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Students with learning disabilities meet difficulties in cognitive abilities that are likely to affect their learning, especially online learning. Online learning usually lacks efficient face-to-face monitoring and leads to poor learning outcomes; in this case, students' self-regulated learning in an online environment matter. However, Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) status remains unclear for those with learning disabilities and how their working memory and processing speed affect self-regulated learning. A total of 147 undergraduate students were recruited from three public and four private universities in Taiwan to join this study, and they completed a self-reported questionnaire and several psychological measures. Our results revealed significant differences in SRL features between typically developing Chinese undergraduates and those with learning disabilities in an online environment. Compared to the students with learning disabilities, typically developing students outperformed in metacognitive skills, time management, environmental structuring, and persistence. Help-seeking was comparable between both groups. Working memory significantly contributed to SRL in all students, whereas processing speed only significantly influenced SRL in students with learning disabilities. The findings of this study have important implications for educators, researchers, and instructional designers aiming to optimize online learning experiences and support, especially from the perspective of SRL, for all students, particularly those with learning disabilities. • Cognitive deficits and online SRL of learning disabilities are unexplored in Chinese. • Students learning disabilities underperformed in all features of online SRL. • Working memory significantly contributed to SRL in two groups of students. • Processing speed significantly influenced SRL in students with learning disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This study examined the impacts of a tiered program on children's socioemotional competence, behavioral adjustment, and pre-academic skills. • The program targeted second-year kindergarten students' socioemotional skills and provided additional training to third-year students with socioemotional difficulties. • After completing the program, children showed better socioemotional competence, behavioral adjustment, and pre-academic skills. Despite the importance of socioemotional competence, few social and emotional learning programs have been developed for and evaluated with non-Western communities. The Early Prevention, Early Identification, and Early Intervention Program is a tiered, school-based program targeting the socioemotional skills of all second-year kindergarten students in Chinese communities with the Little Garden Curriculum and providing additional training to third-year kindergarten students with socioemotional difficulties with the Little Greenhouse Curriculum. Using a cluster randomized controlled trial, this study examined the impacts of the program on 999 children (mean age in the pretest = 4.25 years; 48 % were girls) from 18 kindergartens from Hong Kong, China. Using kindergartens as clusters, children were randomly assigned to undertake the Little Garden Curriculum (n = 624) or join the wait-list control group (n = 375). Furthermore, children who had completed the Little Garden Curriculum but still showed socioemotional difficulties were randomly assigned to undertake the Little Greenhouse Curriculum (n = 87) or join the wait-list control group (n = 50). In other words, the intervention kindergartens used for the evaluation of the Little Garden Curriculum were randomly assigned into a new intervention group or a new wait-list control group for the evaluation of the Little Greenhouse Curriculum. In pre- and posttests, teachers rated children's socioemotional competence and behavioral adjustment, and children completed reading and arithmetic tasks. Results indicated that—controlling for child age, gender, and prior scores—children who had completed the Little Garden Curriculum showed better socioemotional competence, behavioral adjustment, and pre-academic skills (ten out of 12 outcome variables). Moreover, children who had completed the Little Greenhouse Curriculum showed higher scores on six out of 12 outcome measures. Findings highlighted the utility of using culturally relevant programs to improve the socioemotional competence of Chinese children at both the universal and the indicated levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about the joint role of family poverty and parent-child relationships in the development of early literacy skills—a strong predictor of later cognitive and academic outcomes—among Chinese children. This study examined the longitudinal associations of family economic pressure with early Chinese reading and writing skills and tested maternal warmth as a moderator. Participants were 330 kindergarten children (mean age at Time 1 = 4.81 years; 56 % were girls) and their mothers from Hong Kong, China. Children completed tests on Chinese word reading and writing at Times 1 and 2; mothers completed questionnaires on family economic pressure and parental warmth at Time 1. Multilevel models indicated that family economic pressure was linked to declines in child Chinese word reading and writing skills for children with low but not high maternal warmth, highlighting the possibility of targeting maternal warmth to promote child development in financially disadvantaged Chinese families. • Family economic pressure was longitudinally linked to child Chinese word reading and writing skills. • The link was significant for children with low but not high maternal warmth • Maternal warmth may be targeted to promote child development in financially disadvantaged Chinese families [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Intellectual overexcitability (OE) is a correlate of children's creative potential. • Social and cognitive spontaneity are predictive of children's creative potential. • Cognitive spontaneity mediates the link of intellectual OE with creative potential. This study examined the direct and indirect relationships of children's overexcitabilities with their playfulness and creative potential in the kindergarten context. Participants were