The aim of the article was to find out the psychomotor profile of children in the second cycle of infant education (3–6 years) through an observational cohort study with a prospective character. A total of 277 students participated, 52.7% boys and 47.3% girls, grouped in a control group (52.3%) and an experimental group (47.7%). The McCarthy Scales of Aptitude (MCSA) and Psychomotor Skills for Children, 7th edition, were used. The results showed that, in the global score and its dimensions, the time factor had significant and different influences, according to the control or experimental group. However, there were no significant differences in motor skills with respect to sex. As conclusions, the level of psychomotor development of the sample is close to the average of the development scale used. The time factor is significant when the subjects are subjected to stimulation; therefore, this must be taken into account in any therapeutic or learning process.
Alfonso Martínez-Moreno, Susana Imbernón Giménez, Arturo Díaz Suárez
Abstract Instruction with primary sources promotes learner engagement and behavioural objectives. The school museum is a suitable resource for information literacy instruction in early childhood education. In this paper, we question conventional information literacy instruction. Drawing on a review of the scientific literature on information literacy and a review of educational policies, we argue that instructional innovation is needed in reading instruction in early childhood education. Based on the use of primary sources, we propose the interdisciplinary approach of the school museum as an alternative to the school library. This inquiry has implications for teacher effectiveness, student centred learning, reading motivation, and the school‐community relationship. Finally, we give some recommendations concerning school museum implementation and further research on the topic of school museums.
Verónica Parisi‐Moreno, Nayra Llonch Molina, Moisés Selfa i Sastre
Abstract This comment posits questions and opens debates around the recent article by Scheidecker et al. based in the author's experience in anthropological research and applied work in child development in the Global South. The article advocates for a critical review of how anthropologists in the Global South carry out and disseminate their research, in order to broaden audiences beyond the academy. Finally, it is argued that for anthropological evidence to hold a place at the table on Global Early Childhood Development (ECD), anthropologists must engage in practices, methodologies, and forms of collaboration that make our findings and perspectives hearable. For this to happen, anthropologists should take an active part in institutions and fields of work they tend to avoid. Only in this way can we positively impact children and families by incorporating the inherent diversity of ECD beyond the parameters and values of normalcy that predominate in the so‐called minority world.
The challenge of connecting what happens in the first five years of life to mental health outcomes decades later has occupied developmental researchers for generations, yet translating that accumulated knowledge into actionable clinical prevention strategies remains an elusive goal for healthcare systems worldwide and in Belgium specifically. This research investigated the longitudinal relationship between early childhood developmental experiences and adult mental health symptomatology among a retrospective cohort of 189 Belgian adults assessed at two academic medical centers in the Flemish region. Participants aged 25 to 55 years completed comprehensive assessments spanning adverse childhood experience inventories, parental bonding evaluations, developmental milestone histories, and current psychiatric symptom measures using the General Health Questionnaire-28 and Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale at KU Leuven and Ghent University Hospital between November 2023 and September 2024. Our analysis revealed a strong positive correlation between adverse childhood experience scores and adult mental health symptom burden, with a Pearson coefficient of 0.67 indicating that nearly 45% of the variance in adult psychiatric symptomatology could be statistically traced to childhood adversity exposure levels. Scatter plot visualization confirmed this association across three distinct risk strata identified through cluster analysis: resilient individuals maintaining low symptom scores despite moderate adversity exposure, moderate risk individuals showing proportional symptom elevation tracking linearly with adversity, and high-risk individuals demonstrating severe symptom burden associated with elevated adversity histories and compounding vulnerability factors. Cognitive development emerged as the most frequently affected developmental domain at 28.6% of identified cases, followed by emotional regulation difficulties at 23.8% and social attachment disruptions at 19.6%, as illustrated by pie chart analysis of domain-specific developmental concern patterns across the full sample. Parental bonding quality demonstrated a significant protective association with adult resilience capacity, yielding a correlation coefficient of 0.58 that held across both male and female participants though with somewhat different effect magnitudes between genders that merit further investigation. The developmental pathway model constructed from these data traces how protective factors including secure attachment, cognitive stimulation, and healthy peer relationships interact with risk factors such as adverse childhood experiences, learning difficulties, and identity disruption across four developmental stages from early childhood through established adulthood. Participants who reported both high adversity and low parental bonding scored 23.4 points higher on the GHQ-28 than those with low adversity and high bonding, representing a clinically meaningful difference that substantially exceeds established thresholds for psychiatric caseness identification on this instrument. Resilience scores were 18.7 points higher among participants who received early supportive interventions during childhood compared to those who did not access such services, even after statistical controlling for baseline adversity levels and socioeconomic confounders. These findings carry balanced implications for both clinical practice and public health policy development. While early childhood experiences clearly shape adult mental health trajectories in measurable and consistent ways, the data also demonstrate that protective factors including strong parental bonding can substantially buffer adversity effects, suggesting that intervention at multiple developmental windows remains viable and potentially effective rather than limiting preventive efforts exclusively to the earliest years of life when adversity first occurs.
The article is an immediate outcome of the cooperation in the exchange of views and practices relating to support for young children and their families in Poland and Hungary. The authors attempt to present knowledge and experiences in the area of early intervention and early childhood development support in both countries. Thanks to the analyses presented, it is possible to point out the areas where difficulties arise and reflect on key issues addressed by Poland and Hungary from a systemic and institutional perspective.
