Imaginary companions (ICs) are a relatively common feature of childhood, yet the views of parents regarding their children's creation of and engagement with ICs are relatively unexplored. This study explored the attitudes of parents towards ICs and the factors that relate to variation in views. This study is comprised of two phases. Phase 1 examined the views of mothers and fathers of primary school aged children using a self-completion questionnaire. 228 mothers and 31 fathers participated. Of these 259 parents, 63 had a child with a current or previous IC and 196 had a child without an IC. Phase 2 further examined the views of 12 mothers who had all experienced the phenomenon with their children, using semi-structured interviews. Results indicated that in general, parents held mainly positive or neutral views of ICs. They perceived there to be both advantages and disadvantages for their child, they had some concerns, and would be most inclined to ignore the behaviour. Context was found to also relate to the views of parents, and they would be more inclined to join in with the pretence in private than in public. Experience of ICs was associated with the views of parents, and parents with experience of ICs consistently reported more positive views for all attitudes measured. Child age was also found to impact on the views of parents, who were all less accepting of their children's ICs with increasing child age. It was hypothesised that parents' views may therefore play a part in older children keeping their ICs a secret from others. Furthermore, religious affiliation was also found to result in some variation in parent views. Mothers interviewed all expressed positive views of their children's IC, identifying a number of developmental benefits afforded to the child and identifying their experience to have been positive, thus positively shaping their views of ICs. Their positive views were however found to be conditional upon a number of factors, including the age of the child, the IC being used appropriately, and there being no negative social impact. Whilst the mothers had few concerns for young children with ICs, their concern was found to grow with increasing child age and the prospect of the IC not disappearing after middle childhood. The implications of the study for educational psychology, education and childcare professionals are discussed.

The present study seeks to address issues which have so far been lacking in research: how children who have used The Place2Be (TP2B) individual services in their schools have experienced the service long term and whether they feel that TP2B experience has produced personal change for them. Although this area is under-researched, it is of consequence for therapeutic work with children and for understanding how socioemotional work can be done in schools. The sample consists of nine primary school children (three for the pilot research and six in the main study) from a range of ethnic groups from Year 3 or above who did not have child protection concerns raised about them at the time of the study. Some were reported to have developmental delay or difficultly in one or more of the following areas: learning, emotional regulation, attention control, language, and social communication skills. All were recruited through TP2B school project managers and with the co-operation of their parents. The present research draws on an Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) approach and used both visual and playful interview methods. Accounts from the six children in the main study are presented idiographically, yielding rich analyses of the participants perceptions of the experience and notions of personal change. Idiographic emphasis allows for idiosyncratic meaning-making of the experience to be fully explored. Further, key aspects of the idiographic analysis across cases are identified. These are: the therapeutic play process is highly valued and engendered strong senses of autonomy, control, relatedness, self-expression, learning, relationship building and the processing of emotional experiences. Furthermore, the participants valued the room itself and the play materials inside, and is conceptualised as a space absent of perceived social, gender or cultural assumptions. Three of the participants are able to locate complex processes of personal, positive change. These included increased confidence with peers and parents; increased quality in peer relationships; a decrease in significant anxiety levels; enhanced emotional well-being; and better access to learning. It is argued that the success of the intervention can be usefully framed by Deci’s (1975) theory of intrinsic motivation. That the experience fulfilled the participants’ needs for a sense of competence, autonomy and relatedness are strongly present in the findings of this study. This study supports theoretical principles of therapeutic play and the theoretical model of TP2B, as well as extending understanding about why this is so. TP2B is demonstrated here to be relevant and valuable cross-culturally. Professional implications for TP2B include the importance of secure onward referral mechanisms to ensure continued support for children who would benefit from therapeutic input beyond one year; and organisational conceptualisations of sustainable efficacy. Throughout the present study, play is argued to be fundamental in supporting emotional well-being in children. As such, implications for primary educational provision and policy include the need for greater time and emphasis on a range of children’s play choices in school. Further opportunities to experience autonomy, competence and relatedness are argued to support children’s mental health and well-being and has implication for teaching practice. Implications for EP practice include a greater intersubjective emphasis regarding practitioner reflexivity with relevance to the current EP supervisory process. The current study develops understanding about the use of child-centred, phenomenological methodology and could feasibly be incorporated into core EP practice of assessment and intervention.

The importance of research on the unique nature of the communication supporting environment in nurseries has been heightened by growing evidence of the significance of early language skills for later academic and social development. This study focussed on children’s language use during small group times. Opportunities to hear and practise language were examined, to uncover variation in conversational experiences for children with differing language needs. Participants were a nursery key worker and 19, three- to four-year olds in two cohorts. In this mixed-method study, different measures were used to examine the relationship between participation and language level. Quantitative analysis of interaction rates was made from video recordings of small group conversations. This was followed by detailed qualitative examination of talk during episodes of more sustained conversation. Children’s language levels were measured using the CELF Pre-school (2) UK and a narrative assessment. Questionnaires about children’s verbal participation were also completed by practitioners and parents. Differences were revealed in affordance of opportunity for children according to language level. Children’s interaction rates were positively correlated with scores on the CELF Pre-school (2) UK at the start and 18-months later. Topic of conversation, patterns of turn-taking and repair were associated differently with participation for children according to language level. Analysis showed patterns of both formal and informal talk. Combining features from each was found to be associated with episodes of sustained conversation. Questionnaire responses confirmed differences in children’s likelihood of participation in small group conversations. Findings support the role for small group times as a forum for development of speech, language and communication, facilitating opportunities for children differently according to their language needs. This has important implications for practice in supporting children to make the transition from informal to formal talk in the educational setting.

