Pub Date : 2026-02-01Epub Date: 2025-10-06DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106371
Jamie Donenfeld, Mahita Mudundi, Erik Blaser, Zsuzsa Kaldy
Formal schooling places new demands on young children, requiring the inhibition of prepotent responses, sustained attention to instructions, and completion of academic tasks. Does this intense ‘training’ enhance children’s general cognitive abilities? Prior research exploits the arbitrary school entry cut-off date as a natural experiment, comparing same-age children in different grades. A schooling effect is noted when higher-grade children outperform age-matched peers in lower grades. However, evidence for this effect on executive functions remains mixed. Here, we use meta-analytic methods to quantify the schooling effect on executive functions for the first time. We identified 12 studies published between 1995 and 2023 (N 1,611 children, age 4.5 to 9 years, approximately 51 % female), containing a total of 33 effect sizes. A random-effects model combining 14 effect sizes (after accounting for dependencies and exclusions) revealed a small, but robust, schooling effect on children’s executive functions (g = 0.24, 95 % CI [0.13, 0.36]). This value provides an important reference point regarding the malleability of executive functions in early childhood.
{"title":"School changes minds: A meta-analysis shows that schooling modestly improves children’s executive functions","authors":"Jamie Donenfeld, Mahita Mudundi, Erik Blaser, Zsuzsa Kaldy","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106371","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106371","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Formal schooling places new demands on young children, requiring the inhibition of prepotent responses, sustained attention to instructions, and completion of academic tasks. Does this intense ‘training’ enhance children’s general cognitive abilities? Prior research exploits the arbitrary school entry cut-off date as a natural experiment, comparing same-age children in different grades. A <em>schooling effect</em> is noted when higher-grade children outperform age-matched peers in lower grades. However, evidence for this effect on executive functions remains mixed. Here, we use <em>meta</em>-analytic methods to quantify the schooling effect on executive functions for the first time. We identified 12 studies published between 1995 and 2023 (<em>N</em> <span><math><mo>≈</mo></math></span> 1,611 children, age 4.5 to 9 years, approximately 51 % female), containing a total of 33 effect sizes. A random-effects model combining 14 effect sizes (after accounting for dependencies and exclusions) revealed a small, but robust, schooling effect on children’s executive functions (<em>g</em> = 0.24, 95 % CI [0.13, 0.36]). This value provides an important reference point regarding the malleability of executive functions in early childhood.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106371"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145245439","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-01Epub Date: 2025-10-13DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106368
Yu Shan Huang, Tatiana Fugelso Rachlin, Lin Bian
Gender gaps in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) emerge as early as elementary school, highlighting the need for early interventions. Recent work suggests that a pretend play intervention, in which girls roleplayed as a hardworking scientist increased their persistence in a novel science activity. However, instead of highlighting scientists’ hard work, the pervasive cultural narrative portrays scientists as brilliant, a trait that girls associate less with their own gender than boys. The present study investigates whether pretending to be a brilliant scientist can also boost girls’ persistence. Experiment 1 tested a large and diverse sample of four- to seven-year-olds (N = 325, 164 girls, 55% White). Children played a science game in one of three conditions: as themselves (no-roleplay condition), as a hardworking scientist (dedication condition), or as a brilliant scientist (brilliance condition). Results showed that children in both the dedication and brilliance conditions persisted longer in the science activity than those in the no-roleplay condition. This effect was mainly driven by girls. Thus, pretend play of science role models enhances children’s science engagement, regardless of the role models’ characteristics. Experiment 2 (N = 160, 82 girls, 50% White) revealed that roleplaying as an artist did not yield the same effect, suggesting that pretending to be scientists, not pretend play in general, increased children’s persistence in science activities. These findings have broad implications for ways to mitigate the gender gap in science. We discuss possible mechanisms driving the role of pretend play in boosting children’s science engagement.
