Parent, child, and environmental predictors of vegetable consumption in Italian, Polish, and British preschoolers.

This study compared the vegetable intake of preschool children from three European countries [Italy, Poland, and the United Kingdom (UK)] and explored the parent, child, and environmental factors that predicted intake in each country. A total of 408 parents of preschoolers (Italy: N = 61, Poland: N = 124, and UK: N = 225; child mean age = 32.2 months, SD = 9.47) completed an online survey comprising a set of standardised questionnaires. For all three countries, the questionnaires included measures of children's vegetable intake (VegFFQ), child eating behaviour (CEBQ-FF), parents' mealtime goals (FMGs), and sociodemographic questions about family background and environment. In the UK and Italy, additional questionnaires were used to assess child temperament (EAS-T) and parents' feeding practices (CFPQ). The results showed that the number of child-sized portions of vegetables consumed per day varied significantly across countries; Polish children consumed the most (∼3 portions) and Italian children the least (∼1.5 portions). Between-country differences were seen in parents' goals for family mealtimes; compared to Italian parents, Polish and UK parents were more motivated to minimise mealtime stress, increase family involvement in meal preparation, and share the same foods with family members. British and Italian parents also adopted different feeding practices; parents in the UK reported more use of healthy modelling behaviours and more use of foods to support their child's emotion regulation. In terms of child factors, Italian children were reported to be more emotional and more sociable than British children. Analyses of the relationships between the parent, child, and environmental factors and children's vegetable intake revealed both similarities and differences between countries. Negative predictors of vegetable intake included child food fussiness in the UK and Poland, child temperament (especially, shyness) in Italy, and the use of food as a reward and child emotionality in the UK. Positive predictors included the parental mealtime goal of 'family involvement' in the UK. These results highlight differences in the extent to which European preschoolers achieve recommended levels of vegetable intake, and in the factors that influence whether they do. The results suggest a need to develop healthy eating interventions that are adopted to meet the specific needs of the countries in which they are implemented.

Theory of Mind Development in Italian Children with Specific Language Impairment and Autism Spectrum Disorder: Delay, Deficit, or Neither?

Some studies report delayed theory of mind (ToM) development in children with specific language impairment (SLI), while others do not. A ToM delay is acknowledged in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), while whether these children also display a deficit is still under debate. In the current study, we drew on a developmental trajectory approach to assess whether children with SLI or ASD displayed delays or deficits in their ToM performance. Forty-three children with SLI (age 4-10 years), 44 children with ASD (age 5-12 years), and 227 typically developing children (age 3-11 years) completed the ToM Storybooks. Children with SLI were not found to display either a delay or a deficit in ToM, while children with ASD were found to display a deficit.

Corrigendum: See & Eat! Using E-books to Promote Vegetable Eating Among Preschoolers: Findings From an Italian Sample.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.712416.].

See & Eat! Using E-books to Promote Vegetable Eating Among Preschoolers: Findings From an Italian Sample.

Different strategies have been developed to help parents with introducing new or disliked vegetables. Nonetheless, many parents of preschoolers struggle against children's refusal to eat vegetables. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of e-books in promoting positive attitudes toward vegetables through repeated visual exposures. A total of 61 families with preschoolers joined the See & Eat study and received an e-book about one of two vegetables chosen from a list of 24. Parents provided ratings of children's willingness to taste, intake, and liking of the chosen vegetables before and after reading the e-book; parents also evaluated their children's food fussiness and their agreement with respect to three mealtime goals of the family. Using a 2 (vegetable: target or non-target) × 2 (time: pre-test or post-test) within-subjects analysis, results from 53 families revealed a significant increase in children's willingness to taste, intake, and liking at post-test of both target and non-target vegetables. Following a two-week parent-child e-book reading intervention, children's food fussiness and parents' endorsement of positive mealtime goals slightly but significantly increased. Results suggest that e-books are effective in encouraging healthy eating among preschoolers and that the positive effect of e-book reading can generalize to other vegetables.

Theory of Mind Development in Children with Visual Impairment: The Contribution of the Adapted Comprehensive Test ToM Storybooks.