Middle years children (7-12 years) engaging with mobile phones has become a very normal part of their behaviour in recent years. It is an important issue for psychologists to explore in relation to learning about children’s development and behaviour currently. The internet is part of the mobile phone, so one cannot be explored without looking at the other. Much of the evidence that exists has explored children’s use of the internet, but there is less evidence available about children using mobile phones. Only recently has evidence started to emerge. Questions were devised for this research project asking children (7 – 12 years) about the meaning of mobile phones / internet devices, as well as investigating children’s use of these devices on the parenting role. A qualitative research approach was taken in order to investigate children's views and parents' views, so that in-depth knowledge could be gained. Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) theory on social development was incorporated as the underpinning theory for this research, to assist in understanding children’s social development in different social settings. Critical realism (Maxwell, 2012) was selected as the epistemological approach as it allowed participants' realities to be considered closely alongside established knowledge. As children's use of the mobile phone is a new behaviour for them, established knowledge and views from the field of young people’s use of mobile phones was included but separately; allowing children's realities to be considered and compared within a wider social context. A triangulated research design was thus adopted; comparing the views of these different groups of participants (children, parents and young people). Focus group interviews were undertaken with all participants, along with individual interviews for children. Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006, 2013) was applied to analyze all participants' views. Three main themes emerged: 1. Appropriate communications, where children's views about communicating appropriately on their devices were revealed; 2. Freedom, highlighting freedom as an emerging concept for children, where mobile phones particularly played an important role in creating opportunities for children to develop freedom both behaviourally and socially; 3. Time, the final theme shows how parents were thinking about children's use of these devices across time, as a way of understanding their social development. It was revealed that the mobile phone was used as a resource within the parenting role, helping parents to manage children’s behaviour. These themes together form a framework for exploring children’s use of mobile / internet devices. The research also explored some of the social processes underlying interactions between children and parents around children’s devices. It included the unique nature of this cohort of children as early users of mobile phones, as well as parents’ concerns about their children’s use of them. In conclusion this research project, by exploring children's realities alongside those of young people and parents, has helped to develop an understanding about children’s behaviour in a contemporary context through their use of mobile / internet devices, for one group of children. It has also demonstrated how freedom can emerge for children within different social settings (Bronfenbrenner’s settings, 1979). Further research will need to be undertaken with middle years children to see if similar findings are revealed.

A body of research now exists which outlines the importance for children’s life chances of a sensitive, responsive relationship with at least one caregiver, and emphasises the necessity of supporting the emotional wellbeing of new parents in order to foster this relationship. The “1001 Critical Days” manifesto (Leadsom, Field, Burstow, & Lucas, 2013) proposes that at-risk families, or those experiencing difficulties, should be able to access evidence-based services which promote parent-infant interaction. It specifically identifies parent-infant psychotherapy as an example of such an intervention, while acknowledging that further research is needed in order to investigate its impact. In the researcher’s Local Authority, Early Years Specialist Educational Psychologists have worked together with their colleagues in the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) to implement a range of early-intervention services. Among them is an adaptation of the “Watch, Wait and Wonder” parent-infant psychotherapy programme, which was modified to be run as a group intervention in a number of Children’s Centres. The aim of this thesis was to explore the experiences of parents who have taken part in this group. Five participants were interviewed using a semi-structured interview schedule. Transcribed interviews were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), and the analysis linked to relevant literature. Five superordinate themes were identified: ‘Making Sense of the Group’, ‘The Role of Others’, ‘Power and Knowledge’, ‘Ghosts in the Group’, and ‘Evolving Relationships’. Implications of the findings for stakeholders are discussed.

Over nine experiments I investigated young children’s ability to learn the names, actions and functions associated with artefacts. Experiment 1 examined whether children, performing a referent selection task, attach a novel action to a novel referent (i.e., applied mutual exclusivity). Children chose the novel artefact significantly more often than chance. Experiments 2 and 3 used tests of comprehension and extension to investigate whether children fast map novel artefact names and actions. I used a strict definition of fast mapping: incidental learning, minimal exposure, and long term retention. Accuracy was above chance, with no significant differences between action and naming. Experiments 4, 5 and 6 created and refined a methodology designed to study children's ability to fast map an artefact’s name, action and function. Following brief incidental exposure to an artefact’s use (i.e., making a music box play), 3- and 5-years-olds were equally likely to fast map a novel name, action and function. In a more challenging task, with just one demonstration of the novel artefact information, 3-year-olds found action easiest to remember in a test of comprehension. Experiment 7 investigated 4-year olds’ production of names and actions after a brief exposure. Actions were produced substantially better than names. Experiment 8 used referent selection tasks to further test 3-year-olds’ mutually exclusive behaviour. Once again, performance with name, action and function did not differ. This suggests children believe that artefacts are associated with a specific name, action and function, and that these are characteristic features of an artefact category. Experiment 9 investigated which of these features we regard as defining category membership: 3-year-olds tend to categorise by shape, whereas older children (and adults) prefer function. Overall, my data suggest that young children are excellent learners of artefact information, although the way humans categorise artefacts may change during later development.

