Search Results (260)

Social–emotional development in early childhood lays the groundwork for school readiness, healthy relationships, and long-term well-being. Parents play a pivotal role in this process, shaping children’s emotional awareness, regulation, and social competence through everyday interactions. This literature review synthesizes evidence from 74 peer-reviewed studies to evaluate nine evidence-based parenting interventions targeting parents of preschool-aged children. The programs were analyzed with respect to their objectives, theoretical foundations, components, and the resulting outcomes for both parents and children. Across interventions, consistent benefits emerged in children, including improved emotion recognition, regulation, empathy, and prosocial behavior, as well as reductions in internalizing problems. Parents also gained in confidence and positive discipline practices. Key elements linked to effectiveness included active parent skill-building (such as modeling, role play, and guided practice), structured parent–child interactions, multi-component designs integrating home and school contexts, and flexible delivery formats that adapt to family needs. These findings underscore the critical role of parenting interventions as an evidence-based method to enhance preschoolers’ social–emotional development. Full article

Timely recognition of type 1 diabetes (T1D) in children and adolescents is crucial to prevent acute complications such as diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). This narrative review examines the pathophysiology, clinical presentation, and diagnostic challenges of childhood T1D, including the young age of onset, clinician training gaps, and overlapping symptomatology between T1D and other common pediatric illnesses. Despite increased awareness, a significant proportion of children still present with DKA at diagnosis due to misinterpretation of symptoms, such as polydipsia, polyuria, and weight loss. This work emphasizes the importance of early recognition, timely intervention, and the use of structured management algorithms for primary care clinicians. Strategies to reduce DKA incidence, based on existing literature, successful real-world examples, and current guidelines, include enhanced screening for high-risk populations, educational initiatives, and improved diagnostic protocols. By implementing systematic approaches and public health campaigns, healthcare providers can improve early T1D detection and prevent severe DKA complications, ultimately enhancing patient outcomes and reducing long-term morbidity. Full article

Grounded in stress-reactivity accounts and the Prosocial Classroom model, this study examines how preschool teachers’ responses to children’s negative emotions are associated with teacher job stress and age in Greek early childhood education settings. These frameworks suggest that elevated job stress may erode teachers’ regulatory resources and responsiveness, increasing non-supportive reactions and reducing supportive emotion coaching during emotionally charged classroom interactions. A sample of 101 full-time preschool educators (M age = 42.3 years; 97% female) completed two instruments: the Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale (CCNES) and the Child Care Workers’ Job Stress Inventory (CCW-JSI). Age-controlled partial correlations indicated that higher job stress was associated with more frequent use of non-supportive reactions, including punitive and minimizing responses, and less frequent use of supportive strategies, such as emotion-focused, problem-focused, and expressive encouragement responses. Older teachers tended to report higher supportive response scores, particularly for problem-focused reactions and expressive encouragement. These findings highlight the importance of teacher well-being for the emotional climate of preschool classrooms and suggest that job stress may undermine educators’ capacity to consistently engage in supportive emotion socialization. The study contributes to the education literature by linking teacher stress and emotion socialization practices in a policy context where early childhood education is expanding but remains under-resourced. Implications for teacher education, professional development, and system-level initiatives to support educators’ social-emotional competence are discussed. Full article

Social competence in early childhood is a foundational, multifaceted construct and a strong predictor of academic and behavioral outcomes. Difficulties in this domain are often linked to challenges in forming positive peer relationships. The present study investigates the association between children’s social competence and peer exclusion, while examining the effect of gender in both domains. Participants were 312 children (3–5 years old) from 39 early childhood education and care classrooms in Greece. Construct validity for the adapted version of the Social Behavior Scale was initially established, supporting its proposed three-dimensional structure, comprising emotional competence, social engagement, and aggressiveness. Measurement equivalence across gender was also confirmed at all levels. Structural Equation Modeling revealed moderate associations between peer exclusion and two dimensions of social competence (i.e., emotional competence and aggressiveness). Gender effects were identified only for aggressiveness, with boys exhibiting slightly higher levels of aggressive behavior. Mediation analysis further revealed that gender exerted an indirect effect on peer exclusion through aggressiveness. The findings highlight the importance of addressing specific behavioral patterns, rather than gender alone, when designing interventions to foster positive peer relations and support children’s social development in early childhood education and care. Full article

Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (ECMHC) promotes children’s social–emotional development and reduces challenging behaviors in early care and education (ECE) centers, yet implementation barriers increase teacher stress and reduce confidence. Scalable, efficient, and accessible approaches are needed to meet ECE center demands. This quasi-experimental match-controlled study evaluated two ECMHC programs in promoting children’s social–emotional development and improving teachers’ skills/attitudes compared to an attention control condition in 22 ECE centers in lower-resourced areas of BLINDED. We compared Jump Start (JS; traditional human consultation model), Jump Start Go (JS Go; AI-enhanced consultation model), and Healthy Caregivers–Healthy Children (HC2; obesity-prevention consultation model). Child social–emotional development, teacher workplace stress/confidence, and classroom practices were assessed at pre-and post-intervention. Children in JS and JS Go interventions demonstrated significant social–emotional gains (F = 13.55, p < 0.001), with the largest reductions in internalizing problems observed in children who received JS Go (−2.91 points; F = 9.65, p < 0.001). JS Go classrooms also showed greater improvements in prosocial behavior (F = 5.05, p = 0.012) and resiliency (F = 8.95, p < 0.001) than HC2 classrooms. Findings suggest that both traditional and AI-enhanced ECMHC approaches can promote teachers’ capacity to support children’s social–emotional development. Full article

Gender remains a significant yet often subtle dimension of literacy in early childhood education and care (ECEC). Picturebooks and digital texts may introduce young children to patterned cues about how gender is seen, valued, and enacted, sometimes reinforcing binary expectations even when such messages are not explicit. This paper considers how children may encounter and interpret gender through schemas, scripts, and multimodal features embedded in the texts they read and the literacy practices they participate in. Drawing on insights from picturebook scholarship, cognitive studies, queer theory, and childhood studies, the discussion explores how gender may be shaped through repeated visual, verbal, and affective cues that children learn to recognise and respond to. At the same time, a growing body of inclusive and counter-normative texts may offer opportunities for children to expand or adjust their existing understandings of gender, although such shifts are often partial and dependent on context, mediation, and broader cultural messages. By approaching literacy as an embodied, relational, and multimodal experience, this paper aims to open a reflective space for considering how early literacy practices may support more diverse and expansive possibilities for gender in ECEC settings. Full article

The prevalence of food allergy continues to rise worldwide. The allergen profile of affected individuals changes with age: milk, egg, wheat, and soy allergies are more common in early childhood and often resolve before adolescence, whereas peanut, tree nut, fish, and shellfish allergies tend to persist and become more apparent in teenagers. The aim of this narrative review is to discuss the impact of food allergy and elimination diets on the nutritional status, psychological functioning, and quality of life of adolescents. Although an elimination diet remains the main way of treatment, it may lead to the risk of vitamin D, calcium, iron, and protein deficiencies, and potentially to growth disorders. In adolescents, irregular eating habits and poor adherence to dietary recommendations pose additional challenges. The psychological burden of living with food allergy include fear of accidental contact with the allergen, difficulties in peer relationships, and reduced quality of life, particularly in terms of social and emotional functioning. Lack of training in using an adrenaline autoinjector and embarrassment about its use are further risk factors in this age group. Optimal care for adolescents with food allergies requires a multidisciplinary approach, including an allergist, dietitian, and psychologist. Education, psychological support, and gradual development of self-management skills are crucial to improving the safety and quality of life of adolescents with food allergies. Further efforts by medical societies are warranted to advance the development of alternative therapeutic approaches for food allergy, including immunotherapy and biologic therapies, as well as to strengthen public health strategies for individuals affected by food allergies. Full article

Background/Objectives: The current study explored how trajectories of children’s socioemotional strengths were explained by school, classroom, and individual differences in the context of licensed early childhood education (ECE), involving preschool and before/after school programming. The predictive role of neighbourhood socioeconomic status (SES) was also explored. Methods: Participants included n = 226 children from 39 classrooms across seven ECE centres in a large city in Canada. Educators completed measures of children’s socioemotional strengths at three time points between January and June 2024. Children’s forward sortation areas (FSA) were also linked with publicly available data on neighbourhood SES from the 2021 census. Four-level multilevel models estimated scores across time, individual, classroom, and school levels. Results: All four levels significantly explained variance in strengths. On average, child strengths improved over the 4.5 months of ECE programming. Random slopes at the individual and classroom level revealed variability in trajectories. Higher neighbourhood SES was associated with higher socioemotional strengths and was not associated with change over time. Conclusions: The findings of this study reveal that child, classroom, school, and neighbourhood factors interact to foster child socioemotional strengths. Thus, targeted and universal programs for promoting socioemotional development in ECE must similarly adopt a multiple levels of analysis perspective. Full article

