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A previous review of the small number of early childhood obesity prevention literature promoted healthy eating, physical activity, and/or reduce sedentary behaviours in 0–5 year olds, suggesting that this is a new and developing research area. This chapter reviews rapidly emerging evidence in this area and assesses the quality of studies reported. Ten electronic databases were searched to identify literature published from January 1995 to August 2008. Inclusion criteria were interventions reporting child anthropometric, diet, physical activity or sedentary behaviour outcomes, and focusing on children aged 0–5 years of age. Exclusion criteria were focusing on breastfeeding, eating disorders, obesity treatment, malnutrition, or school-based interventions. Two reviewers independently extracted data and assessed study quality. Twenty-three studies met all criteria. Most were conducted in preschool/childcare (n=9) or home settings (n=8). Approximately half targeted socioeconomically disadvantaged children (n=12) and three quarters were published from 2003 onwards (n=17). The interventions varied widely although most were multi-faceted in their approach. While study design and quality varied, most studies reported that their interventions were feasible and acceptable, although the impact on behaviours that contribute to obesity were not achieved by all. Early childhood obesity prevention interventions represent a rapidly growing research area. Current evidence suggests that behaviours that contribute to obesity can be positively impacted upon in a range of settings and provides important insights into the most effective strategies for promoting healthy weight from early childhood.

Human social cognition is largely driven by the theory of mind (ToM), that is, our ability to think about others in terms of the mental states (feeling, wanting, knowing, etc.) that underlie their behaviour. The effects of language on ToM can be seen in terms of children's exposure to conversations with parents and other partners — conversations that appear to be crucial to children's acquisition of mental state concepts and theory of mind vocabulary. But mental states are notoriously slippery concepts — they are subjective, abstract, and invisible. This chapter reviews correlational and training studies on the link between parents' mental state talk and young children's ability to pass ToM tasks. It reports work that highlights the extent to which some mothers, in particular, tailor their conversation to match and promote their children's knowledge in this domain. It shows that the richness of mothers' talk about mental states during the preschool years is linked to their children's emerging ToM. Specifically, mothers who regularly explain thought processes and how these cause behaviour often have children who are particularly advanced in their responses on stories designed to test ToM. The chapter proposes a clarifying analogy between the ‘motherese’ qualities language used by mothers in facilitating children's language development and mothers' mental state talk as a facilitating factor in acquiring mental state concepts and promoting reasoning about the causal links between mental states and people's actions.

This chapter discusses techniques for sharing stories with toddlers. It explains what stories toddlers understand and tell (stories from books and personal experiences) and how to share stories that matter to toddlers. The “Developmental Snapshot of a Toddler” at the end of the chapter provides a sense of where most toddlers are in terms of their language, cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development, as well as why these developments matter for their story understanding and storytelling.

The focus of this chapter concerns the question whether human children develop early forms of metacognition before they develop full fledged, language-bound metacognitive abilities of the form ‘I believe that p’ at around 4 –5 years of age. While there is a lively, although highly controversial, debate about so-called metacognitive feelings, i.e. non-conceptualized metacognitive abilities in monkeys ( Kornell et al. 2007), the research on metacognition in preverbal children is just starting. This chapter summarizes some recent findings from developmental psychology which concern rather precursors of what is called declarative metacognition than epistemic feelings and risks the hypothesis that there is some good evidence that human children develop early forms of metacognition at around the age of 2 years, but that these abilities develop quite differently from the assumed metacognitive abilities in non-human primates: ontogenetically early forms of metacognition in humans seem to evolve from basic forms of inner speech (i.e. internalized rules and instructions), rather than from epistemic feelings.

This chapter explains that in the course of executing the Montreal Longitudinal-Experimental Study, the author became convinced that some of the developmental origins of antisocial behavior were situated in the period prior to kindergarten. This chapter especially focuses on toddler’s aggression, anger, oppositional behavior, defiance, and overt disregard for rules. The author states that he is much aware of environmental factors that impinge on the development of antisocial behaviors, including intergenerational transmission of the behaviors. The chapter stresses the importance of gene expression studies (epigenetic) that indicate that environmental risk factors related to the mother “may start to have their impact on the child’s developing brain and eventual self-control problems during fetal life, and soon after, through their impact on gene expression”.

This chapter first examines how the most recent research on the effects of early child care on children's development informs the historic debate over the use of nonparental care during the first years of life. It then describes the conflict faced by millions of parents as they struggle with decisions about how best to care for their infants and toddlers in the absence of adequate resources to help them do so. It concludes with policy recommendations to address the sorry state of infant and toddler child care in America and to inform parents better who must rely on child care for their very young children.

