objective: the present research was conducted to study the effect of play therapy on reducing behavioral problems of children with oppositional defiant disorder. method: using multistage cluster sampling, regions 6, 7, and 8 in tehran were selected. among kindergartens of these areas, 3 kindergartens which were supported by the welfare organization were randomly selected. of all the pre-school ...

We argue for a theoretical link between the development of an extended period of immaturity in human evolution and the emergence of powerful and wide-ranging causal learning mechanisms, specifically the use of causal models and Bayesian learning. We suggest that exploratory childhood learning, childhood play in particular, and causal cognition are closely connected. We report an empirical study...

Young children’s relationships with teachers predict social and academic success. This study examines contributions of child temperament (shyness, effortful control) and gender to teacher–child relationship quality both directly and indirectly through the frequency of teacher–child interactions in the classroom. Using an NICHD SECCYD sample of 819 first grade children, four findings emerged: (a...

the aim of this study was assessing the effectiveness of child-centered play therapy (ccpt) on reducing internalizing symptoms in children and reduced parental stress in mothers. the method of this study was quasi-experimental research study using a pretest-post-test along with the control group. a group of 20 children with 7 and 8 age in 2012-2013 school year (n=10 experimental and n=10 contro...

Similarities between anorexia nervosa (AN) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) such as poor cognitive flexibility, difficulties with set shifting, and impaired interpersonal functioning and social interactions have been identified in the literature. Evidence concerning persons with ASD established that these characteristics can be linked to poor pretend play in childhood and that improved prete...

Recent cognitive accounts of the imagination propose that imagining and believing are in the same “code”. According to the single code hypothesis, cognitive mechanisms that can take input from both imagining and from believing will process imagination-based inputs (“pretense representations”) and isomorphic beliefs in much the same way. In this paper, I argue that the single code hypothesis pro...

School health has been regarded as a high priority intervention in developing countries from the perspective of donor organizations. This paper aims to show why school health is important from the community perspective as well, and how school health programs should be implemented based on a case study by the School and Community Health Project (SCHP) in Nepal. SCHP conducted a needs assessment ...

OBJECTIVES Nunavut is the most northerly jurisdiction in Canada of which 85% of inhabitants are Inuit. Although most infants are born healthy, Nunavut leads the country for adverse early child health outcomes such as infant mortality, rates of birth defects, prematurity and low birth weight. Public health and community efforts are needed to understand and improve outcomes. METHODS To inform t...

The present study investigated the developmental interrelationships between play, gesture use and spoken language development in children aged 18–31 months. The children completed two tasks: (i) a structured measure of pretend (or ‘symbolic’) play and (ii) a measure of vocabulary knowledge in which children have been shown to gesture. Additionally, their productive spoken language knowledge was...