Siblings’ Understanding of Teaching in Early and Middle Childhood:‘Watch Me and You’ll Know How to Do It’

Four-year-olds selectively transmit true information

Two experiments (N = 112) were conducted to examine preschoolers' concern for the truth when transmitting information. A first experiment (Pilot Experiment) revealed that 4-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, selectively transmitted information marked as true versus information marked as false. The second experiment (Main Experiment) showed that 4-year-olds selectively transmitted true information regardless of whether their audience lacked knowledge (Missing Knowledge Context) or information (Missing Information Context) about the subject matter. Children selected more true information when choosing between true versus false information (Falsity Condition) and when choosing between true information versus information the truth of which was undetermined (Bullshit Condition). The Main Experiment also revealed that 4-year-olds shared information more spontaneously, i.e., before being prompted, when it was knowledge, rather than information, the audience was seeking. The findings add to the field's growing understanding of young children as benevolent sharers of knowledge.

Four-Year-Olds Share General Knowledge and Use Generic Language When Teaching

Young children's receptiveness to teaching is unquestioned, but their understanding of pedagogy has only begun to be explored. Two experiments (N = 90; 45 female) with 4-year-olds from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds were conducted to test if they exchange general information and use generic language when teaching. Children in both experiments taught more general than episodic information and used more generic than episodic language when teaching. Experiment 2 showed that children did not prefer to report general information or use generic language in a non-pedagogical context. The findings suggest that by 4 years old, children understand that the goal of teaching is to transmit general knowledge.

Test of Motor Proficiency Second Edition (BOT-2) Short Form: A Systematic Review of Studies Conducted in Healthy Children

Motor skill competence of children is one of the important predictors of health because if a child is physically active during early childhood, the possibility of occurrence of many chronic diseases in adulthood will be reduced. The aim of this study was to systematically review the studies conducted in healthy children using the shorter form of the Bruininks-Oseretsky (BOT-2) and to determine the applicability in cross-sectional studies and pre-post designs. The search and analysis of the studies were done in accordance with the PRISMA guidelines. An electronic databases search (Google Scholar, PubMed, Mendeley, Science Direct, and Scopus) yielded 250 relevant studies conducted from 2011 to 2020. A total of 21 studies were included in quantitative synthesis, with a total of 3893 participants, both male and female. Through this study, the BOT-2 test proved its broad applicability, so it can be concluded that this test can be used to improve motor proficiency in a healthy population of children. Hence, it is necessary to invest a lot of time during the implementation of various programs so that children would adequately develop their basic motor skills so they broaden their own repertoire of movements.