bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Early Memory Development
Authors: Cuevas Kimberly , Rajan Vinaya
Published: January 2020

This entry examines the emergence and development of memory during infancy and early childhood. It provides an overview of the structure and core processes of long‐term memory as well as commonly used nonverbal (conditioning, preferential looking, imitation, hide‐and‐seek) and verbal (event memory, source memory, autobiographical memory) paradigms to assess memory in developmental populations. Some consistent principles of early memory development have emerged from these various measures. The entry highlights contributions of basic capacities (encoding, storage, retrieval, binding) and advanced cognitive processes (working memory, metamemory, memory strategies) to ontogenetic changes in memory. Potential mechanisms and sources of variation in memory development are also considered, including neural maturation, varied experience, sleep, self‐concept, socialization, and language. The future of the field is discussed with a focus on the integration of multiple areas of specialization; this approach provides a more holistic understanding of the contributing factors and underlying mechanisms of memory development.
Executive Functioning in Children
Authors: Messer David J. , Moran Abigail , Henry Lucy A.
Published: January 2020

In recent years, executive functioning has received considerable attention from researchers, and this entry provides reasons for this interest. The entry gives an outline of what is meant by the term
executive functioning
, discusses its importance, and describes its assessment and development until adolescence. Then there is a discussion of the way in which, with increasing age, different components of executive functioning are easier to identify. Following this, the relationships between executive functioning and important life outcomes or experiences are considered; these are findings that point to the developmental significance of this process. The entry ends with a consideration of executive functioning in children with impaired language.
Autobiographical Memory in Childhood
Authors: Bauer Patricia J. , Hoffmann Ana Maria
Published: January 2020

An autobiography is a story of a person's life, written or told by that person. Consistent with this, autobiographical memories are memories of the specific events that an individual has experienced over the course of her or his life. They are shared with others through written or oral autobiographical narratives. This specific definition differentiates autobiographical memory from other types of memory, including semantic memory, which is composed of one's storehouse of world knowledge (e.g., Washington, DC, is the capital of the United States), and what are frequently called
muscle memories
, or procedural memories (also known as nondeclarative memories), of how to ride a bicycle or type on a keyboard, for example. Not all memories of specific past events are considered autobiographical, however. Remembering the specific event of a list of words or passages of text and then later recalling them entails memory for a specific past event—termed
episodic memory
—but it lacks the personal relevance or significance implied by the
auto
, or self, component of
auto
biographical memory. To be considered autobiographical, an episodic memory must not only be of a specific past event or experience about which one has emotions, thoughts, reactions, and reflections, but also be about one's self.
Reading
Authors: Harris Margaret
Published: January 2020

The ease with which children can learn to read written language is affected by various properties of the script. Alphabetic scripts with a regular sound–letter mapping, like Spanish, are easier than alphabetic scripts where the letter–sound mapping is irregular. Scripts that represent a language with a simple syllable structure are also easier than ones with a more complex syllable structure. English can be seen as an outlier in having both a complex syllable structure and irregular letter–sound relationships, and it takes longer to learn to read than other alphabetic scripts. Good phonological skills are important for learning to read an alphabetic script. For nonalphabetic scripts, such as Chinese and Japanese, other skills are also important. These include understanding the morphological structure of words and having good copying skills.
Writing
Authors: Sumner Emma , Connelly Vincent
Published: January 2020

Writing is a complex activity requiring the coordination of cognitive, linguistic, and motor processes. Developmental models of writing highlight transcription skills (spelling and handwriting), text generation skills, working memory, and executive functions as important components when producing written text. Research has shown that difficulties in transcription, oral language, or executive skills can impact on the availability of working‐memory resources and has repercussions for the engagement of the other writing components. Writing difficulties are not uncommon in children and adolescents, and research has demonstrated that such difficulties may stem from problems with transcription and/or language. An awareness of the writing process and of how the supporting skills develop has direct educational applications through a better understanding of how to improve instruction.
Reading Disorders
Authors: Stuart Nichola
Published: January 2020

There are two major types of reading disorder: developmental dyslexia and reading comprehension impairment. The primary difficulty in dyslexia is with the accurate and fluent reading of single words, while in reading comprehension impairment words can be read accurately but there is no or little understanding of what is read. Using the causal modeling framework, this entry reviews the underlying causes of the two disorders together with the co‐occurrence of reading and language disorders. It also reviews the rationale for viewing reading as a dimensional disorder, where the difficulties experienced are deemed to be on a continuum rather than cut‐off points being used to identify disorders.
Speech Development
Authors: Gonzalez‐Gomez Nayeli
Published: January 2020

Infants start vocalizing from early on, at first without meaning, but they quickly begin to produce sounds to communicate. The first sounds are composed mainly of vowels, followed by consonant–vowel sequences (i.e., canonical babbling), followed in turn by repeated syllable sequences (i.e., reduplicated babbling). Later on, infants will produce sequences with two different consonants such as
pata
(i.e., variegated babbling). In parallel, infants have to discover what is and what is not a word‐like unit, a process called
word segmentation
. This is a particularly challenging process given that spoken language is, for the most part, a continuous speech stream. Furthermore, infants also have to associate those word‐like units with meaning representations, a process known as
word learning
. There is evidence showing that infants are able to understand some words as early as 5 months of age, although they usually produce their first word around their first birthday.
Pragmatics
Authors: Schulze Cornelia
Published: January 2020