parents and teachers of 140 Hong Kong Chinese kindergarten children (47.9% girls, mean age = 52.2 months). Parents reported their children's overexcitabilities (imaginational, psychomotor, sensual, intellectual, and emotional), and teachers rated children's playfulness (physical spontaneity, social spontaneity, cognitive spontaneity, manifest joy, and sense of humor) and creative potential (creative personality traits) as demonstrated in the classrooms. Hierarchical regression revealed that controlling for child age, gender, and parental education, children's social and cognitive spontaneity were significant correlates of their creative potential as perceived by the teachers. Moreover, results from the path analytic model showed that the positive relationship between intellectual overexcitability and creative potential was fully mediated by cognitive spontaneity. In contrast, the indirect relationship through social spontaneity was non-significant. The findings suggest that children's daily imaginative and inventive peer play in kindergarten may be conducive to their creative potential. Practically, results underscore the utility of creating a preschool play environment that embraces children's choice, autonomy, and originality while promoting peer interaction and collaboration, as such an approach may cultivate their creative potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Children's overexcitabilities (OE) may predispose them to certain play styles. • Imaginational OE predicted cognitive spontaneity, manifest joy, and sense of humor. • Psychomotor OE predicted physical spontaneity, social spontaneity, and manifest joy. • Intellectual OE predicted social spontaneity and cognitive spontaneity. This study examined the associations between overexcitabilities and playfulness of Chinese kindergarten children in Hong Kong. Participants were 107 children (43.4 % girls, mean age = 60.1 months) and their parents. Parents reported their child's overexcitabilities (imaginational, psychomotor, sensual, intellectual, and emotional), playfulness (physical spontaneity, social spontaneity, cognitive spontaneity, manifest joy, and sense of humor), household play choices, and household play opportunities through a questionnaire. The hierarchical regressions showed that, controlling for child age, gender, household play choices, and household play opportunities, children's imaginational overexcitability was significantly predictive of their cognitive spontaneity, manifest joy, and sense of humor. Children's psychomotor overexcitability was associated with their physical spontaneity, social spontaneity, and manifest joy, whereas their intellectual overexcitability was a significant predictor of social spontaneity and cognitive spontaneity. Theoretically, these findings suggest that children's overexcitabilities may predispose them to certain play styles. Practically, results highlight the utility of creating a play context that embraces children's diverse characteristics of overexcitability as this approach may cultivate their creativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the roles of cumulative family risks and executive functioning (EF) in explaining preschool children's school readiness. The cumulative family risks comprised family socioeconomic status (SES), home literacy environment (HLE), and familial risk of dyslexia (FRD). The participants were 955 first-year kindergarten children (M age = 3.53 years, SD =0.41, 46.60 % girls) and their parents (M age = 35.56 years, SD =6.31, 82.7 % mothers) from Hong Kong, China. The parents completed a survey package measuring their children's school readiness, EF skills, and the three above-mentioned cumulative family risks. Hierarchical regression analysis, controlling for children's age and gender, was performed to test the unique contributions of EF and the profiles of cumulative family risks to school readiness. The results showed that in addition to the significant role of EF, HLE risk was significantly associated with school readiness. The association between EF and school readiness was significantly weaker in children with three or more family risks than in their peers. The findings highlight the necessity of developing family education and school–family–community collaboration programs to enhance the school readiness of children, especially those with multiple family risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing concerns regarding the risks of transmitting the COVID-19 virus have intensified the job-related stressors commonly encountered by teachers in various cultural contexts. Evidence shows how the COVID-19 crisis has negatively impacted teachers' mental health outcomes such as stress, depression, and quality of life, which highlights the significance of designing psychological programs to boost teachers' well-being. This study examined the effects of a well-being intervention based on the Positivity, Relationship, Outcomes, Strength, Purpose, Engagement, and Resilience (PROSPER) framework on well-being outcomes among 76 in-service teachers (M age = 26.05 years, SD = 4.71, range = 20–45; female = 93.4%) in Hong Kong. Participants completed survey measures associated with the seven PROSPER outcomes at baseline and 2-month follow-up. Multivariate regression analysis indicated that there were statistically significant multivariate effects for intervention conditions, Wilks' Lambda F (7, 58) = 4.50, p =.01. Results demonstrated that teachers who were assigned to the intervention condition (n = 36) had significantly higher scores than those in the control condition (n = 40) on positivity (b = 0.41, 95% CI [0.16, 0.65], p =.01), strength (b = 0.62, 95% CI [0.23, 1.01], p =.01), purpose (b = 0.61, 95% CI [0.18, 1.04], p =.01), and resilience (b = 0.57, 95% CI [0.07, 1.07], p =.04). Our findings provide evidence on the mental health benefits of the PROSPER-based psychological intervention program for preschool teachers. • This study explored the psychological benefits of PROSPER-based intervention among teachers. • This intervention improved the teachers' positivity, resilience, strengths, and purpose. • This intervention had moderate effects on such key psychological outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the importance of the phonological coding system (PCS) by examining the possible moderation effect of