Research that focused on Theory of Mind (ToM) development in blind children showed that they were delayed, but not permanently deficient, in various types of false belief tasks. More recent studies reported first evidence of typical ToM development in blind children and suggested that more comprehensive tools to evaluate ToM had to be used. The current paper analyzed ToM development in blind children, using the adapted version of the ToM Storybooks; this is a standardized comprehensive test developed to provide a reliable and stable measurement, in comparison with the false belief tasks. Results showed that blind children's ToM performances were very similar to the ones of matched typically developing children, matched on chronological age and gender. The current finding supported the importance of the use of a more comprehensive tool to assess ToM in atypical population.

Children With Cerebral Palsy Playing With Mainstream Robotic Toys: Playfulness and Environmental Supportiveness.

Purpose: Play is a right for every child and has a key role in child development. Play can be analyzed according to the construct of playfulness, which is the child's disposition to play. Children with cerebral palsy (CP) show difficulties in play and can also experience lower playfulness scores when compared to matched typically developing children. This paper analyses play and playfulness in children with CP using mainstream robotic toys with supporting adult play partners. Methodology: Five mainstream robotic toys were selected and used in play situations with six children with CP interacting with two adult partners. The play situations were coded through the Test of Playfulness (ToP) and the Test of Environmental Supportiveness (ToES), to analyze the role of robotic toys, adult partners and environment in supporting play and playfulness in children with CP. Results: The children obtained high ToP scores, showing that they were intrinsically motivated to be engaged in the play situations. The ToP scores weakly correlated with the ToES scores. To discuss this result, different features of each robot, the role of adults as scaffolder, and the space characteristics in supporting play are presented and discussed. Conclusion: This research field is new: to our knowledge, in the literature only one study focused on the use of one type of mainstream robotic toy to support the playfulness of children with CP. The parallel use of the ToP and the ToES was crucial to observe the complexity of the play situations and the role of playmates and toys during the play process. The role of the adult as play scaffolder has been important to mediate between the child with CP and the environment, toys included: the adult should be strongly aware of this role to better support the child in being in charge of the play situation. Further research is needed.

Social Cognition in Preschoolers: Effects of Early Experience and Individual Differences.

Social cognition is the way in which people process, remember, and use information in social contexts to explain and predict their own behavior and that of others. Children's social cognition may be influenced by multiple factors, both external and internal to the child. In the current study, two aspects of social cognition were examined: Theory of Mind and Emotion Understanding. The aim of this study was to analyze the effects of type of early care (0-3 years of age), maternal education, parents' country of birth, and child's language on the social cognition of 118 Italian preschoolers. To our knowledge, the joint effect of these variables on social cognition has not previously been investigated in the literature. The measures used to collect social cognition and linguistic data were not parent- or teacher-reports, but based on direct assessment of the children through two standardized tests, the Test of Emotion Comprehension and the ToM Storybooks. Relationships among the variables showed a complex pattern. Overall, maternal education and linguistic competence showed a systematic effect on social cognition; the linguistic competence mediated the effect of maternal education. In children who had experienced centre-base care in the first 3 years of life, the effect of maternal education disappeared, supporting the protective role of centre-base care for children with less educated mothers. The children with native and foreign parents did not significantly differ on the social cognition tasks. Limits of the study, possible educational outcomes and future research lines were discussed.

Factorial structure of the 'ToM Storybooks': A test evaluating multiple components of Theory of Mind.

This study examined the factorial structure of the Theory of Mind (ToM) Storybooks, a comprehensive 93-item instrument tapping the five components in Wellman's model of ToM (emotion recognition, understanding of desire and beliefs, ability to distinguish between physical and mental entities, and awareness of the link between perception and knowledge). A sample of 681 three- to eight-year-old Italian children was divided into three age groups to assess whether factorial structure varied across different age ranges. Partial credit model analysis was applied to the data, leading to the empirical identification of 23 composite variables aggregating the ToM Storybooks items. Confirmatory factor analysis was then conducted on the composite variables, providing support for the theoretical model. There were partial differences in the specific composite variables making up the dimensions for each of the three age groups. A single test evaluating distinct dimensions of ToM is a valuable resource for clinical practice which may be used to define differential profiles for specific populations.