•We studied the role of extracurricular activity (EA) involvement in child outcome.•We tested the interaction between EA participation and preschool education quality.•Preschool education quality ...moderated the effects of EAs on academic readiness.•EA access was beneficial for children experiencing very low emotional support.•EA had negative effects when emotional or instructional support was high in school.
Participation in organized extracurricular activities (EAs) is becoming increasingly prevalent among young children in China and worldwide. As an important microsystem of child development, EA involvement is likely to interact with other microsystems in relation to child outcomes. The current study focused on the interaction between EA participation and the quality of preschool education, specifically the quality of teacher–child interactions, in relation to children's academic readiness. This study included 443 Chinese preschoolers (Mage = 5.08 years) from 49 preschool classrooms. Parents reported children's EA participation. Preschool teacher–child interactions were assessed using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System. Children's academic readiness was measured using one-on-one tasks. The results showed that although EA participation was not related to child academic readiness, the quality of preschool teacher–child interactions (i.e., emotional support and instructional support) moderated the association between EA participation and children's academic readiness (the slope variance reduction was between 12.7% and 17.5%). Specifically, the significant associations found suggest that EA participation could have a small compensatory effect on academic readiness for children experiencing very low emotional support in preschool; however, EA participation had a small negative association with academic readiness when children were already exposed to high emotional or instructional support in preschool. The findings highlight that EA involvement may not always produce beneficial outcomes in young children and that exposing children to high-quality classroom interactions in preschool is a key to fostering positive development.
Parent feeding styles, behaviors, beliefs, and practices are associated with developing children's eating behaviors. However, many children spend considerable time in childcare; thus, are exposed to ...child-feeding practices of other adults, e.g., early care and education (ECE) staff. Limited research exists on how and whether current classroom feeding practices of ECE staff associate with their own childhood experiences. The About Feeding Children survey, conducted in 2005, examined self-reported feeding practices and beliefs and personal characteristics of ECE staff in Western United States. An exploratory factor analysis of questions related to childhood experiences (N = 1189), revealed two Mealtime Factors: Remembered Adult Control and Remembered Child Autonomy Support. Structural equation modeling was conducted to examine the hypothesis that these remembered experiences would be associated with current feeding practices (Structural Mealtime Strategies, Verbal Mealtime Strategies, and Beliefs about Mealtimes). For each outcome, models had good to moderate fit. Across models, Remembered Autonomy Support was associated with less control, bribing, autonomy undermining, and concern-based control beliefs and greater support at meals and autonomy promoting beliefs in teachers' classroom feeding practices. More research is called for to consider whether reflection on remembered childhood experiences might be beneficial to consider during ECE staff training related to feeding young children.
The problematic smartphone use (PSU) has been becoming a challenging health issue for preschoolers aged 3–5 years as it has severe adverse effect on their psychological, physical, and cognitive ...development. The scarcity of scientific research on this issue in the context of Bangladesh motivated the authors for conducting this cross-sectional study to explore the prevalence of PSU with its influential factors and adverse effects on preschooler's psychological and physical development based on primary data collected from 400 mothers. The multivariable ordinal logistic regression (OLR) was used to compute the adjusted likelihoods. The estimated prevalence of PSU was approximately 86 %, where about 29 % were severely problematic user. The likelihood of preschoolers' PSU was observed to increase with >1 h/day usage of smartphone by children (Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR): 3.92). Other important factors were parental smartphone use, education, profession, family income, and mother's age. Both of moderate and severe PSU had adverse effect on preschoolers' health- severe PSU was found to increase the likelihood of psychological and physical problems by 6.03 and 3.29 times, respectively. The preschoolers with PSU reported to suffer from many physical and mental health problems such as attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), emotional instability, aggressiveness, depression, lack of control, impaired vision and hearing, obesity, body imbalance, and lack of brain development. It is now prime time to undertake strategic policies considering the findings for limiting the preschoolers' usage of smartphone, which will make Bangladesh susceptible to protect its future generation from harmful effects of PSU.
