_Families of Virtue_ articulates the critical role of the parent-child relationship in the moral development of infants and children. Building on thinkers and scientists across time and disciplines, from ancient Greek and Chinese philosophers to contemporary feminist ethicists and attachment theorists, this book takes an effective approach for strengthening families and the character of children. Early Confucian philosophers argue that the general ethical sensibilities we develop during infancy and early childhood form the basis for nearly every virtue and (...) that the parent-child relationship is the primary context within which this growth occurs. Joining these views with scientific work on early childhood, _Families of Virtue_ shows how Western psychology can reinforce and renew the theoretical underpinnings of Confucian thought and how Confucian philosophers can affect positive social and political change in our time, particularly in such areas as paid parental leave, breastfeeding initiatives, marriage counseling, and family therapy. (shrink)

This article presents a developmental model of phenomenological consciousness in early childhood . A 3-stage developmental model is constructed, based on the understanding of phenomenological consciousness as modeling activity structured by the directedness at/by the world in general and directedness at/by directedness in particular. Thereby, it is demonstrated that it is in the interaction with other people and the structure and content of their phenomenological consciousness, i.e., their directedness and their modeling of the world, that the development of (...) fully accomplished phenomenological consciousness takes place. The developmental model is empirically substantiated on the basis of a review of empirical investigations which traditionally has been framed in terms of the "theory-of-mind"-theory, but which in this article shall be reframed in terms of directedness and phenomenological modeling. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Cognitive reappraisal is an important emotion regulation strategy that shows considerable developmental change in its use and effectiveness. This paper presents a systematic review of the evidence base regarding the development of cognitive reappraisal from early childhood through adolescence and provides methodological recommendations for future research. We searched Scopus, PsycINFO, and ERIC for empirical papers measuring cognitive reappraisal in normative samples of children and youth between the ages of 3 and 18 years published in peer-reviewed journals through August (...) 9th, 2018. We identified 118 studies that met our inclusion criteria. We first present a quantitative review of the methodologies used to investigate cognitive reappraisal in children and adolescents, with attention to variations in methodologies by the sample age range. We then present a qualitative review of findings with attention to: the age at which children begin to effectively use cognitive reappraisal to regulate their emotions, and developmental changes in cognitive reappraisal from early childhood through adolescence. We consider how methodological differences may contribute to inconsistencies in findings, highlight gaps in the literature that remain to be addressed, and make recommendations for future directions. (shrink)

The Platonic description of the cognitive development of the human being is a crucial part of his philosophy. This account emphasizes not only the existence of phases of rational growth but also the need that the cognitive progress of the individuals is investigated further. I will reconstruct what rational growth is for Plato in light of the deliberate choice of the philosopher to leave incomplete his schematization of human intellectual development. I will argue that this is a means (...) chosen by Plato to stimulate his readers to use his text as a starting point for an enquiry into the capabilities of human intellection. I will illustrate the presence of two phases in the process of human rational growth, highlighting the different techniques utilized by Plato to promote cognitive development during each of them. When the individuals are in the first phase of intellectual growth, they are rationally stimulated via conventional discursive material transmitted in written form. Human rational progress at the level of sophistication of theoretical adulthood is promoted through mathematics. (shrink)

This Element describes the main theories that guide contemporary research in cognitive development along with research discoveries in several important cognitive abilities: attention, language, social cognition, memory, metacognition and executive function, and problem solving and reasoning. Biological and social contributions are considered side-by-side, and cultural contributions are highlighted. As children participate in social interactions and learn to use cultural symbols and tools to organize and support their thinking, the behaviors and understandings of the social community and the culture more (...) broadly become an integral part of children's thoughts and actions. Culture, the natural ecological setting or habitat of human beings, plays a significant role by providing support and direction for cognitive development. Without the capacity to learn socially, human cognition would be markedly different from what it is today. (shrink)

The aim of the study was verifying, whether speech development is conditioned by a preterm birth, multiple pregnancy or pregnancy complicated with TTTS. We examined 52 preterm children, 15 of which were born after a single pregnancy and 42 after a multiple pregnancy. 23 children came from a pregnancy complicated by TTTS. The average age of the subjects was 32.5 months. The research methods used in our study were as follows: analysis of medical documentation, a structured clinical interview and (...) psychological conversation. Speech development of a child was assessed using BSID-III. An analysis of the results we obtained showed that there was a lower level of EC in the TTTS children in comparison to multiple-birth children without TTTS and single-birth children. We also found statistically significant relations between the EC scores and gender, age at the time of testing, disability, gestational age, birth weight. (shrink)

