Child Development News

April 30, 2025

Top Headlines

Listeners Use Gestures to Predict Upcoming Words

Apr. 22, 2025 — In face-to-face conversations, speakers use hand movements to signal meaning. But do listeners actually use these gestures to predict what someone might say next? In a study using virtual avatars, scientists show that listeners used the avatar's ...

By 15 Months, Infants Begin to Learn New Words for Objects, Even Those They've Never Seen

Apr. 23, 2025 — A new study by developmental scientists offers the first evidence that infants as young as 15 months can identify an object they have learned about from listening to language -- even if the object ...

Adolescents Who Sleep Longer Perform Better at Cognitive Tasks

Apr. 22, 2025 — Adolescents who sleep for longer -- and from an earlier bedtime -- than their peers tend to have improved brain function and perform better at cognitive tests, researchers have shown. But the study of adolescents in the US also showed that even ...

Novel Treatment Approach for Language Disorder Shows Promise

Apr. 21, 2025 — Neuroscientists have developed a new treatment approach for a language disorder that combines traditional speech therapy with noninvasive electrical stimulation of the brain. Brain stimulation helped induce neuroplasticity, the brain's capacity to ...

Latest Headlines

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Father's Mental Health Can Impact Children for Years

Apr. 19, 2025 — Five-year-olds exposed to paternal depression are more likely to have behavioral issues in grade school, researchers ...

Nurturing Now, Thriving Later: The Lasting Power of Affectionate Mothering

Apr. 16, 2025 — Affectionate mothering in childhood may have a lasting impact on important personality traits, potentially influencing life outcomes such as educational achievement, economic success, and health and ...

Primate Mothers Display Different Bereavement Response to Humans

Apr. 15, 2025 — Macaque mothers experience a short period of physical restlessness after the death of an infant, but do not show typical human signs of grief, such as lethargy and appetite loss, finds a new study by ...

First Insights Into How Excitatory and Inhibitory Brain Signals Change as People Age Using Wearable Scanner

Apr. 7, 2025 — A study has shown how aspects of brain function change with age, revealing that excitatory processes in the brain decrease, while inhibitory ...

Hidden Potential in Multiple Disabilities

Apr. 10, 2025 — Using eye-tracking -- a technique for recording and analyzing eye movements -- a team has shown that individuals with multiple disabilities can improve their social and emotional skills. Although ...

Gestational Diabetes Linked to ADHD in Children

Apr. 14, 2025 — A new study has found children born to mothers who experienced gestational diabetes (GDM) during pregnancy are more likely to develop attention-deficient hyperactive disorder (ADHD) and externalizing ...

Early Education Impacts Teenage Behavior

Apr. 8, 2025 — Researchers explored the long-term effects of preschool expansion in Japan in the 1960s, revealing significant reductions in risky behaviors amongst teenagers. By analyzing regional differences in ...

Exposure to Air Pollution May Harm Brain Health of Older Adults

Apr. 7, 2025 — Long-term exposure to high levels of air pollution may harm the brain health of older adults in England, finds a new ...

Childhood Experiences Shape the Brain's White Matter With Cognitive Effects Seen Years Later

Apr. 7, 2025 — Investigators have linked difficult early life experiences with reduced quality and quantity of the white matter communication highways throughout ...

Perceiving One's Own Body: Babies Sense Their Heartbeat and Breathing

Apr. 7, 2025 — Body signals such as heartbeat and breathing accompany us constantly, often unnoticed as background noise of our perception. Even in the earliest years of life, these signals are important as they ...

Does Teamwork Fulfill the Goal of Project-Based Learning?

Apr. 7, 2025 — A researcher investigated the impact of the group work environment on motivation in English as a second language classes. The study revealed that the group work environment plays an important role in ...

Fear of Rejection Influences How Children Conform to Peers

Apr. 4, 2025 — The fear of rejection -- familiar to many children and adults -- can significantly impact how kids behave in their peer groups, according to new ...

Successful Therapy Confirmed for Newborns With the Fatal Metabolic Disorder MoCD Type A

Apr. 3, 2025 — Early administration of the drug Fosdenopterin/rcPMP improves the chances of survival of infants with MoCD type A and promotes the development of brain ...

