Views of educators working with pupils with Down syndrome on their roles and responsibilities and factors related to successful inclusion.

Background: Whilst the majority of primary-school aged children with Down syndrome are educated in mainstream schools, little is known about the roles of Teachers and TAs in their education provision or their views on issues related to their effective inclusion.

Aims: This study explored the perceptions of Teachers and TAs working with pupils with Down syndrome in mainstream primary schools in the UK using an online survey.

Methods And Procedures: Responses from 105 TAs and 94 Teachers were collected.

Preschool children's use of meta-talk to make rational collaborative decisions.

In collaborative decision-making, partners compare reasons behind conflicting proposals through meta-talk. We investigated UK-based preschoolers' (mixed socioeconomic status) use of meta-talk (Data collection: 2018-2020). In Study 1, 5- and 7-year-old peer dyads (N = 128, 61 girls) heard conflicting claims about an animal from two informants.

Intention or Attention Before Pointing: Do Infants' Early Holdout Gestures Reflect Evidence of a Declarative Motive?

Gestures are the first signs of intentional communication within prelinguistic infants and can reflect various motives, including a declarative motive to share attention and interest. The ability to use gestures declaratively has been linked to later language development; therefore, it is important to understand the origins of this motive. Previous research has focused on the use of declarative pointing at around 12 months; however, other potential forms of declarative communication, such as holdout gestures, are yet to be studied in detail.

Exploring early communicative behaviours: A fine-grained analysis of infant shows and gives.

The ability to share and direct attention is a pre-requisite to later language development and has been predominantly studied through infant pointing. Precursors to pointing, such as showing and giving gestures, may display similar communication skills, yet these gestures are often overlooked. This may be due to difficulty in discerning these gestures in interaction.