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Early Childhood Development

Every child deserves the best possible start in life. Evidence demonstrates the period from pre-birth to three years is a vital period of development. It lays the foundations for a child’s future and has life-long impacts on health, education, job opportunities, social inclusion and wellbeing.

#Parentingtips: A Descriptive Study of Information for Parents on TikTok

Parents and caregivers often turn to the internet for information about their child's health and development. Research investigating content related to parenting on the world's most popular social media platform, TikTok, has not been conducted.

Longitudinal associations between maternal and child screen use at 1 year of age and child behavior and development at 3 years of age

Young children are increasingly exposed to evolving screen technology. International guidelines recommend no screen use for children under the age of 2 years, due to the potential for detrimental effects on behaviour and development. However, evidence for these guidelines is limited by inadequate consideration of device-specific effects (TV and mobile phone/tablet computer), maternal screen use, confounders such as maternal mental health and importance of effect sizes.

Infant Diet Is Associated With BMI Later in Childhood: A Nation-Wide Mother-Child Cohort Study in Iceland (ICE-MCH)

Few studies have explored associations between indexes incorporating both breastfeeding and complementary feeding and future risk of overweight/obesity. The aim of this study was to explore associations between a previously developed Infant Diet Score (IDS; higher score reflecting better alignment with breastfeeding and complementary feeding guidelines in the first year of life), and the risk of overweight and/or obesity in childhood.

General Movement Optimality Score-Revised (GMOS-R) with General Population-Based Percentile Ranks

To describe writhing General Movements Assessment (GMA) classification and General Movement Optimality Score-Revised (GMOS-R) profiles in the general population; to explore relationships between GMOS-R scores and GMA classification, age of assessment and infant socio-demographic factors; and to establish the inter-rater reproducibility of writhing age GMA classification and GMOS-R.

A primary cell model of the very preterm epithelium reveals barrier defects at 1 year of age

Limited evidence suggests that airway epithelial structure and function is disrupted in very preterm infants; however, the epithelial morphology and physiology has not been well characterised following discharge from neonatal intensive care. This study aimed to characterise the nasal airway epithelium from 1-year-old survivors of very preterm birth.

Health literacy scale for English-speaking children: translation and validation of the HLS-Child-Q15-EN

To translate and validate the HLS-Child-Q15, a relatively short questionnaire for assessing health literacy in children originally validated in German, into English to make it accessible to a large population of English-speaking children.

The Flourishing Child: Understanding how Adults and Children Perceive Flourishing from the Start of Life

The current narrative surrounding children’s health and wellbeing often focuses on adversity and dysregulation with a lack of positive messaging. However, promoting protective and buffering factors may be as important as reducing adverse exposures. While the concept of flourishing is commonly applied in the context of adults, defining what flourishing means for children in current academic literature remains unclear.

“That's not fair on my kid”: Carers' perspectives on sport participation and experiences for children in out-of-home care

Children in out-of-home care participate in less organised sport than children from other household structures, potentially reducing opportunities for improvements in social, developmental, and health outcomes. Despite this, little is known about barriers and facilitators of sport participation for children in care. We aimed to explore carers' perspectives on the influences on children in care's participation and experiences in organised sport.

Fine-grained Fidgety Movement Classification using Active Learning

Typically developing infants, between the corrected age of 9-20 weeks, produce fidgety movements. These movements can be identified with the General Movement Assessment, but their identification requires trained professionals to conduct the assessment from video recordings.