This national study explored the role of digital technologies in early childhood education and care settings and whether they could contribute to quality improvement as reported by educators and assessors of quality in Australia. In this paper, data from Stage 2 of the Quality Improvement Research Project were used, which comprised 60 Quality Improvement Plans from educators linked with 60 Assessment and Rating reports from the assessors who visited early childhood centres as part of the administration of the National Quality Standards by each of Australia’s State and Territory jurisdictions. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory ( Bronfenbrenner, U. (1995). Developmental ecology through space and time: A future perspective. In P. Moen, G. H. Elder, Jr., & K. Lüscher (Eds.), Examining lives in context: Perspectives on the ecology of human development (pp. 619–647). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/10176-018; Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, Bronfenbrenner and Ceci, Psychological Review 101:568–586, 1994) was adopted to facilitate a systemic and dynamic view on the use of digital technologies in these 60 ECEC settings. References (e.g. comments/ suggestions/ examples) made by the educators about the implementation of digital technologies were counted and thematically analysed. Results revealed the strong role new technologies (e.g. documentation and management platforms, tablets, apps, etc.) play in the majority of ECEC settings and especially in relation to three of the seven Quality Areas: Educational programme and practice (Quality Area 1); Collaborative partnerships with families and communities (Quality Area 6) and Governance and leadership (Quality Area 7). Future directions for research are suggested and implications for embracing a more holistic, integrated and broad view on the use of digital technologies are discussed.

For many of the children who are blind and who also display features of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) it is possible that their characteristics, while being representative of ASD, actually follow a different pathway to those children who have ASD and are sighted. It is proposed that these children should be viewed as having specific features rather than being a part of the collective of ASD. This article explores this issue by comparing the criteria for ASD with behaviours of both children who are sighted and those who are blind. Additionally, the diagnoses of blindness associated with neurological involvement and early medical complications are discussed. The effectiveness of intervention strategies and programmes is explored.

Research findings: No research to date has compared mental state language (MSL) in conversations between children and different adult talk partners, such as mothers and educators. The aim of this study was to investigate the use of MSL (verbalization of mental states such as remembering, knowing and thinking) by children, educators, and mothers during conversations about the past and future. Eighty-five educator-child dyads from seven childcare centers in Sydney, Australia participated in eight conversations that varied by temporal (past/future) and novelty (novel/familiar) focus. Ten educators talked with 40 younger children (27–36 months), and 11 talked with 45 older children (48–60 months). A subsample of 42 mother-child dyads completed the same tasks: 20 with the younger children (27–36 months) and 22 with the older children (48–60 months). Educators used significantly more MSL than mothers. Compared to diploma-qualified educators, degree trained educators were especially likely to use more MSL. Educators’ MSL was significantly associated with children’s MSL for future talk conversations only. Practice or Policy: Educators’ and mothers’ MSL may influence children in different ways. Pre-service teacher training appears to facilitate educators’ own use of MSL. More research is needed to determine why children use more MSL with their mothers than with their educators.

When children reminisce with adults about their own past experiences, they are offered a rich forum in which to develop cognitive and socioemotional skills, build their sense of self, and form emotional bonds. Little attention has been directed to reminiscing in educational contexts, however. Our aim was to explore when, how often, and why early childhood educators engage young children in reminiscing conversations. Participants included 251 Australian educators with 1–45 years of experience. Educators completed an online survey asking them (i) the number of times per day they engaged children in reminiscing, relative to other types of talk, and (ii) the times and places these reminiscing conversations were most likely to occur. While individual differences were apparent, more than 85% of educators reporting engaging children in reminiscing multiple times per day. Popular times included arrival (67.7%), meals (65.7%) and group/circle time (58.2%). Educators’ qualitative explanations suggested several important reasons to engage children in reminiscing, including to bond, establish home-centre connections, build children’s socioemotional competence, reflect on ‘centre life’ and support intentional learning activities. Implications for research and practice are discussed.