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.

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.

Looking deeper into the toy box: Understanding caregiver toy selection decisions.

Children's caregivers are their first play partners, and toys influence the quality of these caregiver-child interactions-with research suggesting that electronic toys are not as supportive of these interactions as traditional toys. In this study, we investigate (1) toy use amongst caregivers and infants, with an eye towards investigating the prevalence of traditional vs. electronic toys, (2) caregivers' preferences when selecting electronic or traditional toys for their children and (3) whether caregivers' choices are impacted by the claims made by toy manufacturers. Sixty-three primary caregivers participated in a survey asking about their toy selection decisions. Results demonstrate the prevalence of electronic toys (even for the youngest infants) as well as caregivers' preferences and the potential of toy descriptions to impact caregivers' toy purchasing decisions. Despite scientific evidence that there may be a developmental cost to electronic toys relative to traditional toys, after highlighting the toys' developmental benefits, caregivers became more likely to select electronic toys for their infant.

Children's Reality Status Judgments of Digital Media: Implications for a COVID-19 World and Beyond.

Even prior to the COVID-19 crisis, one of the children's most common screen activities was using the video-sharing platform YouTube, with many children preferring YouTube over television. The pandemic has significantly increased the amount of time many children spend on YouTube-watching videos for both entertainment and education. However, it is unclear how children conceptualize the people they see on YouTube. Prior to the pandemic, children 3-8 years old (N = 117) were recruited to participate. Children were told that they would see pictures taken from videos and answer questions about them. Children saw three physical photos with the same image of a man and a bird and were told that the photo was (a) from a video on the experimenter's phone, (b) from a video on television, or (c) from a video on YouTube. They were asked whether the person in the photo was real or not real, which video would be best for learning, and which video they would prefer to watch. Findings indicated that children were marginally less likely to believe that people on YouTube are real than people in a video on a phone, with no difference between beliefs about people on YouTube and television. Notably, these beliefs were similar across the age range tested here. Across all ages, children preferred to watch YouTube more than phone videos and believed that YouTube possessed greater educational value than both phone and television videos.

Brain Training for Kids: Adding a Human Touch.

Editor's Note: Google "brain games for kids" and you can find apps, board games, puzzles, phonic fun, improvisational games-the list goes on and on for all ages in a billion dollar market. But questions remain: do toys and games improve thinking or IQ, or do they just make a child better at playing the games? Our authors examine the market and give us an inside look at some of the research behind this billion-dollar industry.

Why do early mathematics skills predict later reading? The role of mathematical language.

A growing body of evidence indicates that the development of mathematics and literacy skills is highly related. The importance of literacy skills-specifically language-for mathematics development has been well rationalized. However, despite several prominent studies indicating that mathematics skills are highly predictive of literacy development, the reason for this relation is not well understood. The purpose of this study was to identify how and why early mathematics is predictive of early literacy development. Participants included 125 preschool children 3-5 years old (M = 4 years 3 months). Participants were assessed on mathematics, literacy, and cognitive measures in both the fall and spring of their preschool year. Mediation analyses indicated that the relation between early mathematics and literacy skills is mediated by children's mathematical language skills. These findings suggest that, in prior research identifying mathematical performance as a significant predictor of later literacy skills, mathematical performance may have acted only as a proxy measure for more complex language skills such as those assessed on a mathematical language measure. (PsycINFO Database Record

A Kindergarten Number-Sense Intervention With Contrasting Practice Conditions for Low-Achieving Children.

The efficacy of a research-based number-sense intervention for low-achieving kinder-gartners was examined. Children (N = 126) were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions: a number-sense intervention followed by a number-fact practice session, an identical number-sense intervention followed by a number-list practice session, or a business-as-usual control group. The interventions were delivered in a small-group setting over 24 half-hour lessons. Both intervention groups performed better than controls on measures of number sense, arithmetic fluency, and general mathematics calculation achievement at immediate posttest. However, the number-fact practice condition gave children an additional advantage over the number-list practice condition on the outcomes at delayed posttest 8 weeks later. The number-fact practice condition was especially effective for producing gains in English learners.

Reading Stories to Learn Math: Mathematics Vocabulary Instruction for Children with Early Numeracy Difficulties.

The present study involved examining whether a storybook reading intervention targeting mathematics vocabulary, such as "equal," "more," and "less," and associated number concepts would increase at-risk children's vocabulary knowledge and number competencies. Children with early numeracy difficulties (N = 124) were recruited from kindergarten classes in four schools. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: a storybook number competencies (SNC) intervention, a number sense intervention, or a business-as-usual control. Interventions were carried out in groups of four children over 8 weeks (24 thirty-minute sessions). Findings demonstrated that the SNC intervention group outperformed the other groups on measures of mathematics vocabulary, both in terms of words that were closely aligned to the intervention and those that were not. There was no effect of the SNC intervention, however, on general mathematics measures, suggesting a need to provide the mathematics vocabulary work along with more intensive instruction in number concepts.

Domain-general mediators of the relation between kindergarten number sense and first-grade mathematics achievement.

Domain-general skills that mediate the relation between kindergarten number sense and first-grade mathematics skills were investigated. Participants were 107 children who displayed low number sense in the fall of kindergarten. Controlling for background variables, multiple regression analyses showed that both attention problems and executive functioning were unique predictors of mathematics outcomes. Attention problems were more important for predicting first-grade calculation performance, whereas executive functioning was more important for predicting first-grade performance on applied problems. Moreover, both executive functioning and attention problems were unique partial mediators of the relationship between kindergarten and first-grade mathematics skills. The results provide empirical support for developing interventions that target executive functioning and attention problems in addition to instruction in number skills for kindergartners with initial low number sense.

Building Kindergartners' Number Sense: A Randomized Controlled Study.

Math achievement in elementary school is mediated by performance and growth in number sense during kindergarten. The aim of the present study was to test the effectiveness of a targeted small group number sense intervention for high-risk kindergartners from low-income communities. Children were randomly assigned to one of three groups (n = 44 in each group): a number sense intervention group, a language intervention group, or a business as usual control group. Accounting for initial skill level in mathematical knowledge, children who received the number sense intervention performed better than controls at immediate post test, with meaningful effects on measures of number competencies and general math achievement. Many of the effects held eight weeks after the intervention was completed, suggesting that children internalized what they had learned. There were no differences between the language and control groups on any math-related measures.