•Nowadays, problematic smartphone use (PSU) is a challenging public health issue globally.•This study provides novel evidence of health hazards of preschoolers’ PSU in Bangladesh.•The estimated prevalence of PSU in Bangladesh was approximately 86 %.•Preschoolers’ excessive smartphone use was found to raise their risk of PSU by 3.92 times.•Severe PSU elevated the risk of both psychological and physical problems by 6.03 and 3.29 times, respectively.
Block building is a popular play activity among young children and is also used by psychologists to assess their intelligence. However, little research has attempted to systematically explore the ...cognitive bases of block-building ability. The current study (
= 66 Chinese preschoolers, 32 boys and 34 girls; mean age = 4.7 years, SD = 0.29, range = 3.4 to 5.2 years) investigated the relationships between six measures of spatial skills (shape naming, shape recognition, shape composition, solid figure naming, cube transformation, and mental rotation, with the former four representing form perception and the latter two representing visualization) and block-building complexity. Correlation results showed that three of the four measures of form perception (shape naming, shape recognition, and shape composition) were significantly and positively correlated with block-building complexity, whereas the two measures of visualization were not. Results from regression models indicated that shape recognition and shape composition, as well as shape-recognition-by-gender interaction, were unique predictors of children's block-building complexity. These findings provide preliminary evidence for the basic spatial skills underlying children's block-building complexity and have implications for classroom instructions aimed at improving preschoolers' block-building complexity.
•Training in number line estimation improves number line estimation processing.•Training in number comparison improves number comparison and number line estimation.•Number comparison is crucial for ...symbolic approximate arithmetic.
Although the performance of number comparison and number line estimation are correlated with symbolic approximate arithmetic ability, it is unclear whether they contribute differently to it. We conducted a training study with 96 preschoolers using pre- and post-tests measuring number comparison, number line estimation, and symbolic approximate arithmetic tasks. Participants were randomly divided into three groups (number comparison training, number line training, and control). The children in the training groups were trained using board games. The results showed that the number comparison training group showed a greater improvement in symbolic approximate arithmetic than did the other two groups. Further, improvement in number comparison was only found in the number comparison training group, whereas improvement in number line estimation was found in both training groups. These results indicate that symbolic approximate arithmetic relies on number comparison processing more than on number line estimation processing in preschoolers. Moreover, the cognitive mechanisms that number comparison and number line estimation abilities depend on are not exactly the same.
Many children worldwide do not eat recommended amounts of vegetables. Disliking vegetables is a key factor associated with low intake.
This umbrella review synthesized systematic reviews to determine ...the effectiveness of sensory and behavioral strategies to facilitate liking of vegetables (primary outcome) in young children up to 5 y of age, as key predictors of vegetable intake (secondary outcome).
Nine databases were searched up to May 2019 (updated in September 2020). Two reviewers independently conducted study screening and selection, data extraction, and assessment of methodological quality using AMSTAR 2 (A MeaSurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews). Eleven reviews (n = 1 rated strong quality, n = 4 moderate quality, n = 6 low/critically low quality) examining 85 primary studies met the review criteria: systematic reviews and meta-analyses of primary studies (any quantitative design) that examined sensory or behavioral strategies on vegetable liking or intake (outcomes reported separately for children ≤5 y). Strategy effectiveness was synthesized into 3 categories based on evidence strength: 1) promising (large and consistent body of moderate quality evidence), 2) emerging (small to moderate body of mixed consistency and quality evidence), and 3) limited (small body of limited consistency and quality evidence).
Promising evidence was identified for repeated exposure to a single or a variety of vegetables. Emerging evidence was identified for several strategies that increase familiarity with vegetable flavors (e.g., via exposure in utero and through breast milk, and a “vegetable first” approach to complementary feeding) and/or willingness to try vegetables (e.g., via parental role modeling, nonfood rewards, and vegetable-based story books).
Current evidence supports incorporation of tailored advice into guideline documents for parents and carers to repeatedly expose their children to a variety of vegetables to increase vegetable intake. Ongoing robust research on strategies to facilitate children’s liking of vegetables is warranted to strengthen the evidence base underpinning advice for parents and health professionals.
