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J Child Psychol Psychiatry 2021 Mar 25. Epub 2021 Mar 25.

University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

Background: Social communication interventions benefit children with ASD in early childhood. However, the mechanisms behind such interventions have not been rigorously explored. This study examines the mechanism underlying a naturalistic developmental behavioral intervention, JASPER (Joint Attention, Symbolic Play, Engagement, and Regulation), delivered by educators in the community. Read More

Front Robot AI 2020 18;7:15. Epub 2020 Feb 18.

Honda Research Institute Japan Co., Ltd., Saitama, Japan.

The emergence and development of cognitive strategies for the transition from exploratory actions towards intentional problem-solving in children is a key question for the understanding of the development of human cognition. Researchers in developmental psychology have studied cognitive strategies and have highlighted the catalytic role of the social environment. However, it is not yet adequately understood how this capacity emerges and develops in biological systems when they perform a problem-solving task in collaboration with a robotic social agent. Read More

Aust Occup Ther J 2021 02 18;68(1):43-53. Epub 2020 Sep 18.

Occupational Science and Therapy School of Health and Social Development, Geelong Waterfront Campus, Deakin University, Geelong, Vic., Australia.

Introduction: Play is an indication of children's development and how they function. In occupational therapy it is regarded as an important occupation of childhood. Assessment of a child's play should be included in the test batteries of occupational therapists, who understand the construct validity of the assessment they have chosen. Read More

J Child Lang 2019 11;46(6):1202-1227

Vanderbilt University, USA.

The present study examines the perceptual, linguistic, and social cues that were associated with preschoolers' (4;11) growth in word-learning during shared book-reading and guided play activities. Small groups of three preschoolers (n = 30) and one adult were video-recorded during an intervention study in which new vocabulary words were explicitly taught. Adult use of taught words was coded for perceptual and linguistic cues and type of social interaction. Read More

Aust Occup Ther J 2019 04 21;66(2):210-218. Epub 2018 Sep 21.

Department of Neuroscience and Behavioral Sciences, Division of Occupational Therapy, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.

Background: Cerebral palsy (CP) describes a group of permanent disorders in the development of movement and posture due to non-progressive disturbances during foetal or infant brain development that can result in activity limitations, including engagement in pretend play.

Methods: Twenty children aged four to seven years with spastic CP participated in this descriptive qualitative study. The Child-Initiated Pretend Play Assessment (ChIPPA) clinical observations were analysed from five categories: Time, Interaction with the examiner, Imitation, Theme and Story. Read More

Am J Occup Ther 2018 Jan/Feb;72(1):7201195050p1-7201195050p8

Anoo Bhopti is PhD candidate, Monash University, and Lecturer, First Year Occupational Therapy Coordinator, Department of Community and Clinical Allied Health, College of Science, Health and Engineering, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia.

Objective: We sought to investigate the relationship between sensory processing and pretend play in typically developing children.

Method: Forty-two typically developing children ages 5-7 yr were assessed with the Child Initiated Pretend Play Assessment and the Home and Main Classroom forms of the Sensory Processing Measure (SPM).

Results: There were significant relationships between elaborate pretend play and body awareness (r = . Read More

J Commun Disord 2017 11 23;70:61. Epub 2017 Oct 23.

Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, 2240 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208, USA. Electronic address:

Soc Dev 2017 May 28;26(2):382-401. Epub 2016 Jul 28.

University of Florida.

The present study tested whether pet dogs have stress-buffering effects for children during a validated laboratory-based protocol, the Trier Social Stress Test for Children (TSST-C). Participants were 101 children aged 7-12 years with their primary caregivers and pet dogs. Children were randomly assigned in the TSST-C to a pet present condition or one of two comparison conditions: parent present or no support figure present. Read More

J Music Ther 2016 7;53(1):27-54. Epub 2015 Dec 7.

Florida State University

Background: Responsive parenting style and synchronous parent-child interactions have a positive impact on children in terms of language, cognitive, and social-emotional development. Despite widely documented benefits of music therapy on parent-child interactions, empirical evidence for the effects of music therapy on parent-child synchrony is lacking.

Objective: To examine effects of parent-child dyads' participation in a six-week home-based music therapy program on parent response, child initiation, and parent-child synchrony, as well as parents' daily use of musical activities with their child. Read More

Autism 2016 Feb 20;20(2):172-82. Epub 2015 Apr 20.

Department of Education, National Chengchi University, Taiwan MA Program of Counseling and Guidance, National Chengchi University, Taiwan.

Joint attention intervention for children with autism spectrum disorders was focused on improving joint engagement and joint attention skills. The purpose of this study was to develop a caregiver-mediated joint engagement intervention program combined with body movement play to investigate the effects of joint engagement/joint attention skills in young children with autism spectrum disorders. A quasi-experimental research design was conducted. Read More

Int J Speech Lang Pathol 2015 Apr 27;17(2):148-58. Epub 2014 Aug 27.

School of Health and Social Development, Deakin University , Geelong , Australia.