This book provides pre-service and practising teachers with an integrated approach to language and literacy learning in early childhood. Written by leading academics in the field, it explores how children learn to talk, play using language, become literate and make meaning - from birth through to the pre-school years. Emphasising the importance of imagination and the arts in language learning, this book addresses a wide range of contemporary issues, highlights the impact of diverse socioeconomic, language and cultural backgrounds on (...) young children's language and literacy development, and shows how early childhood teachers can effectively partner with parents and caregivers to help children learn through and about language. Case studies, interviews, reflective questions, clear links to the Early Years Learning Framework and the Australian Curriculum, and a rich array of practical and creative activities for use in early childhood environments help students connect theory and current research to practice. (shrink)

In 2000, the Millennium Development Goals set out targets aimed at creating a safer, more prosperous, and more equitable world. If these goals were to be achieved, children’s lives would indeed be transformed. In this collection, achievements against these targets are identified, with each contributor examining the progress made in early years provision in Australia, China, England, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa, and Sweden. They highlight the priorities and agendas of their respective governments, and focus on the trends (...) and issues which are particularly relevant to each situation, thereby revealing the social and educational inequalities that persist across countries. A common theme running through this volume concerns the political tensions that arise when governments and educators hold fundamentally different views about the nature and purpose of early years education and the needs of children and families. It is clear that although the past two decades have seen many changes in attitude towards the importance of the early years of life; politically, economically, and environmentally, much still remains to be done if the Millennium Development Goals for young children and their families are to be fully met. Despite this, this volume demonstrates that those who work in this area continue to experience a deep concern for the well-being of young children, which transcends cultures, frontiers, and political and sectarian divides. This book was originally published as a special issue of the _International Journal of Early Years Education. _. (shrink)

This article examines the emergent relationship between epistemic responsibility and frame awareness in early childhood, wherein a mother uses language socialization practices to guide her child into a new frame. The pair co-constructs the parameters of the new frame through negotiation of epistemic responsibility and remedial interchanges. The analysis demonstrates that these remedial interchanges arise from conflicting understandings of the embeddedness of frames and the epistemic dynamics that these frames entail. The child maintains epistemic primacy in her concurrent play (...) frame, which carries over to the recording activity given that the recording activity is embedded within her larger play frame. I argue that the data predict epistemic responsibility to be acquired earlier than the ability to shift epistemic dynamics outside of role-play. This study contributes to our understanding of frame and epistemic development in early childhood. (shrink)

Both patterns of maternal sensory signals and sensitive care have shown to be crucial elements shaping child development. However, research concerning these aspects of maternal care has focused mainly on maternal sensitivity with fewer studies evaluating the impact of patterns of maternal behaviors and changes in these indices across infancy and childhood. The aims of this study were to explore how maternal unpredictability of sensory signals and sensitivity develop and associate with each other from infancy to toddlerhood and (...) whether elevated maternal depressive and anxiety symptoms relate to maternal unpredictable signals and sensitivity in toddlerhood. The study population consisted of 356 mother–child dyads assessed at 30 months; a subset of 103 mother–child dyads additionally participated in 8 months assessment. Maternal unpredictability and sensitivity were assessed from video-recorded free-play episodes at 8 and 30 months. Maternal depressive and anxiety symptoms were assessed with questionnaires at gestational weeks 14, 24, 34 and 3, 6, 12, and 24 months. Mean level of mothers’ unpredictability decreased on average whereas sensitivity did not change between infancy and toddlerhood. Both maternal unpredictability and sensitivity showed moderate level of individual stability from infancy to toddlerhood and these two measures were modestly correlated within each age. Elevated maternal depressive and anxiety symptoms were not related to unpredictability but related to lower maternal sensitivity in toddlerhood. These results identify unpredictable sensory signals as a characteristic of parental care that is independent of standard quality measures and suggest that it may be less influenced by maternal depressive and anxiety symptoms. (shrink)

This book examines sustainability learning with children, art and water in the new material, posthuman turn. A query into how we might sustain (our) childhood natures, the spaces between bodies and places are examined ontologically in daily conversations. Regarding philosophy, art, water and her children, the author asks, how can I sustain waterways if I am not sustaining myself? Theoretically disruptive and playful, the book introduces a new philosophy that combines existing philosophies of the new material and posthuman kind. (...) The ecological sciences, and the arts, are drawn together / apart to help recognize sustainability in its emergent, relational form. All the while this book, as art, engages and flows over the reader - as such, reading it becomes a transformative, meditative experience. Daily rhythms of 'being-with' art, water and children take the reader beyond orientations of environmental education that focus on notions of lack and reduction. New possibilities for sustaining childhood natures - for what is becoming, and unbecoming - emerge here in the making processes of an academic, everyday life in early motherhood. (shrink)

