Exploratory Play is a universal experience that occurs throughout different kinds of childhoods. This study investigates how children’s vocabulary and exploratory play are influenced by how the caregiver responds to the child’s communicative bids. We hypothesize that if caregivers use more open-ended questions in response to their child’s communicative bids, children will show higher rates of exploration during free play.

Curiosity has been linked with many benefits, including increased overall well-being (Lydon-Staley et al., 2020) and greater academic achievement (Gottfried et al., 2016). The value that children place on learning new things and exploring novel ideas is unrivaled by older individuals. However, little research has been conducted to examine how parents may be able to help foster their children’s curiosity in a way that teaches them how to effectively search for and synthesize information. This paper aims to determine how parents’ language during a storybook task is related to their children’s strategy to collect rewards during a search game. Preliminary results suggest that parents may be able to encourage more effective search by asking more close-ended questions. These findings provide insight into how parents and guardians may be able to encourage their children to become better adept at searching for information by taking in clues about their environment and modifying their behavior to maximize their efforts.

Children of Deaf adults exhibit resilience despite being an underserved population. Positive parenting traits and a well-functioning community help these children gain empathy, responsibility, and maturity, as they act as linguistic and cultural intermediaries for their parents (Preston, 1994; Masten & Barnes, 2018). To study resilience in younger children of Deaf adults, seven families (six hearing families with hearing children and one Deaf family with a hearing child) were evaluated. Children between five-to-seven years were assessed for positive self-evaluation, hopefulness, motivation, and behaviors such as positive affect across five trials of online, unmoderated “Seek and Find” games. Parents completed the Multidimensional Assessment of Parenting Scale (MAPS) (Parent & Forehand, 2017) to assess dyadic interactions with their children before assisting them in the Seek and Find task. Results showed that children of Deaf adults remained high and steady in self-evaluation, motivation, and hopefulness throughout every puzzle trial compared to hearing children. These findings have implications for how children of Deaf adults cope when facing adversity. This “laid-back” nature can reduce anxiety, which is crucial for responding to stressful situations (Carroll, 2013). Further recruitment and investigation are needed to draw more conclusions about such markers of resilience. Carroll, L. (2013). Active Coping. In Gellman, M.D., Turner, J.R. (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1005-9_1085 Masten, A.S., & Barnes, A.J. (2018). Resilience in Children: Developmental Perspectives. Children, 5(7), 98. https://doi.org/10.3390/children5070098 Parent, J., & Forehand, R. (2017). The Multidimensional Assessment of Parenting Scale (MAPS): Development and Psychometric Properties. Journal of Child Family Studies, 26, 2136-2151. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0741-5 Preston, P. (1994). Mother father deaf: Living Between Sound and Silence [Doctoral dissertation, University of California-Berkeley]. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/58t007f5

This novel study on children investigates separate constructs of child development: adjunctive behavior, curiosity, and creativity. The hypotheses were that there would be 1) a positive correlation between overall levels of adjunctive behavior and curiosity; (2) a positive correlation between appropriate adjunctive behavior, creativity, and curiosity; and (3) a negative correlation between inappropriate adjunctive behavior, creativity, and curiosity. The study took place over two visits via Zoom, split into two testing sessions. Eighteen children, ages 3.5-6.5, with ranging demographics (race, bilingualism, and exposure to another language) participated in the study. The children played an online aquarium game in the first session (50-85 minutes). They explored five different fish tanks to search for sea creatures. In the second visit (65-100 minutes), children completed thinking and drawing tasks, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, and the Lifespan Self-Esteem Scale. Caregivers received a $10 online gift card for their child’s participation. The data showed no significant correlations but trends between adjunctive behavior, curiosity, and creativity. The study lacked a greater sample size, which may have caused lower correlations. For future studies, adjunctive behavior could be studied within the school setting and focus on how children can use their adjunctive behavior to maintain their creativity and curiosity.

The purpose of this paper is to examine cross-cultural differences between the United States and Turkey by coding multiple dimensions, such as parental intrusiveness, child persistence, and various others. The main research questions of this paper were as follows: (1) How does parental intrusiveness vary by country? (2) How does child persistence vary by country? and (3) Are parental intrusiveness and child persistence correlated, and if so, what is the direction of the correlation? The hypotheses were that (1) Turkish parents would score higher on parental intrusiveness, (2) American children would show higher levels of persistence, and (3) Parental intrusiveness and child persistence are correlated, with higher levels of parental intrusiveness resulting in lower levels of child persistence. While all of the hypotheses were supported with statistically significant results, it was found that in the U.S., higher parental intrusiveness does result in lower levels of child persistence, but in Turkey, parental intrusiveness was not a predictor of child persistence. The findings are therefore able to support cross-cultural differences in the correlation between parental intrusiveness and child persistence.