Structural Equation Modeling on a sample of 286 Dutch adolescents (Mage = 11.60, SD = 0.47 at Wave 1), who were followed for one week in four measurement waves (28 days total). The results indicated that, at the within-person level, parental need support was positively associated with adolescent autonomy experiences (perceived choice and self-concept clarity) on the same day. Across days, parental need support and self-concept clarity showed bidirectional associations, such that increases in one predicted increases in the other the following day. In contrast, parental need support predicted next-day perceived choice, but not vice versa. Conflict with parents was negatively associated with autonomy on the same day, but showed no lagged effects. Together, these findings highlight the predictive role of parental need support in adolescents' daily autonomy experiences, and suggest that distinct facets of autonomy may display different temporal dynamics in their associations with parental need support.