{"title":"Pretend play of scientists boosts young children’s, especially girls’, persistence in science","authors":"Yu Shan Huang, Tatiana Fugelso Rachlin, Lin Bian","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106368","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106368","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Gender gaps in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) emerge as early as elementary school, highlighting the need for early interventions. Recent work suggests that a pretend play intervention, in which girls roleplayed as a hardworking scientist increased their persistence in a novel science activity. However, instead of highlighting scientists’ hard work, the pervasive cultural narrative portrays scientists as brilliant, a trait that girls associate less with their own gender than boys. The present study investigates whether pretending to be a brilliant scientist can also boost girls’ persistence. Experiment 1 tested a large and diverse sample of four- to seven-year-olds (<em>N</em> = 325, 164 girls, 55% White). Children played a science game in one of three conditions: as themselves (no-roleplay condition), as a hardworking scientist (dedication condition), or as a brilliant scientist (brilliance condition). Results showed that children in both the dedication and brilliance conditions persisted longer in the science activity than those in the no-roleplay condition. This effect was mainly driven by girls. Thus, pretend play of science role models enhances children’s science engagement, regardless of the role models’ characteristics. Experiment 2 (<em>N</em> = 160, 82 girls, 50% White) revealed that roleplaying as an artist did not yield the same effect, suggesting that pretending to be scientists, not pretend play in general, increased children’s persistence in science activities. These findings have broad implications for ways to mitigate the gender gap in science. We discuss possible mechanisms driving the role of pretend play in boosting children’s science engagement.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106368"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145294099","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-01Epub Date: 2025-10-18DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106398
Elana S. Israel, Brandon E. Gibb
There is preliminary evidence that children of parents with depression exhibit alterations in reward processing that may increase children’s risk for developing psychopathology. However, depression is a heterogeneous disorder, and it is unclear whether specific symptoms of parental depression may be particularly associated with increased risk in children. The current study examined links between parents’ anhedonic versus non-anhedonic symptoms of depression and neural indices of reward outcome processing in children. Participants in this study were a community sample of 217 parent–child dyads (children ages 7–11; 53.00% male, 65.90% non-Hispanic White). Children’s reward outcome processing was assessed during a simple guessing task with the reward positivity (RewP) event-related potential (ERP), which indexes initial neural responsiveness to positive and negative outcome feedback (e.g., winning or losing money). Higher levels of parental anhedonic, but not non-anhedonic, depressive symptoms were associated with more blunted reactivity to both positive and negative outcome feedback in children. The finding was maintained when statistically controlling for children’s own levels of depression and positive affect. These results suggest that parental anhedonia may be a core feature of depression uniquely related to alterations in children’s reward processing, which may have important implications for interventions designed to reduce risk in youth.
{"title":"Parental anhedonic versus non-anhedonic depressive symptoms and children’s reward processing","authors":"Elana S. Israel, Brandon E. Gibb","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106398","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106398","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>There is preliminary evidence that children of parents with depression exhibit alterations in reward processing that may increase children’s risk for developing psychopathology. However, depression is a heterogeneous disorder, and it is unclear whether specific symptoms of parental depression may be particularly associated with increased risk in children. The current study examined links between parents’ anhedonic versus non-anhedonic symptoms of depression and neural indices of reward outcome processing in children. Participants in this study were a community sample of 217 parent–child dyads (children ages 7–11; 53.00% male, 65.90% non-Hispanic White). Children’s reward outcome processing was assessed during a simple guessing task with the reward positivity (RewP) event-related potential (ERP), which indexes initial neural responsiveness to positive and negative outcome feedback (e.g., winning or losing money). Higher levels of parental anhedonic, but not non-anhedonic, depressive symptoms were associated with more blunted reactivity to both positive and negative outcome feedback in children. The finding was maintained when statistically controlling for children’s own levels of depression and positive affect. These results suggest that parental anhedonia may be a core feature of depression uniquely related to alterations in children’s reward processing, which may have important implications for interventions designed to reduce risk in youth.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106398"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145321695","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-01Epub Date: 2025-10-15DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106393
Tânia Ramos, Carrie Georges, Christine Schiltz
Numbers and space are associated in the human brain. One of the most-studied spatial-numerical associations (SNAs) is the SNARC effect (Spatial Numerical Association of Response Codes), for which robust group-level effects are reported across adult studies. Despite well-replicated group-level effects, recent individual-level analysis in adults indicate that only a minority of individuals consistently map numbers onto space (Cipora et al., 2019). To date, SNARC studies in children remain generally scarce with inconclusive results. And none have explored the consistency of individual effects at earlier developmental stages. In the present study, we therefore tested 135 kindergarten children performing magnitude judgments to assess not only group-level SNARC effects but also the prevalence of individual consistency using the same methodology recently applied in adults (Cipora et al., 2019). Our findings reveal a significant magnitude SNARC effect at the group-level. However, similarly to adults, only 37% of the children consistently associated numbers with space in a left-to-right direction when considering CIs around observed effects. While these findings suggest that SNAs on average emerge earlier in life, they also point towards considerable heterogeneity across individuals in that respect. How this can help us understand the conflicting results in the literature regarding significant group-level SNARC effects in children, and guide future research on the potential relation between individual SNARC effects and educational measures in math will be discussed.
