Curious? The relationship between curiosity and creativity is likely NOT novelty.

The target article tackles an important and complicated issue of the underlying links between curiosity and creativity. Although thought-provoking, the target article overlooks contemporary theories and research on these constructs. Consequently, the proposed model is inconsistent with prior research in the developmental and educational fields and would benefit from better specification and clarity around key constructs and processes.

Building language learning: Relations between infant attention and social contingency in the first year of life.

In Western societies, social contingency, or prompt and meaningful back-and-forth exchanges between infant and caregiver, is a powerful feature of the early language environment. Research suggests that infants with better attentional skills engage in more social contingency during interactions with adults and, in turn, social contingency supports infant attention. This reciprocity is theorized to build infant language skills as the adult capitalizes on and extends the infant's attention during socially contingent interactions. Using data from 104 infants and caregivers, this paper tests reciprocal relations between infant attention and social contingency at 6- and 12-months and the implications for infant vocabulary at 18-months. Infant attentional skills to social (women speaking) and nonsocial (objects dropping) events were assessed, and social contingency was examined during an 8-minute toy play interaction with a caregiver. Child receptive and expressive vocabulary was measured by caregiver-report. Both social and nonsocial attentional skills related to engagement in social contingency during caregiver-infant interaction, though only models that included social attention and social contingency predicted vocabulary. These findings provide empirical evidence for the proposed reciprocal relations between infant attention and social contingency as well as how they relate to later language.

The unanticipated side effects of an attachment intervention: Parents ask higher quality questions.

Research suggests foster children are at risk for poor language skills. One intervention, attachment and biobehavioral catch-up (ABC), was shown to successfully improve not only young foster children's attachment to their parents, but also their receptive vocabulary skills (Bernard et al., 2017; Raby et al., 2019). Given that language acquisition is intricately linked to parents' sensitive interactions with their children, we ask whether the ABC intervention also improves the quality of parents' talk addressed to children. We test whether the ABC intervention results in more conversational turns between parents and their children. Crucially, we also look within these conversational turns, assessing the number and types of questions that parents ask children. Results suggest that parents who received the ABC intervention do not have more conversational turns or ask higher numbers of questions, compared to parents who received the control intervention. Rather, parents in the ABC group ask a higher proportion of child-led and restatement questions, and a lower proportion of parent-led and pedagogical questions, compared to the control. Additionally, the higher proportion of child-led questions were related to higher parental sensitivity scores. Together, these results suggest that an intervention originally designed to improve children's socioemotional outcomes had positive benefits for the quality of conversations between parents and children. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Comparing apples to manzanas and oranges to naranjas: A new measure of English-Spanish vocabulary for dual language learners.

The valid assessment of vocabulary development in dual-language-learning infants is critical to developmental science. We developed the Dual Language Learners English-Spanish (DLL-ES) Inventories to measure vocabularies of U.S. English-Spanish DLLs. The inventories provide translation equivalents for all Spanish and English items on Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) short forms; extended inventories based on CDI long forms; and Spanish language-variety options. Item-Response Theory analyses applied to Wordbank and Web-CDI data (n = 2603, 12-18 months; n = 6722, 16-36 months; half female; 1% Asian, 3% Black, 2% Hispanic, 30% White, 64% unknown) showed near-perfect associations between DLL-ES and CDI long-form scores. Interviews with 10 Hispanic mothers of 18- to 24-month-olds (2 White, 1 Black, 7 multi-racial; 6 female) provide a proof of concept for the value of the DLL-ES for assessing the vocabularies of DLLs.

A hop, skip and a jump towards evaluating social interaction and learning through play at a child and adolescent inpatient treatment program.