Volume II in the Evolution of Gestalt series, _Relational Child, Relational Brain_ continues the development of the paradigm shift that places human development in a field that is deeply complex and fundamentally one of interconnection, taking us away from the limiting view of us as separate individuals. It builds on the foundation of contemporary views of relational neurodevelopment and the profound influence of relationship on brain growth. It shows how, particularly in the first two years of life, but (...) continuing across the whole of childhood and adolescence into early adulthood, the relational field is the context of child development. The focus then broadens out to examine the intersubjective influence of community, culture, and social and physical support. Backed by neurobiological and related research, it offers many examples of relational Gestalt practice with children, adolescents, and their families, with stories of loss, trauma, isolation, and other adversities. Not just an invaluable resource for child and adolescent therapists, _Relational Child, Relational Brain_ goes beyond the Esalen Study Conference from which it emerged and is a further invitation and challenge to apply relational Gestalt practice as a coherent and effective way forward in the troubled world of today. (shrink)

Evidence is accumulating that individual and environmental factors in childhood and adolescence should be considered when investigating adult health and aging-related processes. The data required for this is gathered by comprehensive long-term longitudinal studies. This article describes the protocol of the Zurich Longitudinal Studies, a set of three comprehensive cohort studies on child growth, health, and development that are currently expanding into adulthood. Between 1954 and 1961, 445 healthy infants were enrolled in the first ZLS cohort. Their physical, (...) motor, cognitive, and social development and their environment were assessed comprehensively across childhood, adolescence, and into young adulthood. In the 1970s, two further cohorts were added to the ZLS and assessed with largely matched study protocols: Between 1974 and 1979, the second ZLS cohort included 265 infants, and between 1970 and 2002, the third ZLS cohort included 327 children of participants of the first ZLS cohort. Since 2019, the participants of the three ZLS cohorts have been traced and invited to participate in a first wave of assessments in adulthood to investigate their current health and development. This article describes the ZLS study protocol and discusses opportunities, methodological and conceptual challenges, and limitations arising from a long-term longitudinal cohort recruited from a study about development in early life. In the future, the ZLS will provide data to investigate childhood antecedents of adult health outcomes and, ultimately, will help respond to the frequent call of scientists to shift the focus of aging research into the first decades of life and, thus, to take a lifespan perspective on aging. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 111-113.

Perhaps we fail to understand the mimetic nature of desire because we rarely refer to the first stages of human development. Every child has appetites, instincts and a given cultural milieu in which he learns by imitating adults or peers. Imitation and learning are inseparable. It may be said that we acquire knowledge by using our minds; but the child absorbs knowledge directly into his psychic life. . . . Impressions do not merely enter his mind; they form it. (...) They incarnate themselves in him. . . . We have named this type of mentality, The Absorbent Mind. The Montessori Method of early childhood education offers mimetic theory an avenue to explore healthy patterns of desire in children. Such an .. (shrink)

The hippocampus is known to be comprised of several subfields, but the developmental trajectories of these subfields are under debate. In this study, we analyzed magnetic resonance imaging data from a cross-sectional sample using an automated segmentation tool to delineate the development of the hippocampal subregions from 6 to 26 years of age. We also examined whether gender and hemispheric differences influence the development of these subregions. For the whole hippocampus, the trajectory of development was observed to (...) be an inverse-u. A significant increase in volume with age was found for most of the subregions, except for the L/R-parasubiculum, L/R-fimbria, and L-HATA. Gender-related differences were also found in the development of most subregions, especially for the hippocampal tail, CA1, molecular layer HP, GC-DG, CA3, and CA4, which showed a consistent increase in females and an early increase followed by a decrease in males. A comparison of the average volumes showed that the right whole hippocampus was significantly larger, along with the R-presubiculum, R-hippocampal-fissure, L/R-CA1, and L/R-molecular layer HP in males in comparison to females. Additionally, the average volume of the right hemisphere was shown to be significantly larger for the hippocampal tail, CA1, molecular layer HP, GC-DG, CA3, and CA4. However, for the presubiculum, parasubiculum, and fimbria, the left side was shown to be larger. In conclusion, the hippocampal subregions appear to develop in various ways from childhood to adulthood, with both gender and hemispheric differences affecting their development. (shrink)