在人脑中，数字和空间是联系在一起的。研究最多的空间-数值关联（SNAs）之一是SNARC效应（反应代码的空间数值关联），在成人研究中报道了强大的群体水平效应。尽管群体层面的效应得到了很好的复制，但最近对成年人的个人层面分析表明，只有少数人会持续地将数字映射到空间上（Cipora et al., 2019）。到目前为止，儿童SNARC的研究仍然很少，结果也不确定。也没有人研究过早期发育阶段个体影响的一致性。因此，在本研究中，我们测试了135名幼儿园儿童进行大小判断，不仅评估群体层面的SNARC效应，还使用最近应用于成人的相同方法评估个体一致性的普遍性（Cipora et al., 2019）。我们的研究结果揭示了群体层面上显著的SNARC效应。然而，与成人相似，只有37%的儿童在考虑到观察到的影响时始终将数字与左至右方向的空间联系起来。虽然这些发现表明，sna平均出现在生命早期，但它们也指出，在这方面，个体之间存在相当大的异质性。这将如何帮助我们理解文献中关于儿童显著群体水平SNARC效应的相互矛盾的结果，并指导未来关于个体SNARC效应与数学教育措施之间潜在关系的研究。
{"title":"Early development of spatial-numerical associations: consistency and variability of the SNARC effect in kindergarten children","authors":"Tânia Ramos, Carrie Georges, Christine Schiltz","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106393","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106393","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Numbers and space are associated in the human brain. One of the most-studied spatial-numerical associations (SNAs) is the SNARC effect (Spatial Numerical Association of Response Codes), for which robust group-level effects are reported across adult studies. Despite well-replicated group-level effects, recent individual-level analysis in adults indicate that only a minority of individuals consistently map numbers onto space (<span><span>Cipora et al., 2019</span></span>). To date, SNARC studies in children remain generally scarce with inconclusive results. And none have explored the consistency of individual effects at earlier developmental stages. In the present study, we therefore tested 135 kindergarten children performing magnitude judgments to assess not only group-level SNARC effects but also the prevalence of individual consistency using the same methodology recently applied in adults (<span><span>Cipora et al., 2019</span></span>). Our findings reveal a significant magnitude SNARC effect at the group-level. However, similarly to adults, only 37% of the children consistently associated numbers with space in a left-to-right direction when considering CIs around observed effects. While these findings suggest that SNAs on average emerge earlier in life, they also point towards considerable heterogeneity across individuals in that respect. How this can help us understand the conflicting results in the literature regarding significant group-level SNARC effects in children, and guide future research on the potential relation between individual SNARC effects and educational measures in math will be discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106393"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145309637","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-01Epub Date: 2025-10-16DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106392
Ricardo Moura
Ordinal knowledge plays a foundational role in early mathematics, yet little is known about how different forms of ordinal representation support preschoolers’ arithmetic. The present study investigated whether two types of count-list-based ordinal representations—rote counting and number ordering—mediate the relationship between symbolic cardinal knowledge and arithmetic performance in preschool children. Sixty-four preschool children (mean age = 67.3 months) completed a battery of tasks assessing cardinality, rote counting, number ordering, and arithmetic. Mediation analyses revealed that both rote counting and number ordering fully mediated the relationship between symbolic number comparison and arithmetic performance. Importantly, analyses showed that these mediators differentially supported arithmetic depending on problem complexity: rote counting was more strongly associated with simpler addition problems, while flexible number ordering predicted performance on more complex addition problems typically solved with overt counting strategies. These findings highlight the heterogeneous nature of ordinal representations and underscore their role as early supports for arithmetic, even before elementary school. Implications for understanding early ordinal representations and its use on education practices are discussed.