BACKGROUND: The number of inpatient mental health facilities for children and adolescents in the United States is growing rapidly. While undergoing inpatient treatment, children and adolescents can benefit from innovative play opportunities designed to foster social interaction and learning. METHODS: The Playful Learning Landscapes (PLL) initiative is a group of projects designed to transform everyday spaces into opportunities for playful learning. As a part of this initiative, two designs-Lifesize Ruler and Jumping Feet-were installed in an inpatient mental health facility for children and adolescents in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. RESULTS: Results of pre-installation and post-installation naturalistic observations suggested that social interactions, the use of STEM-related language and 21st century skills, including confidence, increased after interacting with the installations. CONCLUSIONS: While previous research on PLL projects has demonstrated the efficacy of transforming public spaces into places for playful learning, this research provides support that, even in private, targeted settings, using a trauma-informed approach, children and adolescents, can reap the benefits of playful learning.

Investigating the contributions of active, playful learning to student interest and educational outcomes.

A growing body of evidence from the science of learning demonstrates the educational effectiveness of active, playful learning. Connections are emerging between this pedagogy and the broad set of skills that it promotes in learners, but potential mechanisms behind these relations remain unexplored. This paper offers a commentary based on the science of learning and interest development literature, suggesting that interest may mediate the relation between active, playful learning and student outcomes. This theory is established by identifying principles of active, playful learning that predict interest development and associations between learner interest and key skills for success in the classroom and beyond. Future research should investigate the dynamic relation between active, playful learning, interest, and student achievement over time and across phases of interest while taking a broader set of student outcomes into account.

Assessing the language of 2 year-olds: From theory to practice.

Early screening for language problems is a priority given the importance of language for success in school and interpersonal relationships. The paucity of reliable behavioral instruments for this age group prompted the development of a new touchscreen language screener for 2-year-olds that relies on language comprehension. Developmental literature guided selection of age-appropriate markers of language disorder risk that are culturally and dialectally neutral and could be reliably assessed. Items extend beyond products of linguistic knowledge (vocabulary and syntax) and tap the process by which children learn language, also known as fast mapping. After piloting an extensive set of items (139), two phases of testing with over 500 children aged 2; 0-2; 11 were conducted to choose the final 40-item set. Rasch analysis was used to select the best fitting and least redundant items. Norms were created based on 270 children. Sufficient test-retest reliability, Cronbach's alpha, and convergent validity with the MB-CDI and PPVT are reported. This quick behavioral measure of language capabilities could support research studies and facilitate the early detection of language problems.

Cascades in language acquisition: Re-thinking the linear model of development.

The first 5 years of life are characterized by incredible growth across domains of child development. Drawing from over 50 years of seminal research, this chapter contextualizes recent advances in language sciences through the lens of developmental cascades to explore complexities and connections in acquisition. Converging evidence-both classic and contemporary-points to the many ways in which advances in one learning system can pose significant and lasting impacts on the advances in other learning systems. This chapter reviews evidence in developmental literature from multiple domains and disciplines (i.e., cognitive, social, motor, bilingual language learning, and communication sciences and disorders) to examine the phenomenon of developmental cascades in language acquisition.

Ecological contexts associated with early childhood curiosity: Neighborhood safety, home and parenting quality, and socioeconomic status.

Introduction: Curiosity is an important social-emotional process underlying early learning. Our previous work found a positive association between higher curiosity and higher academic achievement at kindergarten, with a greater magnitude of benefit for children with socioeconomic disadvantage. Because characteristics of the early caregiving and physical environment impact the processes that underlie early learning, we sought to examine early environmental experiences associated with early childhood curiosity, in hopes of identifying modifiable contexts that may promote its expression. Methods: Using data from a nationally representative sample of 4,750 children from the United States, this study examined the association of multi-level ecological contexts (i.e., neighborhood safety, parenting quality, home environment, and center-based preschool enrollment) on early childhood curiosity at kindergarten, and tested for moderation by socioeconomic status. Results: In adjusted, stratified models, children from lower-resourced environments (characterized by the lowest-SES tertile) manifested higher curiosity if they experienced more positive parenting, higher quality home environments, and if they lived in "very safe" neighborhoods. Discussion: We discuss the ecological contexts (i.e., parenting, home, and neighborhood environments) that are promotive of early childhood curiosity, with an emphasis on the role of the neighborhood safety and the "neighborhood built environment" as important modifiable contexts to foster early childhood curiosity in lower-resourced families.

