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This paper details the research design of a multidisciplinary, multi-method, collaborative research project investigating health communication from the experiences of the early childhood education (ECE) sector during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the rapidly evolving pandemic, the ECE sector was instantly tasked with expanding their required health practices to prevent the spread of infection. It was evident that the sector needed a system to communicate health advice in a timely, consistent and effective manner. Founded on a partnership model based on 'knowledge brokering' theory, this project demonstrates the value of a multidisciplinary research team collaborating with stakeholder organisations to investigate how COVID-19 health information traversed through complexities of organisational layers and diverse communities of families and staff. Detailing our data collection and analysis protocols, we conclude by outlining how our innovative research design is generating actionable and impactful recommendations for both the ECE and health sectors.

In this article, we present a dynamic systems theoretical and methodological approach to investigating joint attention in early childhood (EC) centres. Joint attention, defined as a social interaction in which child and caregiver share a common focus of attention, is an important interactive context for collaborative learning. We overview the principles of dynamics systems theory and explain how these principles conceptualise joint attention as emerging from synchronised, 'in-the-moment' interactions between child and educator. Drawing on data from a project investigating the dynamic nature of joint attention in infant EC rooms, state space grids (SSGs) are then presented as a research tool that graphically captures and represents the mutually influencing contributions of educator, infant and the environment. We conclude by considering other ways to use SSG analysis to provide a more nuanced understanding of the dynamics of educator child interactions in EC settings.

This study explored the family language policy, parental beliefs, and bilingual parenting in Beijing, a typical monolingual society. Stratified random sampling was conducted to recruit 192 parents of Chinese preschoolers (ages 2.5, 3.5, 4.5, and 5.5 years). They were surveyed with the "Home Language Environment and Practices" (HLEP) developed for this study. The statistical results indicated that: (1) the majority of Beijing families (90.1%) did not have bilingual home environment or related family language policy, only 8.9% did so; (2) three latent classes of bilingual parenting emerged: 'No Explicit Policy' (lower parental education level, no extra-curriculum activities, no bilingual environment, no Chinese-English bilingual, and few books at home; 64.6%); 'Monolingual Parenting' (relatively higher parental education level, more extra-curriculum activities, the highest number of Chinese and English books at home, the longest time for Chinese storytelling, and an emphasis on Chinese literacy and language learning; 26.6%); and 'Bilingual Parenting' (the highest parental education level, Chinese-English bilingual parents, bilingual home environment, and relatively more Chinese and English books at home); and (3) parental education level, bilingual father, bilingual mother, and number of English books at home predicted the profile of bilingual parenting, whereas parental beliefs about early bilingualism did not.

Research indicates that the early years are a pivotal time for developing foundational mathematical knowledge, and that early experiences with mathematics have a lasting impact on later numeracy skills and academic achievement. However, the importance of early mathematical thinking and learning is often undervalued or overlooked in early childhood education and care contexts. This paper presents findings on the use of mathematical language in mealtime conversations with children under the age of two. Mealtime conversations between 26 educators and the infants they worked with were recorded, transcribed, and examined for both quantity and diversity of language that include reference to mathematical concepts. The study found that incidental use of mathematical language was related to the amount and diversity of educators' talk, although patterns of relationships varied depending on the type of mathematical talk under investigation. These findings highlight the potential value of working with educators both to recognise that mathematical thinking occurs in everyday and routine experiences with infants and to become more intentional in supporting and extending this learning.

This study compares the mental-state talk of infant educators in Australia and China in order to determine the nuanced differences in the ways that they use this talk with the infants in their room. Participants are 44 native English-speaking Australian educators from centres in Sydney, Australia and 30 native Chinese-speaking infant educators recruited from centres in and around Hangzhou, China. Twenty-minute samples of each educators' naturally occurring play interactions with infants during play were coded to determine the frequency of their desire, emotion, perception, cognition and modulation of assertion talk. Each mental-state term was also coded according to the referent of that mental-state. We examined the extent to which Australian and Chinese educators' use mental-state talk and how the referents of such talk differed by mental-state talk type and culture. Australian educators used significantly more mental-state talk than their Chinese counterparts. Different patterns of referent use across cultural cohorts and mental-state talk types were identified. Findings have implications for the socialisation of very young children into culturally specific ways of talking and thinking about the mind.