{"title":"Distinct ordinal representations mediate the influence of cardinal knowledge on Preschoolers’ arithmetic performance","authors":"Ricardo Moura","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106392","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106392","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Ordinal knowledge plays a foundational role in early mathematics, yet little is known about how different forms of ordinal representation support preschoolers’ arithmetic. The present study investigated whether two types of count-list-based ordinal representations—rote counting and number ordering—mediate the relationship between symbolic cardinal knowledge and arithmetic performance in preschool children. Sixty-four preschool children (mean age = 67.3 months) completed a battery of tasks assessing cardinality, rote counting, number ordering, and arithmetic. Mediation analyses revealed that both rote counting and number ordering fully mediated the relationship between symbolic number comparison and arithmetic performance. Importantly, analyses showed that these mediators differentially supported arithmetic depending on problem complexity: rote counting was more strongly associated with simpler addition problems, while flexible number ordering predicted performance on more complex addition problems typically solved with overt counting strategies. These findings highlight the heterogeneous nature of ordinal representations and underscore their role as early supports for arithmetic, even before elementary school. Implications for understanding early ordinal representations and its use on education practices are discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106392"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145313967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-01Epub Date: 2025-10-18DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106399
Natalie Christner , Regina M. Sticker , Antonia Misch , Tobias Krettenauer , Markus Paulus
States with a focus on oneself, such as observing oneself (private self-focus) and being observed by others (public self-focus), are proposed to increase the saliency of own motives and evaluations by others and thereby to influence behavior. These processes become particularly relevant toward the end of early childhood, around the same age when children’s moral self-concept (their view of themselves as prosocial agents) consolidates. This study advances the understanding of the role of self-focus on children’s prosocial behavior by considering their moral self-concept. We investigated how private self-focus and two facets of public self-focus affect sharing behavior, the moral self-concept, and their interrelation. In a preregistered study, we assessed 5- to 8-year-olds’ (N = 161, 84 female) sharing behavior and moral self-concept across four conditions. Children shared while observing themselves (private self-focus), while being observed by another child (reputation), while being observed by another child who could reciprocate later (reciprocity), or while not being observed (control). Generally, children shared more when observed by another person compared to when they were not in the focus of anybody, whereas observing themselves did not increase sharing. Children’s moral self-concept was positively correlated with sharing, particularly when being in public self-focus, while mean values did not differ between conditions. The study provides novel evidence for the specific role of the awareness of others’ evaluation in children’s prosocial behavior. It suggests a social grounding of the moral self-concept by revealing its particular role for sharing behavior when being in the focus of social attention.
{"title":"If she watches, I will share: The impact of private and public self-focus on children’s sharing behavior and the moral self-concept","authors":"Natalie Christner , Regina M. Sticker , Antonia Misch , Tobias Krettenauer , Markus Paulus","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106399","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106399","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>States with a focus on oneself, such as observing oneself (private self-focus) and being observed by others (public self-focus), are proposed to increase the saliency of own motives and evaluations by others and thereby to influence behavior. These processes become particularly relevant toward the end of early childhood, around the same age when children’s moral self-concept (their view of themselves as prosocial agents) consolidates. This study advances the understanding of the role of self-focus on children’s prosocial behavior by considering their moral self-concept. We investigated how private self-focus and two facets of public self-focus affect sharing behavior, the moral self-concept, and their interrelation. In a preregistered study, we assessed 5- to 8-year-olds’ (<em>N</em> = 161, 84 female) sharing behavior and moral self-concept across four conditions. Children shared while observing themselves (private self-focus), while being observed by another child (reputation), while being observed by another child who could reciprocate later (reciprocity), or while not being observed (control). Generally, children shared more when observed by another person compared to when they were not in the focus of anybody, whereas observing themselves did not increase sharing. Children’s moral self-concept was positively correlated with sharing, particularly when being in public self-focus, while mean values did not differ between conditions. The study provides novel evidence for the specific role of the awareness of others’ evaluation in children’s prosocial behavior. It suggests a social grounding of the moral self-concept by revealing its particular role for sharing behavior when being in the focus of social attention.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106399"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145321701","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-01Epub Date: 2025-11-01DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106402
Declan Devlin , Natalia Dubinkina , Eveline De Praetere , Francesco Sella , Bert Reynvoet
Children with developmental dyscalculia often show impaired performance on number order processing tasks. Recent findings suggest these deficits are not general in nature, but instead specific to certain kinds of sequences. In particular, one proposal is that dyscalculic children struggle specifically to understand that “in order” can refer to sequences outside of the (ascending-consecutive) count-list (e.g., 1-3-5 is in order). However, previous findings in support of this view were limited by (i) only considering ascending sequences and (ii) not accounting for other factors known to influence order processing performance, such as sequence familiarity. To address this, the present study compared a control (n = 28) and dyscalculic group (n = 12), aged between 7-12 years, across ascending and descending sequences varying in familiarity. As expected, dyscalculic children showed impaired performance on ascending non-consecutive sequences (e.g., 1-3-5) but not on ascending consecutive sequences (e.g., 1-2-3). Notably, however, this deficit appeared to remain only for unfamiliar sequences (e.g., 2-5-8) and not familiar ones (e.g., 2-4-6), although this interaction was non-significant. Moreover, dyscalculic children displayed typical performance across both consecutive (e.g., 5-4-3) and non-consecutive (e.g., 5-3-1) descending sequences, neither of which match the traditional count-list. Accordingly, although order processing deficits in developmental dyscalculia do appear specific in nature, they are not necessarily specific to non-count-list sequences.