With increasing development in the field of early childhood education and care, and new interest in alternative approaches to early years provision internationally, there is an urgent need for a book which explores and explains historical roots of practices and philosophical ideas which have underpinned the development of those practices in the field. This book traces historical ideas and their pioneers. It provides brief biographies and critical insights into their work as individuals and compares their principles and (...) practices to those of others past and present. Traditionally, historical reflections and philosophical critiques can be dense and difficult for readers to access and so many students and practitioners remain unaware of the roots of their current practice. This book takes an innovative and accessible approach to the history and philosophy of early childhood education. It gives sufficient, meaningful detail about individual educators and contributors to the field in order to help readers understand how contributions and developments in the past have created routes to present thinking and practice. So, the book offers five things: " An historical overview of the development of key ideas and practices in ECE from JJ Rousseau to the present time; " A series of biographical accounts of some 20 key contributors to the field, with summaries of their major achievements and key texts; " An exploration of ways in which their ideas compare through lively, imagined conversations based on their writings; " An analysis of ways in which certain common themes can be seen in both early writings and current practices; and " An illustration of how teachers can use these ideas in professional development activities in LEA and HE contexts. (shrink)

Faces are complex stimuli that can be described via intuitive facial features like the eyes, nose, and mouth, “configural” features like the distances between facial landmarks, and features that correspond to computations performed in the early visual system (e.g. oriented edges). With regard to this latter category of descriptors, adult face recognition relies disproportionately on information in specific spatial frequency and orientation bands: Many recognition tasks are performed more accurately when adults have access to mid-range spatial frequencies (8-16 cycles/face) and (...) horizontal orientations (Dakin & Watt, 2009). In the current study, we examined how this information bias develops in middle childhood. We recruited children between the ages of 5-10 years old to participate in a simple categorization task that required them to label images according to whether they depicted a face or a house. Critically, children were presented with face and house images comprised either of primarily horizontal orientation energy, primarily vertical orientation energy, or both horizontal and vertical orientation energy. We predicted that any bias favoring horizontal information over vertical should be more evident in faces than in houses, and also that older children would be more likely to show such a bias than younger children. We designed our categorization task to be sufficiently easy that children would perform at near-ceiling accuracy levels, but with variation in response times that would reflect how they rely on different orientations as a function of age and object category. We found that horizontal bias for face detection (but not house detection) correlated significantly with age, suggesting an emergent category-specific bias for horizontal orientation energy that develops during middle childhood. These results thus suggest that the tuning of high-level recognition to specific low-level visual features takes take place over several years of visual development. (shrink)

Whether argumentation competencies are associated with the kind of influence opportunities children have in their lives is the focus of this study. The hypothesis is that when children have the opportunity to initiate and evaluate arguments, hear others make and examine arguments, and participate equally in resolving disputes, children are able to develop their argument skills. Four argumentation competencies associated with critical discussions of proposals are identified: creating consensus about problematic situations, advocating proposals, facilitating behavioral commitment, and integrating identities. Second, (...) fourth, and sixth grade children completed tasks that assessed their influence opportunities and argument competencies. Children who perceived themselves to have many collaborative influence opportunities, that is, opportunities in which they could engage in mutual influence, had more highly developed argument competencies than children who did not have such opportunities. As predicted, this relationship occurred with the argument competencies of problem conception, proposal advocacy and facilitating commitment. Measures of non-collaborative influence opportunities were not associated with argument competencies. Together, the results suggest that discussions in which children are given the opportunity to influence and be influenced with arguments may provide the best context for children to develop their argument skills. (shrink)

This manuscript reviews recent evidence supporting the utility of telomeres and mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNAcn) in detecting the biological impacts of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and outlines mechanisms that may mediate the connection between early stress and poor physical and mental health. Critical to interrupting the health sequelae of ACEs such as abuse, neglect, and neighborhood disorder, is the discovery of biomarkers of risk and resilience. The molecular markers of chronic stress exposure, telomere length and mtDNAcn, represent critical (...) biological links between ACEs and poor health outcomes. We examine how telomeres and mtDNAcn may exacerbate health disparities and contribute to the intergenerational transmission of trauma. Finally, we explore how these molecular markers of early stress exposure may help define the role of resilience and develop effective interventions to moderate ACE health risk impact. (shrink)

Early Childhood and Neuroscience is a practical guide to understanding the complex and challenging subject of neuroscience and its use (and misapplication) in early childhood policy and practice. The 2nd edition has been updated throughout and includes three new chapters on: - the effects of childhood trauma - school readiness - neurodiversity It also includes a new Foreword by Laura Jana (Penn State University, USA). The book provides a balanced overview of the debates by weaving discussion on (...) the opportunities of using neuroscience in early childhood practice with examination of the limitations and ethical implications throughout the chapters. This enables students to inform their own opinions about the discipline and its use in their future practice. Clear explanations of the main terms and theories are complemented with illustrative case studies of cutting-edge research from around the world, a glossary of key terms and suggestions for further reading. Reflective discussion questions give students the chance to apply their theoretical knowledge to real-world contexts. (shrink)