Common Phrases, Not Fancy Words, Make You Sound More Fluent in a Foreign Language

Apr. 3, 2025 — Fluency in a foreign language is often thought to be about speaking quickly and using advanced vocabulary. However, researchers reveal that speakers who use common, everyday expressions sound more ...

Using Everyday Products During Pregnancy Can Affect Newborn's Metabolism, Study Finds

Apr. 2, 2025 — A newly published study found that a mother's exposure to phthalates during pregnancy can affect their newborn's metabolism and brain development. These widely used plasticizers are ...

Exposure to Air Pollution in Childhood Is Associated With Reduced Brain Connectivity

Apr. 1, 2025 — A new study has found that children exposed to higher levels of air pollution in early and mid childhood have weaker connections between key brain regions. The findings highlight the potential impact ...

An Immune Cell May Explain How Maternal Inflammation Causes Neurodevelopmental Disorder

Apr. 1, 2025 — A research group has uncovered a potential mechanism linking maternal inflammation to delayed neurodevelopment in infants. The research suggests the role of CD11c-positive microglia -- immune cells ...

My Robot Therapist: The Ethics of AI Mental Health Chatbots for Kids

Mar. 31, 2025 — AI mental health apps may offer a cheap and accessible way to fill the gaps in the overstretched U.S. mental health care system, but ethics experts warn that we need to be thoughtful about how we use ...

Repetitive Behaviors and Special Interests Are More Indicative of an Autism Diagnosis Than a Lack of Social Skills

Mar. 26, 2025 — People with autism are typically diagnosed by clinical observation and assessment. To deconstruct the clinical decision process, which is often subjective and difficult to describe, researchers used ...

What Does 'That' Mean in 'Did You See That?'

Mar. 25, 2025 — What goes through your mind when someone asks 'Did you see that?' A study shows that children and adults process ambiguous information like 'that' differently. While children ...

How Family Background Can Help Lead to Athletic Success

Mar. 20, 2025 — Americans have long believed that sports are one area in society that offers kids from all backgrounds the chance to succeed to the best of their abilities. But new research suggests that this belief ...

Insomniac Fruit Fly Mutants Show Enhanced Memory Despite Severe Sleep Loss

Mar. 20, 2025 — Fruit fly mutants that have severe sleep deficits perform better at olfactory learning and memory tasks, according to a new study. The paradox of enhanced memory despite sleep loss could be explained ...

Why Don't We Remember Being a Baby? New Study Provides Clues

Mar. 20, 2025 — Though we learn so much during our first years of life, we can't, as adults, remember specific events from that time. Researchers have long believed we don't hold onto these experiences ...

Parts of the Brain That Are Needed to Remember Words Identified

Mar. 19, 2025 — The parts of the brain that are needed to remember words, and how these are affected by a common form of epilepsy, have been identified by a team of neurologists and neurosurgeons at ...

Why Are Night Owls at Greater Risk of Depression?

Mar. 19, 2025 — Mindfulness, total sleep quality, and alcohol consumption may help explain why people who stay up late have a greater risk of depression, according to a new ...

To the Brain, Esperanto and Klingon Appear the Same as English or Mandarin

Mar. 18, 2025 — New research finds the brain's language-processing network also responds to artificial languages such as Esperanto and languages made for TV, such as Klingon on 'Star Trek' and High ...

When Did Human Language Emerge?

Mar. 18, 2025 — Humans' unique language capacity was present at least 135,000 years ago, according to a survey of genomic evidence. As such, language might have entered social use 100,000 years ...

Bridging Nature and Nurture: Study Reveals Brain's Flexible Foundation from Birth

Mar. 17, 2025 — By studying never-before-seen details of brain connectivity in human infants, researchers have identified how a balance of innate structure and flexible learning produces our remarkably organized ...

New AI Model Analyzes Full Night of Sleep With High Accuracy in Largest Study of Its Kind

Mar. 17, 2025 — Researchers have developed a powerful AI tool, built on the same transformer architecture used by large language models like ChatGPT, to process an entire night's sleep. To date, it is one of ...

Oxytocin System of Breastfeeding Affected in Mothers With Postnatal Depression

Mar. 14, 2025 — The oxytocin system -- which helps release breast milk and strengthens the bond between mother and baby -- may be affected during breastfeeding in mothers experiencing postnatal ...