The timing of the internal circadian clock shows large inter-individual variability across the lifespan. Although the sleep-wakefulness pattern of most toddlers includes an afternoon nap, the association between napping and circadian phase in early childhood remains unexplored. This study examined differences in circadian phase and sleep between napping and non-napping toddlers. Data were colle...

PURPOSE This study tested the hypothesis that depth of semantic representation influences toddlers' word retrieval. METHOD Nineteen toddlers participated under 3 word learning conditions in this longitudinal study. Gestures cued attention to object shape (SHP) or function (FNC) in the experimental conditions. No semantic cue was provided under a control condition (CTL). Word learning conditio...

Word recognition is a balancing act: listeners must be sensitive to phonetic detail to avoid confusing similar words, yet, at the same time, be flexible enough to adapt to phonetically variable pronunciations, such as those produced by speakers of different dialects or by non-native speakers. Recent work has demonstrated that young toddlers are sensitive to phonetic detail during word recogniti...

Unlike other forms of disaster, terrorism is not confined to a particular place or time, and recent evidence indicates that the 9/11 terrorist attack was a significant macrolevel stressor affecting the health and mental health of United States citizens. No studies, however, have reported symptoms in toddlers and their mothers both before and after the attacks. To address this gap, we examined t...

Adequate nutrient intake during early childhood is of particular importance for optimal growth and future health. However, cross-national comparative research on nutrient intake of toddlers is still limited. We conducted a literature review to examine the nutrient intake in healthy toddlers from some of the world's most populous nations currently on different stages of socioeconomic development...

This study aims at giving an insight into the causative forces of walking in toddlers. Therefore, joint angle, moment and power profiles of 10 toddlers with less than 6 months of walking experience are compared to the stereotype adult patterns. In general, joint moments are small, which can be explained both by the small size of toddlers and differences in walking strategy. Also mass specific p...

On earth, body weight is an inherent constraint, and accordingly, load-regulating mechanisms play an important role in terrestrial locomotion. How do toddlers deal with the effects of their full body weight when faced with the task of independent upright locomotion for the first time? Here we studied the effect of load variation on walking in 12 toddlers during their first unsupported steps, 15...

Evidence that children maintain some memories of labels that are unlikely to be shared by the broader linguistic community suggests that children's selective learning is not an all-or-none phenomenon. Across three experiments, we examine the contexts in which 24-month-olds show selective learning and whether they adjust their selective learning if provided with cues of in-context relevance. In ...

There is limited information concerning the dietary intake of toddlers in Australia. Consequently, there is a need for studies investigating toddler intake that use dietary assessment measures that are valid and place a low participant burden on caregivers. The aim of this study was to determine the relative validity of a single 24-h dietary recall (24HR) in measuring the intake of five nutrien...

A bilingual upbringing has been shown to enhance executive control, but the neural mechanisms underpinning such effect are essentially unknown. Here, we investigated whether monolingual and bilingual toddlers differ in semantic processing efficiency and their allocation of attention to expected and unexpected visual stimuli. We simultaneously recorded event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and p...