knowledge of the PCS on the predictiveness of auditory temporal processing (ATP) for Chinese character reading. Eighty typically developing Chinese children in the first and second grades in Taiwan were recruited, and various cognitive and literacy ability tasks were administered. The results revealed that knowledge of the PCS served as a significant moderator of the association between ATP and Chinese character reading, that is, the significant prediction from ATP to Chinese character reading was observed only in those with high knowledge of the PCS but not those with low knowledge of the PCS. Additionally, we further demonstrated diverse ability levels in phonological processing as it contributes to Chinese character reading among individuals with higher and lower knowledge of the PCS. Specifically, ATP as well as phonological awareness significantly predicted Chinese character reading for those with high knowledge of the PCS, while only verbal short-term memory served as a significant predictor of Chinese character reading for those with low knowledge of the PCS. Our results show that individuals with different levels of knowledge of the PCS may demonstrate different ability levels in phonological processing in their Chinese character reading, which suggests that the need for teaching approaches suited to students with diverse learning experiences should be acknowledged. • Auditory temporal processing can only conditionally contribute to Chinese reading • Knowledge of phonological coding system serves as the significant moderator. • Auditory temporal processing could predict Chinese character reading for higher group • Phonological awareness as well is a significant predictor for higher group • Only verbal short-term memory served as a significant predictor for lower group [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the relative contributions of executive functioning (EF) and oral language skills to performance on number-fact and story problems in Chinese children. A total of 280 kindergarten children in Hong Kong participated in this study. Children were assessed on their EF, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, receptive vocabulary, performance on number-fact and story problems. Results of path analysis showed that when children's age and parental education were controlled, children's EF, phonological awareness, and morphological awareness were correlates of performance on both number-fact and story problems, whereas receptive vocabulary was not. After further controlling for performance on number-fact problems, morphological awareness was the only variable under investigation that linked to performance on story problems. These findings underscore the importance of taking the development of EF and oral language skills into consideration when guiding children's arithmetic learning. • Executive functioning (EF), phonological awareness and morphological awareness were significantly associated with number-fact and story problems in Chinese children. • Morphological awareness uniquely predicted story problems after number-fact problems were controlled for. • Receptive vocabulary, among EF and other language skills, was not correlated with both number-fact and story problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the conceptualization of children’s socioemotional competence among parents and teachers of preschool children in Hong Kong, China. Focus groups were conducted with 16 parents and 18 teachers from three preschools. Thematic content analysis revealed that, reflecting the cultural as well as contextual characteristics of Hong Kong, parents and teachers expected socioemotionally competent children to master skills in emotion understanding, emotion expressivity, emotion regulation, relationship building, conflict management, and inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility. There was diversity within parents’ and teachers’ interpretations of the characteristics of emotionally regulated and socially skilled children. Findings highlighted the ecosystemic nature of societal ideas about children’s developmental competence, demonstrated the utility of qualitative research in exploring these ideas in culturally sensitive manners, and called for the mobilization of parents and teachers as research-informed scaffolders of holistic development of children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual expertise in distinguishing words from objects and word-like stimuli is a fundamental skill that is important for children to become proficient readers. This expertise can be indexed by the N1 component of ERPs at the neural level. However, the nature of N1 tuning for print is controversial in terms of onset of the latency, lateralization and the neural mechanism of the N1. This study aimed to investigate whether two groups of Chinese children could discriminate characters/character-like stimuli from visual controls (i.e., coarse N1 tuning) and distinguish characters from character-like stimuli (i.e., fine N1 tuning). We also explored the cognitive-linguistic correlates of N1 tuning. Seventeen children in the younger group ( M =7.7 years) and 13 in the older group ( M =9.4 years) were all required to finish a character decision task with character, pseudocharacter, noncharacter, and stroke combination conditions using ERP testing. Both the pseudocharacters and noncharacters were unpronounceable, and the main difference between the two conditions was in orthographic presentation (i.e., radical position). Children were also administered measures of reading fluency, reading accuracy, RAN, phonological skill and vocabulary knowledge. ERP results showed that a significantly larger N1 was observed in the characters, pseudocharacters, and noncharacters as compared to the stroke combinations in both groups. The N1 for characters and pseudocharacters was also significantly larger than that for noncharacters in both groups. Both coarse and fine N1s were larger for younger children than for older children, and the N1 was bilateral in younger children, but left lateralized in older children. Correlational analyses showed that the coarse N1 tuning of real characters versus visual controls was moderately correlated with reading fluency and accuracy but not RAN, phonology, or vocabulary. Taken together, our study suggests that both coarse and fine N1 