Humanity is at a critical juncture in its response to environmental issues. Coastal land spaces are under threat from rising sea levels and storm surges accelerating erosion and degradation. Children have an important role in sustaining a viable environmental future. Education for sustainability in early childhood (EC) nature-based settings has the potential to disrupt the current crisis by deepening children’s understanding of the environment. Many educators who practice nature pedagogy in early childhood education (ECE) shy away from using technological tools despite our existence in a time of artificial intelligence and digitalisation, some of which is becoming evident in EC sustainability education. This paper will consider the use of blue spaces that incorporate the waters, sands, and coastal land adjacent to the water’s age for EC sustainability teaching and learning. It will focus on questioning the role of technologization, particularly technological tools, on the forms of sustainability education that preschool children experience while in nature-based settings. Interrogating recent research of nature-based kindergartens undertaken at Australian coastal contexts, and drawing on seminal international documentation, it will focus on the development of young children’s empathy and ‘ethos of care’ for living things, their considerations of local ecosystems, and their growing understandings of the interrelationships between elements of their environment. The paper will then consider how the application of technological tools intersects with sustainability education in the context of blue spaces. The research highlights the importance of the educator in the development of interactive, learner-centred opportunities that not only enable investigative, action-adapted learning but also fosters independent learners who are responsive to their natural environment. The implication of this research is that further considerations of technologization and children’s environmental agency through a play-based, emergent curriculum are necessary. Full article

The importance of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) is recognised by Australian governments and significant reforms are being implemented to increase access to high-quality ECEC. Whilst increased recognition and access are vital, so are strategies to support a high-quality and sustainable workforce. One strategy is for governments to partner with universities to support Diploma-qualified educators to upskill to become teachers. Providing support for Diploma pathway students to be successful in their studies and motivated and to stay in the profession post-graduation is vital. The aim of this study was to investigate a specific design element within one innovative initial teacher education programme for Diploma pathway students—the role of the teaching coach. The teaching coach role was designed to support Diploma pathway students to complete their degree and help create the professional networks needed to sustain them in the profession long term. Using a single site case study approach, qualitative data were collected via semi-structured interviews with teaching coaches. Using the theory of practice architectures to the analyse data, we interrogated the practices of the teaching coaches, how teaching coaches perceived they supported student success and the arrangements that enabled and constrained these practices. From the perspective of the teaching coaches, their role supported student learning and professional networks. The role also provided unanticipated benefits for the teaching coaches themselves. The study highlights the importance of universities going beyond traditional practices to contribute to professional learning and networks for ECEC professionals throughout their careers. Full article

Prior studies have examined associations between early childhood education and care (ECEC) and cognitive performance in later adolescence. However, little is known about the role of non-cognitive skills development and truancy in this link. To address this gap, the current study investigates how non-cognitive skills and truancy mediate the link between ECEC and cognitive performance among 15-year-old students (N = 550,818), leveraging the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022 dataset. Findings indicate that ECEC directly and positively influences non-cognitive skills development and cognitive performance. Non-cognitive skills development is negatively associated with truancy and positively influences cognitive performance. An inverse relationship was found between truancy and cognitive performance. Analyzing this relationship based on gender, it was observed that female students benefited more from ECEC compared to their male counterparts. These results imply that the provision of ECEC may reap substantial social equity benefits. Full article

The path to becoming a veterinarian often begins well before university education, so understanding students’ career choices is essential. This study aimed to identify motivational characteristics of Hungarian high school students interested in veterinary medicine. Between December 2022 and March 2023, a questionnaire was distributed during high school career days, university open days, and via online platforms to collect data on students’ backgrounds, motivations, childhood animal exposure, and alternative career options. Recursive conditional Classification and Regression Tree (CART) models were used to identify motivational characteristics predicting veterinary career intentions. Among 428 respondents (74.1% female; mean age 17.8 years), a fondness for animals emerged as the predominant motivational factor; 97.4% had childhood pets, most commonly dogs. Human medicine was the main alternative career, followed by agriculture and veterinary nursing. Most students were interested in small animal medicine, while horse-related experience strongly predicted interest in equine practice. Interest in agriculture predicted preference for farm animal care. Students inclined toward non-clinical roles showed stronger interest in natural sciences and decided on a veterinary career later in life. These findings suggest that many students commit to veterinary medicine before age 12, highlighting the need for early engagement through competitions, camps, and extracurricular activities. Full article

