For children it is important to consume enough vegetables to establish healthy dietary patterns. Taste acceptance is an important factor contributing to food choice and consumption. Sweetness and sourness enhancement can increase acceptance of specific foods in children. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of sweetness and sourness enhancement on acceptance of cucumber and green capsicum purees in 5-6-year-old children. Three concentrations of sucrose (2, 5 and 10%) and citric acid (0.05, 0.08 and 0.15%) were added to cucumber and green capsicum purees. Children (n = 70, 5.7 ± 0.5 yrs) assessed acceptance of the vegetable purees using a 5-point hedonic facial scale. Sweetness enhancement significantly increased acceptance of cucumber purees (5 and 10% sucrose) and green capsicum purees (2 and 10% sucrose) compared to unmodified purees. Sourness enhancement (0.05, 0.08 and 0.15% citric acid) did not significantly influence acceptance of cucumber and green capsicum purees compared to unmodified purees. Children differed in acceptance of vegetable purees with added sucrose and citric acid. Sweetness likers (cucumber 77.1%, green capsicum 58.6%) accepted sucrose concentrations better than sweetness non-likers in both vegetables. Sourness likers (cucumber 50.0%, green capsicum 44.3%) accepted medium and high concentrations of citric acid better than sourness non-likers in cucumber and all citric acid concentrations in green capsicum. We conclude that enhancement of sweetness increases acceptance of cucumber and green capsicum purees in most children whereas enhancement of sourness is better accepted by only a few children. This study highlights the challenge to get children to better accept vegetables, since only sweetness enhancement improved acceptance while addition of sucrose is undesirable. For a small subset of children enhancing sourness might be an alternative strategy to increase acceptance of vegetables
Atypical language is one of the most common developmental problems in early childhood. The estimated prevalence of children with atypical language development varies from 2% to 19%. Early identification of children with atypical language development is important in order to prevent the significant impact on social emotional development, aca- demic school success, and quality of life in the preschool years. The article by Guarini et al.(2016) is of great interest as it can contribute to the identification of children born pre- term at risk for language impairments. It also contributes to the discussion about the concept of atypical language and the relation between language development, and cog- nitive and memory skills. This commentary aims to describe three controversial issues concerning the identifi- cation of atypical language development in young children.
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Objectives: The development of children’s motor competence (MC) from early to middle childhood can follow different courses. The purpose of this longitudinal study was to describe and quantify the prevalence of patterns of MC development from early to middle childhood and to identify undesirable patterns. Design: The study used a longitudinal design. Data were collected in three consecutive years, between February 2020 (T0) and May 2022 (T2). Methods: A total of 1128 typically developing Dutch children (50.2% male) between 4 and 6 years old at baseline (M = 5.35 ± 0.69 years) participated in this study. MC was measured with the Athletic Skills Track and converted into Motor Quotient (MQ) scores. To convert all individual MQ scores into meaningful patterns of MC development, changes in MQ categories were analyzed between the different timepoints. Results: A total of 11 different developmental patterns were found. When grouping the different patterns, five undesirable patterns were found with 18.2% of the children, showing an undesirable pattern of MC development between T0 and T2. The patterns of motor development of the other children showed a normal or fluctuating course. Conclusions: There is a lot of variation in MC in early and middle childhood. A substantial percentage of young children showed undesirable MC developmental patterns emphasizing the need for early and targeted interventions.