Antisocial behaviour in childhood and adolescence is associated with a range of negative outcomes in later life, which are costly to both society and to the antisocial individual themselves. Because the effectiveness of current interventions appears to be limited, it has been argued that treatment efforts should focus more on designing interventions that target neuropsychological correlates of antisocial behaviour. Two important correlates are impaired facial emotion recognition and empathy; these deficits have been proposed to cause antisocial behaviour because they involve an inability to understand and appropriately respond to the distress of others.

For children to become competent intentional agents they must constantly navigate between understanding how the world is, and how the world could be: they navigate between the actual and the possible. From their earliest experiences of the world and their interactions with those who inhabit it infants can extract information from and make inferences about the causal structure of both the physical and social worlds in which they reside. Seeing how an event in the world can change that world provides children with an opportunity to consider what else could have, and could be done to produce a similar change in the future. Imitating others allows children to replicate goal successes through the replication of some or all of another agent’s behaviors. Imitation provides a short-cut to a possible world through standing on the shoulders of giants. In this thesis we investigate imitation and language through the lens of how well children aged four-years navigate these actual vs. possible worlds.

Background: Indiscriminate friendliness (IF) refers to a lack of reticence with unfamiliar adults and has been well documented in maltreated children. This risky behaviour is distinct from attachment insecurity and has been found to persist when care-giving quality improves. There is a lack of consistency in the literature regarding the importance of care-giving following adoption. Some studies suggest that care-giving quality is not related to IF, whilst others have suggested that the emotional availability of carers is predictive. This study aimed to establish if there is a relationship between EA and IF in a group of previously maltreated infants. Method: In a cross-sectional design, a subsample of infant-carer dyads (n = 55), that were recruited as part of an on-going RCT (Pritchett et al, 2013), were observed. Videos of meal and playtime activities were analysed using The EA Scales (Biringen, 1998). IF was measured, as part of the RCT, using a semi-structured interview. This tool also identifies children that in addition to IF, have no preferred attachment figure: IF (NA). Univariate correlation analyses and regression analyses were used to explore relationships between variables. Results: This study found that child emotional availability predicted indiscriminate friendliness, even when other associated factors (age and carer non-intrusiveness) were controlled for. A composite Carer EA score was not related to IF, but carer non-intrusiveness was significantly associated with IF. Conclusions: Child emotional availability is uniquely associated with indiscriminate friendliness in maltreated children. A specific care-giving factor (non-intrusiveness) was associated with indiscriminate friendliness. It is suggested that carer-child interactions are related to indiscriminate friendliness in maltreated children and may represent a useful target for intervention. Therefore, future research may wish to explore the amelioration of indiscriminate friendliness through an intervention focusing on the carer-child relationship.

Emotions have been found to be intertwined with many aspects of the learning process (Hinton & Fischer, 2010; Linnenbrink, 2007; Meyer & Turner, 2006; Pekrun, Frenzel, Goetz & Perry, 2007). For some children emotions appear to have a debilitating effect on their effort, persistence and problem-solving and can lead to task avoidance and self-defeating behaviours (Linnenbrink, 2007; Tyson, Linnenbrink-Garcia & Hill, 2009). The purpose of this mixed methods study was to examine the impact of a four-week whole-class intervention designed by the researcher to promote pupils’ emotion regulation in the classroom. The study uses a social cognitive framework (Bandura, 1986) and draws on theory and research in the inter-related fields of appraisal theories of emotion (Frijda,1986), the control-value theory of achievement emotions (Pekrun, 2006; Pekrun, Frenzel, Goetz & Perry, 2007), implicit theories of ability and achievement goal orientation (Dweck, 2000; Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Pintrich, 2000), the dual-process model of self-regulated learning (Boekaerts, 2011) and the process model of emotion regulation (Gross, 1998; 2002). The research took place in two London primary schools with 166 Year 5 pupils (mean age 10.4 years) and four class teachers. For the quantitative part of the study, a non-equivalent groups pre and post experimental design with a waiting list control group was used. The qualitative part of the study involved questionnaires completed by 113 intervention pupils and the four class teachers. Inferential statistical analysis revealed a statistically significant effect of time on intervention pupils’ incremental theory of ability, mastery goal orientation and use of the cognitive reappraisal strategy. The perceptions of pupils and teachers of the impact of the intervention were explored using thematic analysis. The findings from both phases were merged to answer the overarching research question. Implications for educational psychologists and educators are discussed and suggestions for future research are made.