This study examined infant educators' conceptions of infant language development and approaches to supporting the development. The phenomenographic analyses of interviews with 59 educators identified five and six hierarchically related conceptions and approaches respectively. The conceptions were broadly distinguished as deep or surface conceptions; and the approaches were categorized as infant-centred or infant-peripheral approaches. Positive relation was found between the deep conceptions and the infant-centred approaches on the one hand, and positive association was observed between the surface conceptions and the infant-peripheral approaches on the other hand. The conceptions and approaches were also related to the educators' level of qualification. Bachelor-qualified educators tended to hold deep conceptions and to report using infant-centred approaches; whereas non-bachelor-qualified educators were more likely to have surface conceptions and to report infant-peripheral approaches. Our findings highlight the importance of the presence of well-qualified educators in supporting language development of very young children in the infant early childhood education and care programs.

Evidence suggests that the quantity of linguistic input experienced by infants in early childhood centres relates to the quality of educator-infant interactions. However, little is known about the linguistic properties of mutually responsive educator-infant interactions. This study uses sequence analyses to identify patterns of educator-infant three-turn conversations, and examine whether these patterns are related to the quantity of educator words (AWC) experienced by infants. We selected 15-minute video segments representing the peak quantity of AWC experienced by 14 infants across a three-hour period. Educator initiations were coded as "knowledge-" or "non-knowledge-based," infant responses and educator follow-ups were coded as "evaluative" and "elaborative." Each conversation was coded as "terminate" or "continue." Four patterns of educator-infant conversations were identified, revealing significant differences in the conversations experienced by infants in the high and low AWC cohorts. Findings inform educators on how best to engage infants in mutually responsive, language-rich and sustained conversations.

This study examines the developmental pattern of spatial frames of reference (FoRs) in Chinese preschoolers using the naturalistic data elicited from the Beijing Early Childhood Mandarin Corpus. Altogether, 2837 static spatial sentences were identified from the corpus, and 785 of them used FoRs; thus, they were analysed using the seven-class FoRs coding system developed from the literature review. The results indicated that: (1) six classes were produced by the Beijing preschoolers, including the direct reference (DR), geomorphic reference (GR), landmark-based reference (LBR), object-centred reference (OCR), relative reference (RR), and people-centred reference (PCR). But, the absolute reference (AR) frequently used by Beijing adults was not produced by the preschoolers; (2) significant age differences were found in the utterances with reference and demonstrative sentences and were also identified in the production of OCR, PCR, and RR; (3) there were no significant gender or gender x age effects in the production of FoRs, except for the no-frame sentences; and (4) there was a stable and consistent pattern of FoRs allocation by age, and the most frequently used was OCR. All these findings indicate interactions among language, culture, and cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many bilingual infants attend early childhood education centres (ECEC) with their monolingual peers. However, recent evidence reveals that bilingual infants vocalise significantly less than monolingual infants in ECEC settings (Zheng et al. 2023) [Effects of Multilingualism on Australian Infants' Language Environments in Early Childhood Education Centers. Infant Behavior and Development, 70, 101799.], suggesting that educators may need to provide language tailored strategies to support bilingual infants' language learning. This study examines how educators support Mandarin-English bilingual infants' learning and development through a range of translanguaging practices in Australian ECEC contexts. We identified three functions of fluid translanguaging pedagogies: (1) make meaning and acknowledge children's bilingual repertoires during play-based interactions; (2) introduce the connections between two languages during literacy and play activities; (3) provide emotional support or regulate behaviour through the use of home language. We also identified educators' language-supporting strategies such as repetition, expanding their own/child's utterances, labelling and questioning during translanguaging practices. This study is the first to closely describe the dynamic nature of translanguaging interactions between early childhood educators and Mandarin-English bilingual children under the age of two. Findings highlight the importance of translanguaging for scaffolding infants' bilingual language learning, fostering their bilingual identities and supporting their wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have indicated that many children from Asian countries have the experience of learning English prior to school at home or at private institutes. The Taiwanese government promotes informal and play-based teaching of English in the home if the parents would like their young children to learn English prior to formal instruction. This study is designed to investigate how Taiwanese mothers attempt to facilitate their children's English development by exploring how they engage their children in English learning at home. We also investigate whether there is a relationship between maternal educational attainment and maternal teaching practices and the use of resources. The sample consists of 647 mothers of preschoolers who responded to a questionnaire which surveyed their practices and resources utilized at home. The results showed that mothers differed in the extent to which they engaged in shared reading and provided toys and computer media for English instruction, and that maternal education is related to the types of strategies and resources provided. The findings provide significant information about what the mothers utilized to assist their young children to learn English language. (Contains 3 tables.)