Sensitivity to visual cues within motion events in monolingual and bilingual infants.

It is well known that infants undergo developmental change in how they respond to language-relevant visual contrasts. For example, when viewing motion events, infants' sensitivities to background information ("ground-path cues," e.g., whether a background is flat and continuous or bounded) change with age. Prior studies with English and Japanese monolingual infants have demonstrated that 14-month-old infants discriminate between motion events that take place against different ground-paths (e.g., an unbounded field vs a bounded street). By 19 months of age, this sensitivity becomes more selective in monolingual infants; only learners of languages that lexically contrast these categories, such as Japanese, discriminate between such events. In this study, we investigated this progression in bilingual infants. We first replicated past reports of an age-related decline in ground-path sensitivity from 14 to 19 months in English monolingual infants living in a multilingual society. English-Mandarin bilingual infants living in that same society were then tested on discrimination of ground-path cues at 14, 19, and 24 months. Although neither the English nor Mandarin language differentiates motion events based on ground-path cues, bilingual infants demonstrated protracted sensitivity to these cues. Infants exhibited a lack of discrimination at 14 months, followed by discrimination at 19 months and a subsequent decline in discrimination at 24 months. In addition, bilingual infants demonstrated more fine-grained sensitivities to subtle ground cues not observed in monolingual infants.

Contingent conversations build more than language: How communicative interactions in toddlerhood relate to preschool executive function skills.

High-quality communicative interactions between caregivers and children provide a foundation for children's social and cognitive skills. Although most studies examining these types of interactions focus on child language outcomes, this paper takes another tack. It examines whether communicative, dyadic interactions might also relate to child executive function (EF) skills and whether child language might mediate this relation. Using a subset of data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, dyadic interactions between 2-year-olds and their mothers were coded for three behaviors: symbol-infused joint engagement, routines and rituals, and fluency and connectedness. Child language was assessed at age 3 and three facets of EF (self-regulation, sustained attention, and verbal working memory) were assessed at age 4.5. Structural equation modeling showed that dyadic interaction related to later child sustained attention and verbal working memory, indirectly through child language and directly related with child self-regulation. This suggests that communicative interactions with caregivers that include both verbal and non-verbal elements relate to child EF, in part through child language. Our findings have implications for the role of caregiver interactions in the development of language and cognitive skills more broadly. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Using structural equation modeling, we examined how communicative interactions between caregivers and toddlers relate to preschool executive function skills Communicative interactions relate to later language which in turn relates to sustained attention and verbal working memory in preschool Communicative interactions relate directly to self-regulation in preschool Associations between communicative interactions, language, and executive function vary across facets of executive function and may not be unidirectional.

Reinventing the public square and early educational settings through culturally informed, community co-design: Playful Learning Landscapes.

What if the environment could be transformed in culturally-responsive and inclusive ways to foster high-quality interactions and spark conversations that drive learning? In this article, we describe a new initiative accomplishing this, called Playful Learning Landscapes (PLL). PLL is an evidence-based initiative that blends findings from the science of learning with community-based participatory research to transform physical public spaces and educational settings into playful learning hubs. Here, we describe our model for conducting this research, which is mindful of three key components: community input, how children learn best, and what children need to learn to be successful in the 21st century economy. We describe how this model was implemented in two PLL case studies: one in a predominantly Latine community and the second in early childhood education classrooms. Furthermore, we describe how research employing our model can be rigorously and reliably evaluated using observational and methodological tools that respond to diverse cultural settings and learning outcomes. For example, our work evaluates how PLL impacts adult-child interaction quality and language use, attitudes about play and learning, and community civic engagement. Taken together, this article highlights new ways to involve community voices in developmental and educational research and provides a model of how science can be translated into practice and evaluated in culturally responsive ways. This synthesis of our process and evaluation can be used by researchers, policymakers, and educators to reimagine early educational experiences with an eye toward the built environment that children inhabit in everyday life, creating opportunities that foster lifelong learning.

Classification accuracy of the Quick Interactive Language Screener for preschool children with and without developmental language disorder.