Advocates for playful nature-based learning espouse the benefits of children’s self-directed play; however, past research has questioned whether this form of activity is beneficial to children of all ages, particularly the very young. In Australia, there are rapidly growing numbers of nature playgroups and bush kindergartens in which young children’s self-directed play-based learning is promoted. Bush kinders, as they are known in Australia, are a local adaptation of the European forest kindergarten approach, where three- and four-year-old children spend one day a week in outdoor contexts away from the kindergarten premises to learn and play. One further example of Australian nature-based approaches to Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) is the nature playgroup where forests, parklands, and beaches are used by parents to regularly meet so their children can socialise and play. Science learning is often prevalent in these nature playgroups where children observe the sky, ground, plants, and animals across changing seasons. The children can mix earth and water and move their bodies as they run, dance, and roll on the grass. Despite the popularity of nature-based ECEC approaches globally, Australian nature playgroups led by facilitators other than parents, aimed towards young children aged from birth to four, have only gained popularity in the past decade. This paper draws upon fieldwork informed by ethnographic methods and undertaken in 2024 at one nature playgroup. The observations of facilitators, parents, and children and the interactions between the researchers and the playgroup participants are described using vignettes to understand the experience of science learning during facilitated nature playgroup sessions. Through analysing research in ECEC nature-based science teaching and learning, we propose that facilitated playgroups are valuable for young children to interact with nature as an avenue to build science knowledge. Full article

Aim: Early childhood caries (ECC) is a widespread and multifactorial oral disease that affects children globally. Parents’ knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors are crucial in preventing ECC and supporting oral health. This study evaluated Croatian parents’ understanding of children’s oral health, their awareness of ECC risk factors, and their oral hygiene practices. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted using an anonymous and voluntary online questionnaire from October to December 2024 among 948 parents of children aged 1–7 years across Croatia. The study assessed parents’ knowledge of oral health, their understanding of the relationship between risk factors and early childhood caries, habits related to oral hygiene care, children’s experiences with oral health problems, parents’ self-assessment of their knowledge, as well as both their own and their children’s general and oral health and hygiene practices. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Chi-square test, Mann–Whitney U test, and Kruskal–Wallis test. Results: Overall parental knowledge was moderate, with significantly higher scores among older parents, those with university education, healthcare workers, and families with higher incomes (p < 0.05). Parents demonstrated good awareness of the importance of supervising tooth brushing until age seven (93.8%) and fluoride use (81.8%); yet gaps persisted regarding bacterial transmission, tooth eruption, and early orthodontic evaluation. Preventive dental visits were frequently delayed, and only 25.0% of parents reported using interdental cleaning aids. Caries was the most common oral health issue among children (22.3%). Conclusions: Despite moderate awareness and some adherence to preventive measures, significant knowledge and practice gaps remain among Croatian parents. Targeted educational interventions and nationwide preventive strategies are necessary to strengthen oral health literacy and reduce ECC prevalence. Full article

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comparative policy analysis of successful strategies that have been implemented across European countries to address early school leaving (ESL) and academic underachievement. Employing a transformative and multidimensional approach, the study examines systemic and local interventions that integrate cognitive and socio-emotional dimensions of learning. Using Eurostat data to categorise countries based on their ESL reduction progress, the analysis evaluates legislative frameworks, policy initiatives, and educational practices through the prevention, intervention, and compensation model. The findings identify common themes such as the expansion of early childhood education and care (ECEC), enhancement of guidance and counselling services, targeted support for socio-economically disadvantaged groups, inclusive policies for marginalised populations including Roma communities, and the development of vocational and second-chance education pathways. The paper highlights the critical importance of coherent and scalable policy design to reduce educational inequalities and contribute to achieving European Union ESL reduction targets by 2030. It advances policy discourse by emphasising the essential need for balanced preventive and compensatory measures to improve educational outcomes and to foster social inclusion across varied national contexts. Full article