This study investigated the manner in which 56 infant educators used language to direct the behaviour of infants (defined as children aged birth to two years), on the basis that the ways in which educators frame their commands represent an important component of young children's learning experiences. Underpinned by systemic functional linguistic theory, the study analysed the frequency and type of command produced by educators with university, diploma and certificate qualifications. "Suggestive" and "indirect" commands convey a sense of negotiation, as if the addressees' subjective opinions and thoughts are considered, while "nonsuggestive" and "direct" commands foreground the speakers' power and authority. The findings demonstrate that commands feature frequently in educators' talk to infants, with nonsuggestive and direct commands being most commonly used. Individual differences were related to the qualifications of staff. University-qualified early childhood teachers used significantly fewer nonsuggestive and direct commands than did diploma and certificate-qualified educators, and they were more likely to provide infants with a reason for the command. These findings have implications for the way in which learning opportunities are created by the language that educators use, and for the overall quality of infant early childhood programmes.

This study examined infant educators' beliefs about infant language development in the context of early childhood classrooms. Participants were 59 educators who were employed to work directly with under-two-year-old children. Educators were interviewed to determine their understandings of infant language development and Grounded Theory qualitative techniques were used to develop a conceptual model which illustrates their perceptions of the relationships between contextual, personal and teaching and learning components of their classroom contexts. The model provides a means of conceptualising 'insider' practitioner voices on how, as a dynamic system, contextual, individual and pedagogical components mutually interact to bring about the kinds of experiences and interactions that can shape language development. Findings have implications for understanding educators' perspectives on infant room quality, suggesting that issues related to educator-infant ratios, staff consistency, qualifications and professional knowledge about language development processes may impact efforts to provide intentional language development support.

Research Findings: This study examines the frequency of reasoning talk used by 56 educators during their naturally occurring play interactions with infants in their early childhood education and care (ECEC) centers. Using Hasan's semantic framework, reasons were coded as social (based on social rules) or logical (based on rules of nature). The communicative function of reasoning talk was coded as regulatory (when the reason served to regulate infants' behavior) or non-regulatory. On average, educators' reasoning talk comprising only 4.43% of their total talk, with social reasoning used slightly more frequently than logical reasoning. Educators used significantly more social reasoning when regulating infants' behavior, whereas logical reasoning occurred more frequently during non-regulatory interactions. Educators' qualification level explained individual differences. Bachelor-qualified educators used significantly more reasoning talk than lower-qualified educators, and this finding was explained by their more frequent use of both social and logical reasoning when regulating infants' behavior. Practice or Policy: The study identifies reasoning talk as an important element of language environment quality in ECEC infant rooms, and highlights the learning potential of language used for different communicative purposes. Findings demonstrate that well-qualified educators appear well versed to capitalize on the educative potential of this type of talk.

