Educators need accurate assessments of preschool cognitive growth to guide curriculum design, evaluation, and timely modification of their instructional programs. But available tests do not provide content breadth or growth sensitivity over brief intervals. This article details evidence for a multiform, multiscale test criterion-referenced to national standards for alphabet knowledge, vocabulary, listening comprehension and mathematics, developed in field trials with 3433 3-5(1/2)-year-old Head Start children. The test enables repeated assessments (20-30 min per time point) over a school year. Each subscale is calibrated to yield scaled scores based on item response theory and Bayesian estimation of ability. Multilevel modeling shows that nearly all score variation is associated with child performance rather than examiner performance and individual growth-curve modeling demonstrates the high sensitivity of scores to child growth, controlled for age, sex, prior schooling, and language and special needs status.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2009.07.002 | DOI Listing |
Clin Neuropsychiatry
December 2024
IRCCS Stella Maris Foundation, Pisa, Italy.
Objective: To describe the relationship between executive functions (EF) and symptom's severity, behavioral problems, and adaptive functioning in autistic preschoolers.
Method: Seventy-six autistic preschoolers (age-range: 37-72 months; SD: 8.67 months) without intellectual disability were assessed.
Front Child Adolesc Psychiatry
March 2024
Department of Ethology, Institute of Biology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.
The early use of mobile touchscreen devices (MTSDs), including smartphones and tablets, may reduce the frequency and quality of social interactions between children and parents, which could impact their relationship and have negative consequences on children's socio-cognitive development. In this study, we applied a parental questionnaire and a behavioral observational method in a laboratory setting (free and structured play sessions) to examine the association between preschool MTSD use and the quantity and quality of parent-child relationships. Our findings revealed that preschoolers who regularly use MTSDs ( = 47, aged 4-7 years, engaging in MTSD use for at least 2 h per week) are spending less time with their parents and exhibited lower quality interactions compared to non-users ( = 25).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInfant Ment Health J
January 2025
Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
Social understanding competence develops in sensitive and co-regulating caregiver interactions. Parental reflective functioning (PRF) and parenting stress can affect children's social understanding. This study investigated if children's social understanding was associated with PRF and parenting stress.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChild Care Health Dev
January 2025
Department of Education, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland.
Background: Sand play (SP) is a global phenomenon that may be linked to children's health outcomes, but limited evidence exists. The purpose was to synthesize evidence on the association between SP and 0- to 8-year-old children's physical, cognitive and socioemotional outcomes.
Methods: CINAHL, Academic Search Premier, PsycINFO, SPORTDiscus with Full Text, ERIC, Medline, Scopus and Google Scholar were searched.
Nat Commun
January 2025
The Center for Health AI and Synthesis of Evidence (CHASE), University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Racial/ethnic differences are associated with the symptoms and conditions of post-acute sequelae SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC) in adults. These differences may exist among children and warrant further exploration. We conducted a retrospective cohort study with difference-in-differences analyzes to assess these differences in children and adolescents under the age of 21.
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