CONTEXT: Young children have increasing access to interactive applications (apps) at home and at school. Existing research is clear on the potential dangers of overuse of screens, but there is less clarity around the extent to which interactive apps may be helpful in supporting early learning. OBJECTIVE: In this systematic review, we present a narrative synthesis of studies examining whether children <6 years can learn from interactive apps. DATA SOURCES: The PsycInfo, PubMed, ACM Digital Library, and ERIC databases were searched. STUDY SELECTION: Studies were included if the study design was randomized or nonrandomized controlled (quasi-experimental), the sample mean age was <6 years, the intervention involved children playing with an interactive app, and academic, cognitive, or social-emotional skill outcomes were measured. DATA EXTRACTION: Of 1447 studies, 35 were included. RESULTS: Evidence of a learning benefit of interactive app use for early academic skills was found across multiple studies, particularly for early mathematics learning in typically developing children. Researchers did not find evidence of an intervention effect for apps aiming to improve social communication skills in children with autism spectrum disorder. LIMITATIONS: Risk of bias was unclear for many studies because of inadequate reporting. Studies were highly heterogenous in interventions, outcomes, and study design, making comparisons of results across studies difficult. CONCLUSIONS: There is emerging evidence to suggest that interactive apps may be useful and accessible tools for supporting early academic development. More research is needed to evaluate both the potential of educational apps to support early learning, and their limitations.

Objective: To examine the initial efficacy of parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT) for treating behavior problems in young children who were born premature. Method: In this randomized, controlled trial, 28 children between the ages of 18 and 60 months, who were born <37 weeks gestation and presented with clinically significant externalizing behavior problems, were randomly assigned to an immediate treatment (IT) or waitlist (WL) control group. Results: After 4 months, children who received PCIT were reported by their mother to have less attention problems, aggressive behaviors, and externalizing and internalizing behavior problems, and they were observed to be more compliant to maternal commands than children in the WL group. In addition, mothers in the IT group interacted more positively with their child, reported lower parenting stress related to difficult child behavior and demonstrated improved parenting practices compared with WL mothers. Behavior change maintained for 80% of the IT children 4 months after treatment completion. Conclusions: This study demonstrates preliminary efficacy of PCIT for the treatment of behavior problems in young children who were born premature.

Despite the considerable amount of research demonstrating the relationship between parental depressive symptoms and child behavior problems, few studies have examined the direction of the relationship between these variables. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine transactional effects between parental depressive symptoms and child behavior problems. Participants were 209 parent–child dyads drawn from the Oregon Adolescent Depression Project who completed at least 2 of 4 annual questionnaire assessments between the child's age of 4 and 7 years. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the autoregressive paths from one year to the next year within each construct, as well as cross-lagged paths from one year to the next year between constructs. Findings indicated that parental depressive symptoms at each year predicted child behavior problems at the subsequent year and vice versa. No support was found for differential gender effects. These findings highlight the reciprocal relationship between parental depressive symptoms and child behavior problems and suggest intervention programs for young children should assess for and target parental depression when appropriate. Future research should examine these relationships across a broader developmental spectrum and in more diverse, heterogeneous samples.