In many Western countries, children with foreign-born parents are lagging behind children with native-born parents in school performance. In the policy debate much hope is placed on the potential of pre-schools to remedy this, by providing a learning and language environment that can compensate for the disadvantages that these children face. We study inequalities in pre-school learning contexts by immigrant origin, using full population register data that matches all children to their families and pre-schools. Enrolment in pre-school is lower for children of immigrants, but this is – surprisingly – almost entirely driven by low enrolment of children in non-refugee families. Contrary to expectations, children from origin groups with larger school difficulties have high pre-school enrolment rates. Our results suggest that explanations for low enrolment should primarily be sought in intentions to remain long-term in the host country.In pre-schools, immigrant background children have a somewhat higher teacher density, but a somewhat lower density of qualified teachers, and a somewhat higher turnover rate and sickness absence among teachers. These differences are however small. Where we see large differences is in the composition of the child and teacher group: Immigrant-background children go to pre-schools where a much higher proportion of teachers and children have immigrant background. We conclude that hopes to equalize school outcomes through encouraging pre-school enrolment are misplaced, and equalizing structural indicators is unlikely to make a big difference. The compensatory potential of pre-schools lies primarily in a de-segregation of staff and children across pre-schools.
(1) Background: Augmented reality (AR) game-based learning, has received increased attention in recent years. Fantasy is a vital gaming feature that promotes engagement and immersion experience for children. However, situating learning with AR fantasy to engage learners and fit pedagogical contexts needs structured analysis of educational scenarios for different subjects. (2) Methods: We present a combined study using our own built AR games, MathMythosAR2 for mathematics learning, and FancyBookAR for English as second-language learning. For each game, we created a fantasy and a real-life narrative. We investigated player engagement and teachers’ scaffolding through qualitative and quantitative research with 62 participants aged from 7 to 11 years old. (3) Results: We discovered that fantasy narratives engage students in mathematics learning while disengaging them in second-language learning. Participants report a higher imagination with fantasy narratives and a higher analogy with real-life narratives. We found that teachers’ scaffolding for MathMythosAR2 focused on complex interactions, for FancyBookAR, focused on story interpretation and knowledge explanation. (4) Conclusions: It is recommended to mix fantasy and real-life settings, and use simple AR interaction and pedagogical agents that enable teachers’ scaffolding seamlessly. The design of AR fantasy should evaluate whether the story is intrinsically related to the learning subjects, as well as the requirements of explicit explanation.
Tengjia Zuo, Jixiang Jiang, Erik D. van der Spek et al.
In many Western countries, children with foreign-born parents are lagging behind children with native-born parents in school performance. In the policy debate much hope is placed on the potential of pre-schools to remedy this, by providing a learning and language environment that can compensate for the disadvantages that these children face. We study inequalities in pre-school learning contexts by immigrant origin, using full population register data that matches all children to their families and pre-schools. Enrolment in pre-school is lower for children of immigrants, but this is – surprisingly – almost entirely driven by low enrolment of children in non-refugee families. Contrary to expectations, children from origin groups with larger school difficulties have high pre-school enrolment rates. Our results suggest that explanations for low enrolment should primarily be sought in intentions to remain long-term in the host country.In pre-schools, immigrant background children have a somewhat higher teacher density, but a somewhat lower density of qualified teachers, and a somewhat higher turnover rate and sickness absence among teachers. These differences are however small. Where we see large differences is in the composition of the child and teacher group: Immigrant-background children go to pre-schools where a much higher proportion of teachers and children have immigrant background. We conclude that hopes to equalize school outcomes through encouraging pre-school enrolment are misplaced, and equalizing structural indicators is unlikely to make a big difference. The compensatory potential of pre-schools lies primarily in a de-segregation of staff and children across pre-schools.
PURPOSE: To evaluate whether strabismus surgery improves the learning performance - calculation, reading and drawing - of school-aged children. METHODS: In a case-control study, patients between the ages of 7 and 10 years with horizontal strabismus, recommended for surgical correction, were prospectively included. Reading, calculating and drawing abilities were evaluated before and 3 months after corrective strabismus surgery using standardized tests. Cases were compared to control patients: patients with a surgical indication postponed due to the COVID lockdown. RESULTS: Forty-two operated patients and 42 controls between the ages of 7 and 10 years with horizontal strabismus were included. The average reading speed was 65.8 words per minute pre-operatively compared to 80.6 words per minute post-operatively (p = 0.0038). The average drawing score was 71.1 pre-operatively compared to 84.3 post-operatively (p = 0.012). The average calculation score was 3.2 pre-operatively compared to 3.4 post-operatively (p = 0.363). Improvement given by strabismus surgery was confirmed avoiding the learning effect by comparison with the control group. The improvements observed were more significant in the youngest patients and esotropia. CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights that strabismus surgery significantly improved the children's reading fluency and drawing task execution. These encouraging data should be taken into account when considering the indications for strabismus surgery.
Vincent Feuillade, Tristan Bourcier, David Gaucher et al.
In England, ‘Virtual Schools’ oversee and support the educational progress of children in care. This paper reports on the analysis of 16 interviews with Virtual School headteachers that were part of two mixed methods research projects on the educational progress of children in care. These interviews explored their role; the types of support they offer young people in care; what they see as the key factors about a young person’s individual characteristics and care experiences that influence their educational outcomes; how schools support young people in care; and the influence of the foster carer/residential staff on the educational outcomes of these children. The interviews were analysed using NVivo and emerging themes were identified informed by the literature on the education of children in care. The paper draws out the main findings which explore the status and role of Virtual Schools in England, their functions, strategies, and what they see as their contribution to improving the educational outcomes of children in care.
