Infant and Preschool Learning News

June 19, 2025

Top Headlines

Sugar Shield Restored: The Breakthrough Reversing Brain Aging and Memory Loss

June 13, 2025 — A protective sugar coating on brain blood vessels, once thought to be insignificant, turns out to play a vital role in preventing cognitive decline. Restoring this layer reversed damage and memory ...

Guardrails, Education Urged to Protect Adolescent AI Users

June 3, 2025 — The effects of artificial intelligence on adolescents are nuanced and complex, according to a new report that calls on developers to prioritize features that protect young people from exploitation, manipulation and the erosion of real-world ...

Singing to Babies Improves Their Mood

May 30, 2025 — Singing to your infant can significantly boost the baby's mood, according to a recent study. Around the world and across cultures, singing to babies seems to come instinctively to caregivers. Now, new findings support that singing is an easy, safe, ...

Significant Declines in Maternal Mental Health Across US

May 30, 2025 — A new study reveals a concerning decline in self-reported mental health among mothers in the United States between 2016 and 2023. The study also found modest but measurable declines in self-reported physical health during the same ...

Mother's Warmth in Childhood Influences Teen Health by Shaping Perceptions of Social Safety

May 28, 2025 — Parental warmth and affection in early childhood can have life-long physical and mental health benefits for children, and new research points to an important underlying process: children's sense of ...

Unconditional Cash Transfers Following Childbirth Increases Breastfeeding

May 27, 2025 — The U.S. is facing a maternal health crisis with higher rates of maternal mortality than any other high-income country. Social and economic factors, including income, are recognized determinants of maternal morbidity and mortality. In addition, more ...

Overimitation Begins in Infancy but Is Not Yet Linked to in-Group Preference

May 26, 2025 — A new study examines the emergence of overimitation in infants aged between 16 and 21 months to see if and how it is linked to social affiliation and other forms of imitation. The researchers found ...

Brain Scans Reveal What Happens in the Mind When Insight Strikes

May 15, 2025 — That 'aha' moment when you come back to a puzzle and immediately figure it out? Something fascinating is going on in your brain. A new study using functional magnetic resonance imaging shows that these flashes of insight aren't just satisfying -- ...

The Key to Spotting Dyslexia Early Could Be AI-Powered Handwriting Analysis

May 14, 2025 — A new study outlines how artificial intelligence-powered handwriting analysis may serve as an early detection tool for dyslexia and dysgraphia among young ...

Postpartum Depression and Bonding: Long-Term Effects on School-Age Children

May 14, 2025 — Postpartum maternal mental health and mother-to-infant bonding are well-established as critical factors in a child's psychosocial development. However, few studies have explored the combined impact of postpartum maternal depression and early bonding ...

New Survey Shows Privacy and Safety Tops List of Parental Concerns About Screen Time

May 13, 2025 — As kids spend more time on screens, a new national survey conducted by Ipsos on behalf of The Kids Mental Health Foundation, founded by Nationwide Children's Hospital, identifies parents' greatest ...

Lower Tackle Height Changing Face of Women's Rugby, Study Says

May 12, 2025 — Lowering the legal tackle height in women's rugby is proving effective in reducing head contacts between players, a new study suggests. Changes to the tackle height law in women's community rugby in Scotland is linked to reductions in head-to-head ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:32am EDT

Evidence of Mother-Offspring Attachment Types in Wild Chimpanzees

May 12, 2025 — A team of researchers has identified distinct mother-offspring attachment types in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus). Drawing parallels with human psychology, the study provides compelling ...

Non-Inherited Genes Affect Children's Development

May 8, 2025 — Parents' genes -- even when not directly inherited by a child -- may play a role in their educational and mental health outcomes, finds a new ...

Losing a Parent May Increase Children's Risk of Being Bullied

May 7, 2025 — A new study surveyed 21,000 children in China and found that the association between parental bereavement and school bullying varied by sex of the child and deceased parent, age when the death ...

Neuroscientists Pinpoint Where (and How) Brain Circuits Are Reshaped as We Learn New Movements

May 7, 2025 — Brain researchers have identified a bridge between the thalamus and the cortex as the key area that is modified during motor learning functions. They ...

Parent Coaching Sparks Major Communication Growth in Infants With Social and Communication Delays

May 6, 2025 — A study found that targeted coaching for caregivers of infants as young as 8 months significantly enhances babies' communication and cognitive ...

Children as Young as Five Can Navigate a 'Tiny Town'

May 5, 2025 — Neuroscientists are developing methods to map the brain systems that allow us to recognize and get around our ...

Spanking and Other Physical Discipline Lead to Exclusively Negative Outcomes for Children in Low And Middle-Income Countries

May 5, 2025 — Physically punishing children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) has exclusively negative outcomes -- including poor health, lower academic ...

STEM Students: Work Hard, but Don't Compare Yourself to Others

May 4, 2025 — A new study shows how damaging it can be for college students in introductory STEM classes to compare how hard they work to the extent of effort put in by their ...

Study Links Childhood Trauma to Increased Substance Use and Unexpected Effects on Heart Rate and Blood Pressure in Adolescents

May 4, 2025 — Childhood trauma significantly increases the likelihood of engaging in harmful alcohol consumption, smoking and illicit drug use, by the age of ...

'Explainable' AI Cracks Secret Language of Sticky Proteins

May 1, 2025 — An AI tool has made a step forward in translating the language proteins use to dictate whether they form sticky clumps similar to those linked to Alzheimer's Disease and around fifty other types of ...

Vision Loss Fear May Keep Some from Having Cataract Surgery

Apr. 23, 2025 — A new study finds vision loss fears may deter some patients from cataract surgery, despite it being the only effective treatment. The research underscores the role of doctor-patient relationships in ...

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 ...

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 ...

Screen Time Surprise Under Grandparents' Care

Apr. 18, 2025 — New research has found that nearly half of the time American children spend with their grandparents involves interacting with or watching media on a screen. How that screen time is managed can ...

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 ...

A Visual Pathway in the Brain May Do More Than Recognize Objects

Apr. 15, 2025 — A new study questions the longstanding view that the visual system is divided into two pathways, one for object-recognition and the other for spatial tasks. Using computational vision models, ...

Father With Alzheimer's? You May Be More at Risk of Brain Changes

Apr. 9, 2025 — While some studies have suggested that having a mother with Alzheimer's disease may put you more at risk of developing the disease, a new study finds that having a father with the disease may be ...

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 ...

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 ...

Nurture More Important Than Nature for Robotic Hand

Apr. 3, 2025 — How does a robotic arm or a prosthetic hand learn a complex task like grasping and rotating a ball? Researchers address the classic 'nature versus nurture' question. The research ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Want to Climb the Leadership Ladder? Try Debate Training

Mar. 12, 2025 — Research finds people who learn the basics of debate are more likely to advance to leadership roles in U.S. organizations. A key reason seems to be that debate training makes employees more ...

How the Brain Uses 'Building Blocks' to Navigate Social Interactions

Mar. 12, 2025 — Our brains use basic 'building blocks' of information to keep track of how people interact, enabling us to navigate complex social interactions, finds a new ...

More Than Marks: How Wellbeing Shapes Academic Success

Mar. 11, 2025 — A world first* study of more than 215,000 students, researchers found that while standardized tests measure academic skills, different dimensions of wellbeing -- emotional wellbeing, engagement, and ...