This cross-linguistic study evaluates children’s understanding of passives in 11 typologically different languages: Catalan, Cypriot Greek, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, German, Hebrew, Lithuanian, and Polish. The study intends to determine whether the reported gaps between the comprehension of active and passive and between short and full passive hold cross-linguistically. The present study offers two major findings. The first is the relative ease in which 5-year-old children across 11 different languages are able to comprehend short passive constructions (compared to the full passive). The second and perhaps the more intriguing finding is the variation seen across the different languages in children’s comprehension of full passive constructions. We argued, based on the present findings, that given the relevant linguistic input (e.g., flexibility in word order and experience with argument reduction), children at the age of 5 are capable of acquiring both the short passive and the full passive. Variation, however, stems from the specific characteristics of each language, and good mastery of passives by the age of 5 is not a universal, cross-linguistically valid milestone in typical language acquisition. Therefore, difficulties with passives (short or full) can be used for identifying SLI at the age of 5 only in those languages in which it has already been mastered by typically developing children.

The present study examines the role of everyday play-based activities, planned and implemented by parents, on the development of children’s mathematical thinking at the age of up to 3 years old. Parents’ knowledge and beliefs were measured by using an online questionnaire, while a nonformal training program was developed and implemented with the participation of a group of parents using technological tools. The aim was to improve their knowledge on how to use relevant play-based activities and the understanding of their role. Results indicated that parents asked for the contribution of experts in order to acquire the relevant knowledge and skills and develop positive self-efficacy beliefs about their role. They found the training practical, through the use of digital tools, as well as useful for collaboration and communication. The shared examples by them indicated that the training has to concentrate further on the use of daily activities outside of the school-based context, which is more known to the parents.

As our world becomes increasingly multicultural in nature, multilingual skills constitute an everyday phenomenon in schools. Since most of the second‐language research has focused on school‐age students, more research had to be conducted with language‐minority students at the kindergarten level in order for psychologists and educators to develop effective and efficient systems for evaluating and tracking the developmental status of young language‐minority children. The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential usefulness of a standardized continuous progress measure, the Picture Naming Individual Growth and Development Indicator, to longitudinally assess language development in 23 language‐minority children, as well as in 13 native English‐speaking children. Results indicated that we could use the Picture Naming Individual Growth and Development Indicator to detect differences in first‐language and second‐language development in language‐minority children, as well as to detect differences between the two groups of children in their expressive English‐language skills.

Introduction: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder that simultaneously affects several areas of development such as communication, cognition, socialization, and movement, causing at the same time stereotyped behavior to occur. Purpose of the study: The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of interactive educational games as part of an educational program to enhance gross motor development of primary school students with ASD. Method: In this two-phases study, a case-control design was applied using a 3-month interactive educational platform based intervention with 15 children with ASD, while a similar control group of 16 children with ASD followed their schools’ typical teaching methods. The mean age of the children was 9.2 ± 1.4 years old and the groups were adjusted for gender, age, body type and dominant foot or leg. During the first phase of the study, and before the beginning of the intervention, children’s gross mobility was measured using the latest version of the Test of Gross Motor Development TGMD (version 3.0.). Then, the intervention was conducted using a selected list of games from the interactive educational platform named Kinems. During the second phase of the study, children’s gross mobility was measured again, using the Test of Gross Motor Development-3. Results: The gross mobility scales, the TGMD-3 scores, showed significant differences in children in the intervention group compared to the children in the control group, specifically regarding two of the TGMD-3 skills, namely ‘gallop’ and ‘2-hand catch’ scores. In most of the thirteen activities studied, children in the intervention group showed higher mean differences compared to the children in the control group. %Mean Success score was corelated with equivalent ages based on Locomotor skills. Implications & conclusions: The findings suggest that the interactive educational intervention program applied with primary school children with ASD, had a positive effect in their gross motor skills.

Introduction: Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder face significant difficulties in their social and motor development. Previous research has shown that motor difficulties associate and may predict social impairments in young children with the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Purpose of the study: The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between gross motor and social skills development of children with ASD between seven and eleven years old. Methods: A cohort of 31 children (21 boys-67.7%, 10 girls) with ASD, and mean chronological age 9.3 ± 1.4 years old, from four primary special education schools in Greece has been studied. Social skills were assessed, by the responsible classroom teacher, using the Educational Evaluation Tool for Social Skills (EET-SS) in children with autism developed by Apteslis et al. (2012) and the children’s gross motor development was measured, by the researcher, using the Test of Gross Motor Development (TGMD-3) (Ulrich, 2019). Results: Data analysis revealed that there was a moderate correlation between children’s social and gross motor skills. Additionally, the developmental age children’s scores on one set of TGMD-3 skills, specifically the TGMD-3 ball skills, were found to be associated with the most of the EET-SS children’s scores. Implications & Conclusion: The study showed that children’s specific social skills were correlated with specific gross motor skills, such as the skills associated with object manipulation. The relationship between social skills and gross-motor skills in children with ASD should be taken into consideration when designing and implementing assessment practices and educational programs for children with ASD in order for the children to improve both their gross-motor skills and social skills, and ultimately the quality of their everyday functioning, inside and outside of school.