INTRODUCTION: This research examined the classification accuracy of the Quick Interactive Language Screener (QUILS) for identifying preschool-aged children (3;0 to 6;9) with developmental language disorder (DLD). We present data from two independent samples that varied in prevalence and diagnostic reference standard. METHODS: Study 1 included a clinical sample of children (54 with DLD; 13 without) who completed the QUILS and a standardized assessment of expressive grammar (Syntax subtest from the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation-Norm Referenced; Structured Photographic Expressive Language Test-Preschool 2nd Edition; or Structured Photographic Expressive Language Test-3 rd Edition). Study 2 included a community sample of children (25 with DLD; 101 without) who completed the QUILS and the Auditory Comprehension subtest of the Preschool Language Scales-5th Edition (PLS-5; Zimmerman et al., 2011). Discriminant analyses were conducted to compare classification accuracy (i.e., sensitivity and specificity) using the normreferenced cut score (< 25th percentile) with empirically derived cut scores. RESULTS: In Study 1, the QUILS led to low fail rates (i.e., high specificity) in children without impairment and statistically significant group differences as a function of children's clinical status; however, only 65% of children with DLD were accurately identified using the norm-referenced cutoff. In Study 2, 76% of children with DLD were accurately identified at the 25th percentile cutoff and accuracy improved to 84% when an empirically derived cutoff (<32nd percentile) was applied. CONCLUSIONS: Findings support the clinical application of the QUILS as a component of the screening process for identifying the presence or absence of DLD in community samples of preschool-aged children.

Keep the Ball Rolling: Sustained Multiturn Conversational Episodes Are Associated With Child Language Ability.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between interaction quality and child language ability. We focused on one promising interaction quality indicator-the rate of multiturn conversational episodes. We also explored whether the relationship between rate of single conversational turns and language ability changed when the child's nonverbal behaviors were considered in addition to verbal conversational turns. To limit the potential of socioeconomic status as a confounder, participants included only families living in underresourced households. METHOD: Secondary analyses were conducted using baseline data (N = 41 dyads enrolled, N = 27 analyzed) from a longitudinal study. All families were living in low-income households (i.e., below 200% of the Federal Poverty Level) and 12 were English-Spanish bilingual (15 English-only). Mothers and their children (13 to 27 months) participated in video-recorded play and reading interactions at home. Trained observers transcribed and coded the child's and caregiver's verbal and nonverbal behaviors. Linear regression models examined the relationship between the number of conversational turns and child language ability. RESULTS: Child language ability was significantly and positively associated with the number of verbal-nonverbal single turns and multiturn conversational episodes, but not single verbal-only turns. CONCLUSIONS: For children still acquiring language, it is important to account for nonverbal contributions to conversation. Child language ability was significantly and positively associated only with the conversational turn variables that included the child's nonverbal behaviors. Further investigation is needed to understand whether number of turns within conversational episodes is a better indicator of interaction quality than sheer number of conversational turns. Implications for caregiver-implemented interventions are discussed. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.20452575.

Psychometric Assessment of Pilot Language and Communication Items on the 2018 and 2019 National Survey of Children's Health.

OBJECTIVE: Until recently, normative data on language and communication development among children in the United States have not been available to inform critical efforts to promote language development and prevent impairments. This study represents the first psychometric assessment of nationally representative data derived from a National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH) pilot measure of language and communication development among children ages 1 to 5 years. METHODS: We analyzed 14,573 parent responses to language and communication items on the 2018 and 2019 NSCH to evaluate whether the newly added 11 items represent a single latent trait for language and communication development and to determine normative age of success on each item. We applied weighted, one-parameter Item Response Theory to rate and cluster items by difficulty relative to developmental language ability. We examined differential item functioning (DIF) using weighted logistic regression by demographic factors. RESULTS: Together, exploratory factor analysis resulting in a single factor > 1 and explaining 93% of the variance and positive correlations indicated unidimensionality of the measure. Item characteristic curves indicated groupings were overall concordant with proposed milestone ages and representative of an approximate 90% success cut-point by child age. Indicated normative age cut-points for 3 of the items differed slightly from proposed milestone ages. Uniform DIF was not observed and potential nonuniform DIF was observed across 5 items. CONCLUSIONS: Results have the potential to enhance understanding of risk and protective factors, inform efforts to promote language and communication development, and guide programmatic efforts on early detection of language delays.