Purpose: This study investigated if the quality of pre-school children's pretend play predicted their semantic organization and narrative re-telling ability when they were in early primary school. It was hypothesized that the elaborateness of a child's play and the child's use of symbols in play were predictors of their semantic organization and narrative re-tell scores of the School Age Oral Language Assessment.

Method: Forty-eight children were assessed using the Child-Initiated Pretend Play Assessment when they were aged 4-5 years. Read More

J Commun Disord 2013 Sep-Dec;46(5-6):495-506. Epub 2013 Oct 10.

Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Fylde College, Lancaster LA1 4YF, United Kingdom. Electronic address:

Unlabelled: This study examined the effects of the Son-Rise Program (SRP), an intensive treatment aimed to improve child-initiated social communication in children with autism. Six children between the ages of 47 and 78 months were provided with 40 h of SRP, with pre- to post-treatment behavioral changes tested using a novel passive interaction probe task. Results showed an increase in the frequency of spontaneous social orienting and gestural communication for the experimental children, compared to six age- and behaviorally-matched control children with autism. Read More

Autism 2014 Jul 8;18(5):511-8. Epub 2013 Oct 8.

University of California, Centre for Autism Research and Treatment, Los Angeles, USA.

Purpose: This study examines the relationship between parental interaction style (responsive vs directive) and child-initiated joint engagement within caregiver-child interactions with toddlers diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders.

Method: Videotaped interactions of 85 toddler-caregiver dyads were coded for child engagement and both parental responsiveness and directiveness.

Results: Altogether, children spent less than one-third of the interaction jointly engaged. Read More

PLoS One 2013 5;8(6):e64542. Epub 2013 Jun 5.

Department of Woman and Child's Care and Adolescence Health, School of Public Health, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China.

Objectives: To investigate the early determinants of overweight and obesity status at age two years.

Methods: A total of 1098 healthy neonates (563 boys and 535 girls) were involved in this community-based prospective study in China. Data on body weight and length were collected at birth, the 3(rd) and 24(th) month. Read More

Dev Psychopathol 2013 Feb;25(1):133-49

Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University, 140 Moore Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA.

This study examined genetic and environmental influences on associations among marital conflict about the child, parental monitoring, sibling relationship negativity, and peer delinquency during adolescence and initiation of illegal drug use by young adulthood. The sample comprised data collected longitudinally from same-sex sibling pairs and parents when the siblings were 10-18 years old (M = 14.5 and 12. Read More

Aust Occup Ther J 2012 Aug 27;59(4):302-11. Epub 2012 Jun 27.

School of Health and Social Development, Deakin University, Deakin, Victoria, Australia.

Introduction: The aim of this study was to investigate the change in the relationship between play, language and social skills of children aged 5-8 years pre and post participation in the 'Learn to Play' program. The Learn to Play program is a child led play based intervention aimed at developing self-initiated pretend play skills in children.

Methods: All 19 participants attended a specialist school, with 10 of the 19 children having a diagnosis of autism. Read More

Dev Neurorehabil 2012 20;15(5):336-42. Epub 2012 Jun 20.

School of Health and Social Development, Faculty of Health, Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria, Australia.

Objective: This exploratory study aimed to describe the self-initiated pretend play of three children who had sustained an acquired brain injury (ABI). No previous research was found.

Methods: Three children aged 3. Read More

Dev Psychol 2011 Sep;47(5):1280-94

Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA.

Mother-child play of maltreating and nonmaltreating families was analyzed when infants were 12 months old (Time 1), and 2 years old (Time 2), as a context to examine children's developing cognitive and social skills. At Time 1, infants from abusing families demonstrated less independent and more imitative behavior during play than did infants from neglecting and nonmaltreating families, suggesting a delay in emerging social behaviors. In this longitudinal follow-up, mother-child play was reassessed 1 year later (N = 78), with a focus on children's engagement in nonplay and pretend play and on children's abilities to initiate social exchanges and respond to parental requests. Read More

Res Dev Disabil 2011 May-Jun;32(3):1205-11. Epub 2011 Feb 1.

School of Health and Social Development, Deakin University, 1 Gheringhap Street, Geelong, Australia.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the play, behaviour, language and social skills of children aged 5-8 years participating in a play intervention (based on the 'Learn to Play' program) compared to a group of children participating in traditional classroom activities within a specialist school over a six month period. Thirty-five children participated in the study, 19 participated in the play intervention group and 16 participated in the comparison group. Fourteen staff members at the special school were involved. Read More

Aust Occup Ther J 2011 Feb 19;58(1):34-42. Epub 2010 Nov 19.

Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia, Australia.

Background/aim: There is a need for culturally appropriate assessments for Australian Indigenous children. This article reports the selection of culturally appropriate and gender-neutral play materials, and changes in administration identified to develop further the Indigenous Child-Initiated Pretend Play Assessment (I-ChIPPA).

Method: Twenty-three typically developing children aged four to six years from the Pilbara region in Western Australia participated in the study. Read More

Adv Child Dev Behav 2010 ;38:161-82

Nutrition Research Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Kannapolis, North Carolina, USA.