Background: This paper investigates Australian parents' child care decision-making, including the motivational and influential factors that they attribute to their choice. Research demonstrates that child care decision making is multifaceted, involving a combination of child-related, personal, familial and contextual considerations. Existing research has tended to compare centre-based child care users with those using family-based options, and has not examined differences in the decision-making of parents who using different centre-based options. Objective: This study compared the characteristics and child care choices of parents using long day care (LDC) with those using preschool services to determine (1) whether they differ demographically and (2) if their reported child care decision-making motivations and influences diverge. Method: Participants were 1418 parents who completed a nationally-distributed survey in which they provided demographic information, specified their reasons for choosing to use child care, and rated the importance of factors that influenced their child care choice. Results: LDC parents had, on average, younger children, worked longer hours and resided in areas with lower socioeconomic resources than preschool parents. When compared with preschool parents, those using LDC were more likely to nominate pragmatic factors as influencing their child care decision making. External pressures, mainly related to educational outcomes, were more salient for preschool than LDC parents. However, both groups of parents similarly rated child-centred factors as the most important overall influence. Conclusion: Our findings add complexity to current understandings of parents' child care decision making by showing that parents should not be treated as a homogenous group by policy makers, providers, and researchers.

In early childhood centres, decontextualised talk is often associated with literacy activities. In this study, however, we investigated toddler-educator conversations across various activities with a focus on those about topics that were not related to the immediate context. We examined the communicative purposes and linguistic features of these conversations and the opportunities they afford for toddlers' learning. A qualitative analysis of video-recorded conversations between 12 2-year-old toddlers and their educators resulted in identifying four kinds of talk: 'interview', 'story', 'inquiry' and 'rebuttal'. The findings reveal that toddler–educator conversations provide varied learning opportunities for toddlers, which are reinforced by both educators' and toddlers' conversational contributions. The participants' contributions are shaped by the extent to which a topic is removed from their immediate activity. These findings can inform more effective use of linguistic features, such as questions and narrative constructions, for supporting under-3-year-old children's learning and developing skills in using decontextualised talk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Findings: This study investigated the prevalence of pedagogical questions posed by 27 early childhood educators as they interacted with infants in each of two naturally-occurring contexts: book-focused interactions and educator mediated play. The pedagogical questions expressed by educators to infants were coded as "confirm" (yes/no), "specify" (what, who, where, when) or "explain" (why, how) on the basis that these question types present infants with different opportunities to use their developing communication skills to provide information to others. We sought to determine associations between question use, activity context and educators' qualification levels. Explain questions were used very rarely, while confirm and specify questions were more frequent, comprising 7.60% and 8.32% respectively of the messages expressed by educators to infants. A 2 (activity context) × 2 (qualification level) mixed factorial MANOVA, supplemented with post-hoc qualitative analyses, demonstrated that, in specific activity contexts, degree qualified early childhood teachers used pedagogical questioning in ways which differed from their less-qualified counterparts. Practice or policy: The findings provide much needed data on how educator questioning is used with children under two, how questioning affords context-specific language learning opportunities for infants in ECEC centres, and how educator qualifications may be implicated in these opportunities.

This study investigated the quantity of audible and intelligible ('near and clear') educator talk directly experienced by under-two-year-old infants attending early childhood education and care (ECEC) programmes and examined whether the quantity of educator talk was related to characteristics of quality in their ECEC room. Participants were 57 infants attending separate infant rooms in and around the Sydney metropolitan area, Australia. Each infant was observed for 3 h, wearing a small, custom-designed digital language processor (DLP) which digitally recorded and generated measures of 'near and clear' adult talk, unclear talk and infant vocalisations. Structural quality indicators include educator qualification, group size and educator-infant ratios, and Interaction Quality was assessed using the ITERS-R Interaction and Listening and Talking subscales. Infants' experience with 'near and clear' talk was predicted by Interaction Quality, the presence of a degree-qualified teacher and group size. 'Near and clear' talk was also significantly and positively related to the quantity of infant vocalisation and, negatively, to their level of exposure to unclear talk. Findings are discussed in terms of conceptualisations of quality in infant ECEC rooms, as well as the potentials and limitations of the 'near and clear' talk measure for use in future studies of language development in this context.