At present, Chinese children aged 3–6 years old are facing challenges such as insufficient physical activity, declining physical health, and obesity, and China has yet to issue curriculum standards ...or physical activity guidelines for this age group. At the same time, the present kindergarten physical activity curriculum is insufficient. To address this issue, this study focused on designing and executing a planned active play intervention program for the kindergarten setting to analyze its efficacy in enhancing children's fundamental movement skills (FMS). This study aims to provide a reference for the theoretical and practical exploration of children's acquisition of fundamental movement skills in the Chinese context.
Fifty-two preschoolers participated in this study and were either part of an intervention group (n = 30) or a control group (n = 24). Children's FMS were assessed before and after the intervention using the Test of Gross Motor Development-3 (TGMD-3) and the balance ability of the The Movement Assessment Battery for Children-2 (MABC-2). Physical activity (PA) during the planned active play intervention and the routine physical activity curriculum were assessed using the SOFIT throughout the intervention.
All the children significantly improved their locomotor skills, ball skills, and TGMD from baseline to the late assessment (p < 0.05). Children in the planned active play intervention group demonstrated greater rates of change (p < 0.001) and scored higher on ball skills and TGMD in the late assessment than those in the control group (p < 0.001). The children in the intervention group, but not those in the control group, significantly improved their balance over time (p < 0.05), and the former had greater rates of change (p < 0.001). Similarly, planned active play was found to provide children with more physical activity than the routine physical activity curriculum.
The eight-week planned active play intervention was effective in improving FMS in preschool children, with higher rates of FMS change in children who completed the intervention than children in the control group.
•The designed program considered guidance time and activity density, and the effect was better than that the original curriculum.•Children have 32–54% MVPA through the planned active play in kindergarten, significantly higher than before.•MVPA drives in early childhood may help improve fundamental movement skill proficiency.
Given problems such as the late start of gender awareness education in China, the gender blurring in preschooler’s clothing, the lack of integrating gender awareness elements into preschooler’s ...clothing, etc., using children’s sensory functions such as vision, touch, and hearing, a phonetic intelligence module with alarm sounds and warning words is implanted into special parts of children’s clothing. When children gently touch the part, it can make a sound. This kind of smart clothing for preschoolers, which is both interesting and educational, enables children to understand gender knowledge more intuitively, have a certain gender awareness to better protect their private parts of the body, and develop a correct view of gender roles and a sound personality.
Summary
Sleep is vital for children's early socio‐emotional development, particularly empathy. This study aimed to explore the associations between sleep and empathy in young preschoolers. A sample ...of 23,259 preschoolers (4.3 ± 0.3 years) at the entry year of preschool was recruited as part of the Shanghai Children's Health, Education and Lifestyle Evaluation‐Preschool (SCHEDULE‐P) study. Caregivers reported on child sleep, affective empathy, and cognitive empathy through the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire and the Griffith Empathy Measure. Ordinary least‐square regression and quantile regression were performed for the associations between sleep and empathy. Sex differences were also investigated. Night sleep duration was negatively associated with affective empathy (β = −0.35, p < 0.001), and positively associated with cognitive empathy (β = 0.41, p < 0.001). Longer nap duration was associated with higher affective empathy (β = 0.28, p < 0.001). Sleep disturbances were positively associated with affective empathy (β = 0.04, p < 0.001) and negatively associated with cognitive empathy (β = −0.09, p < 0.001). These associations were generally stronger in children at higher empathy quantiles and also those at the 10th cognitive empathy quantile. The associations between sleep and affective empathy were mainly contributed by girls, and were more common in boys in terms of cognitive empathy, particularly at the 10th and the 30th quantiles. In conclusion, longer night sleep duration and fewer sleep disturbances are associated with a more mature empathy pattern in young preschoolers. The associations are more prominent in children at the higher end of the empathy spectrum, and vary by sex. These findings highlight the importance to promote sleep health in young children for optimal socio‐emotional development.
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