To summarize, all children interacted with the experimenter and actively participated in the imitation task. There was evidence of improvement in performance from baseline to recall as would be expected with attention to, and memory for, the actions that were modeled by the experimenter. All participants evidenced a decrease in performance as the difficulty of the task increased, as would be expected. Read More

J Pediatr Psychol 2011 Apr 23;36(3):289-300. Epub 2010 Jul 23.

Department of Human Development and Family Studies, University of Wisconsin, 1305 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706-1523, USA.

Objective: We examined whether neonatal risks and maternal scaffolding (i.e., task changes and flexibility) during a 16-month post-term play interaction moderated the association between socioeconomic status (SES), visual-spatial processing and emerging working memory assessed at 24 months post-term among 75 toddlers born preterm or low birth weight. Read More

J Intellect Disabil Res 2009 Dec;53(12):1024-37

Department of Special Education, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

Background: For pre-school children, the home literacy environment (HLE) plays an important role in the development of language and literacy skills. As there is little known about the HLE of children with intellectual disabilities (ID), the aim of the present study was to investigate the HLE of children with ID in comparison with children without disabilities.

Method: Parent questionnaires concerning aspects of the HLE were used to investigate differences between 48 children with ID, 107 children without disabilities of the same chronological age and 36 children without disabilities of the same mental age (MA). Read More

Am Ann Deaf 2009 ;154(1):15-29

Department of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behavior, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.

Mounting evidence points to joint attention as a mediating variable in children's adaptive behavior development. Joint attention in interactions between hearing mothers and congenitally deaf (n = 27) and hearing (n = 29) children, ages 18-36 months, was examined. All deaf children had severe to profound hearing loss. Read More

J Autism Dev Disord 2009 Sep 7;39(9):1321-8. Epub 2009 May 7.

Center for the Study of Child Development, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.

The association between attachment and symbolic play was examined in a sample of 45 preschool age boys with autism spectrum disorders. Attachment was assessed using the strange situation procedure, and the frequency, duration, diversity and complexity of child-initiated symbolic play was assessed from observations of mother-child interactions during free play and doll play. We hypothesized that children with secure attachments will score higher on measures of symbolic play compared to children with insecure attachments, and that children with organized attachments will also score higher on measures of symbolic play compared to children with disorganized attachments. Read More

J Autism Dev Disord 2009 Sep 9;39(9):1240-51. Epub 2009 Apr 9.

Department of Counseling, Clinical, School Psychology, Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, Koegel Autism Center, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9490, USA.

Children with autism often exhibit low levels of social engagement, decreased levels of eye contact, and low social affect. However, both the literature and our direct clinical observations suggest that some components of intervention procedures may result in improvement in child-initiated social areas. Using an ABAB research design with three children with autism, this study systematically assessed whether embedding social interactions into reinforcers, delivered during language intervention, would lead to increased levels of child-initiated social behaviors. Read More

Aust Occup Ther J 2009 Feb;56(1):33-40

Acute Support Team, The Canberra Hospital, ACT Health, Yamba Drive, Garran, Australian Capital Territory, Australia.

Background And Aims: The aims of this study were to investigate the relationship between pretend play, social competence and involvement in school-based activities in children aged 5-7 years and to determine whether children's social competence and level of involvement could be inferred from their scores on the Child-Initiated Pretend Play Assessment.

Procedure: The pretend play skills of 41 primary school-aged children aged 5-7 years were assessed on a one-on-one basis. Classroom teachers of the children assessed the children's social competence using the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale and their involvement in school based activities using the Leuven Involvement Scale for Young Children. Read More

J Consult Clin Psychol 2008 Aug;76(4):607-621

Norwegian Center for Child Behavioral Development.

This study was a randomized control trial (RCT) of Parent Management Training--The Oregon Model (PMTO) in Norway. A sample representing all health regions of Norway and consisting of 112 children with conduct problems and their families participated in the study. Families were randomly assigned to either PMTO or a regular services comparison group. Read More

J Child Psychol Psychiatry 2007 Jun;48(6):571-9

School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, UK.

Background: Kinship theory (or the genomic conflict hypothesis) proposes that the phenotypic effects of genomic imprinting arise from conflict between paternally and maternally inherited alleles. A prediction arising for social behaviour from this theory is that imbalance in this conflict resulting from a deletion of a maternally imprinted gene, as in Angelman syndrome (AS), will result in a behavioural phenotype that should evidence behaviours that increase access to maternally provided social resources (adult contact).

Method: Observation of the social behaviour of children with AS (n = 13), caused by a deletion at 15q11-q13, and a matched comparison group (n = 10) was undertaken for four hours in a socially competitive setting and the effect of adult attention on child behaviours and the effect of child smiling on adult behaviours evaluated using group comparisons and observational lag sequential analyses. Read More

J Autism Dev Disord 2007 Sep 5;37(8):1550-61. Epub 2006 Dec 5.

University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA.

This study compared the effects of circumscribed interests (CI) to less preferred (LP) tangible stimuli on the social behaviors of three children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Based on single subject design methodology, the CI experimental sessions resulted in longer durations of target-child initiated social interactions in comparison to LP sessions. In addition, latency of participant's initial social bids to peers was decreased when CI were present. Read More