This article examines how joint attention episodes constitute a core feature of relational pedagogy for infants and toddlers. It draws on social interactionist approaches to language and cognitive development to propose that joint attention may afford significant current and future potential for young children's learning. However, most joint attention research has taken place within experimental settings, so current definitions of joint attention do not take into account the dynamic group-based nature of the infant-toddler room. In this article, the author presents findings from a study of the language environment of infant-toddler rooms to examine the characteristics of joint attention episodes as they naturally occurred in infant-toddler programs. The author illustrates how qualitatively different episodes of educator-infant joint attention support both language and cognitive development. In doing so, she proposes a theoretical model to represent the learning potential of these shared experiences with the aim of enhancing current understandings of what it means to learn collaboratively in infant-toddler group settings.

Recently, within the field of early childhood education, there has been an increasing emphasis on the role of social construction of knowledge and on the inter-relatedness of aspects of social and cognitive development. This study investigated a proposed relationship between young children's popularity status among peers and a representational theory of mind. Twenty-four 5-year-olds participated in a series of sociometric interviews in which they were asked to rate their peers according to whether they "liked to play with them a lot,""liked to play with them sometimes," or "didn't like to play with them." These ratings were used to generate an overall likability measure, which was then compared with a measure of performance on a series of theory of mind tasks. Comparison of these measures indicated a significant correlation between the ranking of individual children as popular, or unpopular, by their peers and a measure of theory of mind. These results indicated that social interactions among peers provide opportunities for understanding of self and others and for explaining and predicting the actions of others based on mental states. Teachers were also asked to rate the children in terms of perceived popularity. Comparisons of the ratings made by teachers and children indicated considerable differences. (Contains 26 references.) (Author/EV)

This research adopted a qualitative methodology to investigate the reported beliefs and pedagogical practices relating to infant peer relationships held by three early childhood infant educators. Thematic analysis was used to derive commonalties and differences that reflected these educators' views and practices about children's early peer relationships. Results indicate in-depth understandings about children's capacities that did not, however, appear to be translated into their reported practice. This research has implications for planning and programming experiences designed for social interactions, along with the significant role of the early childhood educator in recognising and fostering young children's early peer relationships.

Friendships and play provide children with opportunities for mutual engagement, which both require and facilitate children's language use. Modality is a semantic system in the language associated with children's learning. One way in which modality is realised is through linguistic expressions which allow speakers to moderate the degree of certainty about the truth of propositions (expressions of possibility) and the degree of necessity with respect to proposals (expressions of obligation). No research has explored the relationship between friendship and children's use of modality. This paper reports on the use of both types of modal expression during play between five- and six-year-old children in two friendship contexts. Results showed that possibility expressions occurred at similar rates in both contexts while obligation expressions occurred significantly more often in play in high-level friendships than in low-level friendships. Findings suggest that in high-level friendships modality was used cohesively to create and extend pretend play, whereas in low-level friendships it was used to regulate behaviour. Because modal expressions are important resources for managing interpersonal relationships, for talking about ideas and situations beyond the here and now and for writing for a non-present audience, our findings provide valuable insights for educators of young children.

This paper explores the construction of "care" in early childhood curriculum and practice. An increasing number of infants are attending formal early childhood settings in Australia (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2011. "Childhood education and care, Australia, June 2011." (4402.0). Retrieved from http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/4402.0); yet, relatively little research has considered how early childhood educators working with very young children are able to interpret and enact a new curriculum framework that does not explicitly make care practices visible. Findings are based on interviews with six university-qualified infant educators who work as team leaders in early childhood centres using a multiple case-study approach. Fisher and Tronto's theory of care [(1990). "Toward a feminist theory of caring." In E. K. Abel & M. K. Nelson (Eds.), "Circles of care: Work and identity in women's lives" (pp. 35-62). New York, NY: State University of New York] is used to frame the analysis. These findings will be discussed in relation to the complexities involved in interpreting curriculum discourse, as well as the implications of such discourse for the professional identity and practice of infant educators.