This chapter emphasizes how Jonah never had friendships with other children, even after being taken to toddler playgroups, Gymboree, and Sally's Music Circle. It notes Robert Selman's five-level theory of friendship that is based on neurotypical development. It also examines that the author's assumptions about what friendship looks like were based on the interactions of her children and memories of her own early relationships. The chapter describes Jonah's most meaningful relationships, which have been with paid caregivers who have worked with him at home or school. It refers to philosophers who have wrestled with the definition and significance of a friendly relationship since Aristotle observed that without friends no one would choose to live.

This chapter discusses the activities and development of toddler Ricky when he was 15–16 months old. At this stage Ricky was able to use imitation as a learning device. He was able to use this learning strategy to hold conversation. This chapter suggests that imitation is an effective means for toddlers to stay in verbal contact with others, just like verbal signalling. Thus, Ricky can be considered to be doing a lot with a little.

The author begins his narrative with an incident a week before he kidnapped a black baby girl. He tells of the incident where he broke free from her mother in the supermarket, ran to the back of the last aisle, and grabbed the manager's microphone where he announced that he wanted a baby sister. He expresses his obsession to have a baby sister and tells of his parents' engagement to his curiosity regarding the gender of the baby that his mother was carrying. He provides details of the actual kidnapping of the toddler a few months younger than him, whose parents were leaders of the neighborhood black separatist organization.

This chapter discusses how media preferences evolve from birth through early childhood. The focus is on two age groups, infants and young toddlers (up to 2 years old) and older toddlers and preschoolers (2–5 years). For both age groups, it describes a number of specific developmental characteristics and predicts how they influence these young children's media preferences. At what age do infants begin to take an interest in media, and why at that age? Why are toddlers so fascinated by smartphones and tablets? Should very young children even be using media? What is the “pink frilly dress” phenomenon and how does it influence media preferences? And finally, why exactly is development such a strong predictor of media preference?

Young children explore music and movement naturally in a playful, informal, unstructured, hands-on manner. Infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and primary grade children are curious about creating sounds and about responding to sounds in their environment. For ideal musical development, this environment is rich with many different tonalities, meters, patterns, timbres, styles, and forms, generated by caregivers, instructors, recordings, peers, and the children themselves. In both one-on-one sessions and large, heterogeneous classes, music is an excellent medium through which to develop cognitive, physical, and social skills and understandings. The purpose of this chapter is to provide educators and caregivers with developmentally appropriate strategies to guide children’s natural exploration and with procedures to help diverse learners be successful in constructing meaning from early childhood music and early childhood movement experiences.

The changes in shared reality that happen while human children develop are fascinating. Beginning in infancy, children pass through different phases of development when new modes of sharing reality emerge that change how they relate to others around them. Each new shared reality mode changes the lives of children, as well as those lucky enough to be with them when it happens. This chapter describes the first two phases that emerge: shared feelings and shared practices. Infants as young as six months will see something that interests them and then try to share that interest by having their caretaker also pay attention to it. Together, they share that this is something that is worthy of their attention: shared relevance. Infants will also check their caretaker’s emotional reaction to something to learn how they should feel about it. Is this something to approach or avoid? The next phase that emerges is shared practices. Toddlers create shared realities with their caretakers about how to carry out different activities: This is how we do it. These shared practices and routines include not only how to dress, eat, and go to the toilet but also what name to use when referring to a particular category (e.g., “dog” for the four-legged barking animal if you speak English). During this “naming period,” children actively work to share reality by asking others to tell them the names of things. Sharing practices connects children to their community. But it begins negative reactions to out-groups who share different practices.

The development of pragmatic skills has emerged as an area of challenge for children and young people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, including those who use cochlear implants. Pragmatics pertains to the social use of language and can affect the development of strong social skills significantly. Spoken language users are the focus of the discussion, which draws on three recent studies at three key developmental stages: during toddlerhood (birth to three years old), during the upper primary school years, and during adolescence. Pragmatic skills in young children who are deaf may lag behind other language subsystems. School-age children and some adolescents with hearing loss demonstrate a range of pragmatic behaviors that differ from their hearing peers, with significant implications for social interactions and peer relationships. How pragmatic skills develop in collaboration with peers and family, and the critical role conversation partners play in this process are highlighted.

In this chapter, the authors address infant and toddler flourishing in the context of child care using a well-being perspective, arguing that infant and toddler well-being necessitates health and wellness throughout caring systems that include and surround them. They present a model of well-being informed by Noddings’s (2003) theories of natural and ethical care, and Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) bioecological-relational systems, and that considers current conceptualizations of quality in child care that inform recommended practices with infants and toddlers. The authors urge advocates, researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to care about and with families and professionals who provide primary, relational care for infants and toddlers.