{"title":"The nature of order processing deficits in developmental dyscalculia: The influences of familiarity and the count-list","authors":"Declan Devlin , Natalia Dubinkina , Eveline De Praetere , Francesco Sella , Bert Reynvoet","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106402","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106402","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Children with developmental dyscalculia often show impaired performance on number order processing tasks. Recent findings suggest these deficits are not general in nature, but instead specific to certain kinds of sequences. In particular, one proposal is that dyscalculic children struggle specifically to understand that “in order” can refer to sequences outside of the (ascending-consecutive) count-list (e.g., 1-3-5 is in order). However, previous findings in support of this view were limited by (i) only considering ascending sequences and (ii) not accounting for other factors known to influence order processing performance, such as sequence familiarity. To address this, the present study compared a control (<em>n</em> = 28) and dyscalculic group (<em>n</em> = 12), aged between 7-12 years, across ascending and descending sequences varying in familiarity. As expected, dyscalculic children showed impaired performance on ascending non-consecutive sequences (e.g., 1-3-5) but not on ascending consecutive sequences (e.g., 1-2-3). Notably, however, this deficit appeared to remain only for unfamiliar sequences (e.g., 2-5-8) and not familiar ones (e.g., 2-4-6), although this interaction was non-significant. Moreover, dyscalculic children displayed typical performance across both consecutive (e.g., 5-4-3) and non-consecutive (e.g., 5-3-1) descending sequences, neither of which match the traditional count-list. Accordingly, although order processing deficits in developmental dyscalculia do appear specific in nature, they are not necessarily specific to non-count-list sequences.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106402"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145418141","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-01Epub Date: 2025-10-02DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106377
Mei Wu, Xi Liang, Nanhua Cheng, Jiedi Liu, Zhaoxing Sun, Jiajia Yang, Xiaoxu Meng, Miao Li, Zhengyan Wang
The third year of life represents a critical period for formative developmental change, characterized by the rapid integration and expansion of fundamental behavioral systems. This longitudinal study investigated the developmental trajectory of prosocial behavior in children between 12 and 36 months of age, with a specific focus on the influence of infant social evaluation, contagious crying, and parental prosociality. The sample consisted of 214 Chinese infants (102 girls, 112 boys) and their families, assessed at 6, 14, 24, and 36 months. Analyses based on the full sample indicated a significant increase in prosocial behavior over time. Further examination of a subset of 89 infants revealed that infant social evaluation was positively associated with the initial level of prosocial behavior. Maternal prosocial tendencies significantly predicted the initial level of prosocial behavior, whereas paternal prosocial tendencies were positively associated with its growth rate. These findings underscore the distinct roles of maternal and paternal influences on early prosocial development within a Chinese cultural context.
{"title":"Developmental trajectory of prosocial behavior between 1 and 3 years: roles of infant and parental predictors","authors":"Mei Wu, Xi Liang, Nanhua Cheng, Jiedi Liu, Zhaoxing Sun, Jiajia Yang, Xiaoxu Meng, Miao Li, Zhengyan Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106377","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106377","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The third year of life represents a critical period for formative developmental change, characterized by the rapid integration and expansion of fundamental behavioral systems. This longitudinal study investigated the developmental trajectory of prosocial behavior in children between 12 and 36 months of age, with a specific focus on the influence of infant social evaluation, contagious crying, and parental prosociality. The sample consisted of 214 Chinese infants (102 girls, 112 boys) and their families, assessed at 6, 14, 24, and 36 months. Analyses based on the full sample indicated a significant increase in prosocial behavior over time. Further examination of a subset of 89 infants revealed that infant social evaluation was positively associated with the initial level of prosocial behavior. Maternal prosocial tendencies significantly predicted the initial level of prosocial behavior, whereas paternal prosocial tendencies were positively associated with its growth rate. These findings underscore the distinct roles of maternal and paternal influences on early prosocial development within a Chinese cultural context.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106377"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145222654","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-01Epub Date: 2025-09-24DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106372
Camilla Ziane , Claire Wardak , Suliann Ben Hamed
Mind wandering (MW) is a phenomenon that has been largely described in adults, during which thoughts do not stay on the current tasks or goals. Considering its negative impact on educational outcomes, measuring and understanding MW in children is essential. MW has been associated with attentional and executive performance in children above 8 years old. Given the huge changes in attention and executive functions organization before 6 years old, our study aimed at exploring how mind wandering interacts with these processes in preschoolers.