tuning occurs in both younger and older children, when performing character decisions. Under such task demands, orthography, rather than phonology or semantics, seems to be the driver of coarse N1 tuning for print in Chinese children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper reported two studies which compared the roles of word order and morphosyntactic skills in reading comprehension among Chinese elementary school children. In Study 1, we found that over and above the effects of age, nonverbal intelligence and word reading, word order skill was a stable predictor of reading performance throughout grades 1 to 6, whereas morphosyntactic skill was associated with reading comprehension at grades 3 and 4. Study 2 was a three-year longitudinal study which showed that morphosyntactic but not word order skill at grade 2 longitudinally predicted sentence comprehension at grade 3 beyond the control variables and the auto-regressor; word order rather than morphosyntactic skill at grade 2 contributed significant variances to passage comprehension at grades 3 and 4. The findings suggested a differential dependence of reading on word order and morphosyntactic skills at different ages and in reading comprehension at different levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the interrelationships between linguistic comprehension skills (expressive vocabulary, word definition, oral narrative skills, and syntactic skills), decoding (word recognition and reading fluency) and reading comprehension (sentence comprehension and passage comprehension) among 369 Cantonese-speaking Chinese children in a 3-year longitudinal study from Grade 1 to Grade 3. Multiple regression analysis and structural equation modeling results suggested that the component skills of Chinese reading comprehension can be categorized into two major components: linguistic comprehension and decoding. The former is made up of oral narrative skills and syntactic skills, while the latter is made up of word recognition and reading fluency. The additive (i.e., linear) model with linguistic comprehension and decoding as predictors of reading comprehension provided an adequate account of the data in most analyses. The product of linguistic comprehension (syntactic skills) and decoding (word recognition/reading fluency) accounted for a significant amount of variance in passage comprehension at Grade 1 in addition to the linear contribution of linguistic comprehension and decoding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the performance of prosodic sensitivity among Chinese students from nine to fifteen years as well as its contribution to reading comprehension. For this study, we recruited 181 Chinese children with typical development from 9 to 15 years in Taiwan. Fifty-five were 9–10 years, 53 were 11–12 years, and the other 62 were 13–15 years. They were tested for prosodic sensitivity, phonological processing, Chinese character reading, and reading comprehension. Our results indicated clear age differences in two prosodic sensitivities: – the youngest group performed significantly worse than the other two groups. Additionally, our results showed that prosodic sensitivity significantly contributed to reading comprehension for only the two older groups. Theoretically, our results shed light on the role of prosodic sensitivity, especially above the character level, in Chinese reading comprehension. Teachers and instructors should consider prosodic sensitivity when preparing interventions for reading comprehension. • Chinese students develop prosodic sensitivity from 9 to 10 years old. • There are bigger age differences in most phonological processing than in prosodic sensitivity. • Prosodic sensitivity was found to contribute to reading from 11 to 15 years old. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The relationships of reading-related skills (rapid naming, morphological awareness, syntactic skills, discourse skills, and verbal working memory) and word reading to reading comprehension were examined among 248 Chinese fourth graders in Hong Kong. Multiple regression analysis results showed that syntactic skills (word order knowledge, morphosyntactic knowledge), discourse skills (sentence order knowledge) and verbal working memory contributed significant unique variance to reading comprehension after word reading was controlled for. Path analysis results showed that syntactic skills, discourse skills and verbal working memory had significant direct effects on reading comprehension, while rapid naming and morphological awareness had indirect effects on reading comprehension through word reading. These findings, in part, support the models of reading comprehension developed for alphabetic writing systems, but also reflect the unique Chinese language learning experience of Chinese children in Hong Kong. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This study investigated the mediating role of children's school liking between parent-child interactions and children's pre-academic skills. Specifically, parent-child interactions included frequency of mothers' and fathers' formal and informal home learning activities with children, as well as their autonomy support during these activities. Three hundred first-year kindergarteners were tested on two aspects of pre-academic skills, namely oral vocabulary and object counting, while their mothers and fathers reported parent-child interactions and children's school liking. Structural equation modeling showed that after controlling for demographic variables, mother-child informal learning activities and mothers' and fathers' autonomy support were positively linked to children's pre-academic skills via school liking. Father-child informal learning activities and mother- and father-child formal learning activities were not related to children's school liking nor to pre-academic skills. Our findings suggest that more coaching can be provided to parents on how to promote children's school liking and pre-academic skills. • Mothers' informal learning activities were positively related to pre-academic skills. • Both parents' autonomy support was positively related to pre-academic skills. • School liking mediated the above relationships. • Both parents' formal learning activities were not related to pre-academic skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]