Enhancing spatial skills of preschoolers from under-resourced backgrounds: A comparison of digital app vs. concrete materials.

Spatial skills support STEM learning and achievement. However, children from low-socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds typically lag behind their middle- and high-SES peers. We asked whether a digital educational app-designed to mirror an already successful, spatial assembly training program using concrete materials-would be as effective for facilitating spatial skills in under-resourced preschoolers as the concrete materials. Three-year-olds (N = 61) from under-resourced backgrounds were randomly assigned to a business-as-usual control group or to receive 5 weeks of spatial training using either concrete, tangible materials or a digital app on a tablet. The spatial puzzles used were an extension of items from the Test of Spatial Assembly (TOSA). Preschoolers were pretested and posttested on new two-dimensional (2D) TOSA trials. Results indicate that both concrete and digital spatial training increased performance on the 2D-TOSA compared to the control group. The two trainings did not statistically differ from one another suggesting that educational spatial apps may be one route to providing early foundational skills to children from under-resourced backgrounds.

What's in a distraction? The effect of parental cell phone use on parents' and children's question-asking.

Although questions fuel children's learning, adult cell phone use may preoccupy parents, affecting the frequency of questions parents and children ask and answer. We ask whether parental cell phone use will lead to a decrease in the number of questions children and parents ask one another while playing with a novel toy. Fifty-seven parent-child dyads (Mage = 48.72 months, SD = 6.53, 28 girls; 84.2% White) were randomly assigned to a cell phone, paper, or control condition. As children played with a novel toy with hidden functions, parents in the cell phone condition completed a survey about reading on their cell phone, while parents in the paper condition did it on paper. Parents in the control condition did not complete the survey. Results suggest that children asked fewer questions in the cell phone than in the control condition. However, no other condition differences emerged. Parents' information-seeking questioning, however, differed in all three conditions: they asked more in the control than in the cell phone and paper conditions and, critically, asked more in the paper than cell phone condition. Possible explanations and implications for parents' cell phone use are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Daily television exposure, parent conversation during shared television viewing and socioeconomic status: Associations with curiosity at kindergarten.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the main and interactive effects of the amount of daily television exposure and frequency of parent conversation during shared television viewing on parent ratings of curiosity at kindergarten, and to test for moderation by socioeconomic status (SES). STUDY DESIGN: Sample included 5100 children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort. Hours of daily television exposure and frequency of parent screen-time conversation were assessed from a parent interview at preschool, and the outcome of early childhood curiosity was derived from a child behavior questionnaire at kindergarten. Multivariate linear regression examined the main and interactive effects of television exposure and parent screen-time conversation on kindergarten curiosity and tested for moderation by SES. RESULTS: In adjusted models, greater number of hours of daily television viewing at preschool was associated with lower curiosity at kindergarten (B = -0.14, p = .008). More frequent parent conversation during shared screen-time was associated with higher parent-reported curiosity at kindergarten with evidence of moderation by SES. The magnitude of association between frequency of parent conversation during television viewing and curiosity was greater for children from low SES environments, compared to children from high SES environments: (SES ≤ median): B = 0.29, p < .001; (SES > median): B = 0.11, p < .001. CONCLUSIONS: Higher curiosity at kindergarten was associated with greater frequency of parent conversation during shared television viewing, with a greater magnitude of association in low-SES families. While the study could not include measures of television program content, digital media use and non-screen time conversation, our results suggest the importance of parent conversation to promote early childhood curiosity, especially for children with socioeconomic disadvantage.

Translating cognitive science in the public square.

Public space interventions offer one example of how to translate cognitive science into the public square. Here, we detail several successful projects and the six principles of learning that underlie them that support caregiver-child engagement, interaction, and the use of content area-specific language. Policy and community implications are also discussed.