Sixty children aged 4 to 6 years old were asked to evaluate their mind wandering propensity in the classroom using an adapted daydreaming questionnaire. They were also administered neuropsychological tests and questionnaires evaluating sustained attention, processing speed, cognitive flexibility, inhibition and a selection of individual traits.
Preschoolers’ self-evaluation strongly correlated with their teacher’s evaluation, showing the feasibility of assessing MW in young children. The MW scores also correlated with the children’s performance in several tests assessing sustained attention, processing speed, cognitive flexibility and inhibition, as well as some individual traits. A latent variable modeling revealed that MW is best modeled by a latent factor independent from attention, speed and inhibition, but highly correlated with attention.
Our results thus reveal the central role of attention in child development, suggesting that mind wandering in preschoolers could be linked to attention immaturity.
{"title":"Mind wandering and its relationship with sustained attention and executive functions in preschoolers","authors":"Camilla Ziane , Claire Wardak , Suliann Ben Hamed","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106372","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106372","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Mind wandering (MW) is a phenomenon that has been largely described in adults, during which thoughts do not stay on the current tasks or goals. Considering its negative impact on educational outcomes, measuring and understanding MW in children is essential. MW has been associated with attentional and executive performance in children above 8 years old. Given the huge changes in attention and executive functions organization before 6 years old, our study aimed at exploring how mind wandering interacts with these processes in preschoolers.</div><div>Sixty children aged 4 to 6 years old were asked to evaluate their mind wandering propensity in the classroom using an adapted daydreaming questionnaire. They were also administered neuropsychological tests and questionnaires evaluating sustained attention, processing speed, cognitive flexibility, inhibition and a selection of individual traits.</div><div>Preschoolers’ self-evaluation strongly correlated with their teacher’s evaluation, showing the feasibility of assessing MW in young children. The MW scores also correlated with the children’s performance in several tests assessing sustained attention, processing speed, cognitive flexibility and inhibition, as well as some individual traits. A latent variable modeling revealed that MW is best modeled by a latent factor independent from attention, speed and inhibition, but highly correlated with attention.</div><div>Our results thus reveal the central role of attention in child development, suggesting that mind wandering in preschoolers could be linked to attention immaturity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106372"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145128382","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-01Epub Date: 2025-10-21DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106397
Michael Huemer , Lara M. Schröder , Sarah J. Leikard , Josef Perner
The present study systematically investigated how 83 (42 female, Austrian, 41 to 79 months) children reasoned on Call and Tomasello’s (1999) nonverbal false belief task. Experiment 1 replicated the central finding that children realized that a mistaken communicator tended to mark the wrong, unbaited box. However, we found that less than half of the children gave consistently correct responses while others responded in a way indistinguishable from random guessing. Some children noted that markings were consistently wrong, suggesting a simple response strategy of choosing the unmarked box without reasoning about the communicator’s false belief. Experiment 2 undermined this potential strategy by adding correctly marked trials. Performance dropped so that it could not be distinguished anymore from random responding. These results call into question whether Call and Tomasello’s task detects reasoning about false beliefs.
{"title":"Children’s reasoning strategies on call and Tomasello’s nonverbal false belief test: no sign of false-belief reasoning","authors":"Michael Huemer , Lara M. Schröder , Sarah J. Leikard , Josef Perner","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106397","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106397","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The present study systematically investigated how 83 (42 female, Austrian, 41 to 79 months) children reasoned on <span><span>Call and Tomasello’s (1999)</span></span> nonverbal false belief task. Experiment 1 replicated the central finding that children realized that a mistaken communicator tended to mark the wrong, unbaited box. However, we found that less than half of the children gave consistently correct responses while others responded in a way indistinguishable from random guessing. Some children noted that markings were consistently wrong, suggesting a simple response strategy of choosing the unmarked box without reasoning about the communicator’s false belief. Experiment 2 undermined this potential strategy by adding correctly marked trials. Performance dropped so that it could not be distinguished anymore from random responding. These results call into question whether Call and Tomasello’s task detects reasoning about false beliefs.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106397"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145349383","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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