Pragmatics is the study of language usage for the purpose of communicating meaning in context. Pragmatics also investigates the social–cognitive processes that drive communication. The main question is how humans produce, comprehend, and adapt their communicative behavior in relation to their knowledge of the speaker, the hearer, the situational and cultural common ground, and its discourse context. Developmental pragmatics in infancy sheds light on the infrastructure of communication since preverbal communication, in which the participants mentally attune and share intentions, can be seen as pure pragmatics—the comprehension and production of communicative, referential, and social intentions before language comes into play. Developmental pragmatics in preschoolers and older children focuses on the acquisition of nonliteral, verbal communication and the cognitive and contextual factors that influence children's performance. Psychophysiological measures may inform developmental pragmatics and a perspective from phylogeny may help in building a historically and ontogenetically consistent theoretical account.
Reasoning in Communication
Authors: Mammen Maria , Domberg Andreas , Köymen Bahar
Published: January 2020

Children use language to achieve social goals, particularly to express reasons for their beliefs and to understand others' reasons for their beliefs. Although reasoning is traditionally viewed as an individual skill, recent accounts have focused on the social dimension of the process and the exchange of reasons/justifications in communication to reach joint decisions and solve problems. The literature on argumentation often focuses on school‐aged children's reasoning abilities. Recent research, however, shows that much younger children (e.g., children around age 3), begin to communicate reasons effectively to achieve their social goals in interaction. The entry highlights that the context of cooperative problem solving with same‐age peers is a unique context that facilitates young children's reasoning.
Sign Language Acquisition
Authors: Rowley Katherine
Published: January 2020

Language is a conventionalized human communication system where both speakers and signers create symbolic mappings between form (words or signs) and meaning (concepts). Through socialization children are exposed to spoken or sign languages and develop language by learning mappings between form and meaning. Despite difference in the way in which words and signs are articulated, many studies have demonstrated that native signers acquire sign language following a very similar developmental pattern to hearing children acquiring spoken languages. However, as sign language is produced in the visuo‐gestural modality, there are some differences in how spoken and sign languages are acquired. Sign also makes use of three‐dimensional space and young signers take several years to learn how different viewpoints are represented in space. However, although the visual nature of sign language enables a greater degree of iconicity between form and meaning, this does not appear to make the acquisition of sign language more rapid than the acquisition of spoken language. As with spoken language acquisition, children can be delayed in learning to sign as a result of developmental language delay.
Early Understanding of Number
Authors: Cheung Pierina , Ansari Daniel
Published: January 2020

We see, hear, and use numbers to communicate with other people on a daily basis. What are the origins of the human capacity for representing number? How does this capacity for number representation develop? To shed light on these questions, this entry reviews three types of evidence, from infancy till age 5: infants' abilities to process nonsymbolic quantities; children's protracted learning of the first few number word meanings; and how children may acquire a representation of number through learning the cultural practice of counting. Together, these studies reveal that children have a rich quantitative understanding even prior to formal schooling.
School Mathematics
Authors: Nunes Terezinha
Published: January 2020

School mathematics is a dynamic entity that changes over time and differs across cultures. This entry considers the definition of mathematical literacy and why it is not sufficient for characterizing school mathematics. School mathematics involves the teaching of tools for thinking, such as number systems, which empower their users beyond their natural capacities; for this reason, it should be offered to everyone. What topics are included in school mathematics and how they are taught is often controversial because school mathematics is shaped by different institutions and sources of knowledge: It involves the transformation of scholarly knowledge into something that can be taught and that is valued by society.
Math Disorder: Definition, Causes, and Interventions
Authors: Van Herwegen Jo
Published: January 2020

Children with math disorder (MD) show a number of delays in acquiring mathematical foundations and difficulties with more advanced mathematical facts and procedures that cannot be explained by low intelligence or developmental disorders. Due to the fact that MD is heterogeneous and has a high comorbidity rate with other developmental disorders (such as dyscalculia and attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder), the cause of MD is still unclear. However, recently there have been a number of interventions that have benefited children with MD and these studies can provide further insight into the causes of MD.
Prenatal Cognition
Authors: Dunn Kirsty , Reid Vincent
Published: January 2020

The human fetus in the third trimester has the capacity to process sensory information in a manner that is broadly analogous to a newborn infant. This entry explores the types of sensory and neural processes that have been mapped in the human fetus together with the methods employed in these studies. For reasons that are self‐evident, some sensory systems are easier to index than others. Recent research has shown that it is possible to explore visual perception in the fetus. The entry reviews recent developments in this literature and examines the strengths of different methodological techniques including the combination of ultrasound with experimental protocols. These recent breakthroughs open up the capacity to explore cognitive development in the fetus in ways that have not previously been thought possible.
Category Formation by Infants
Authors: Quinn Paul C.
Published: January 2020

This entry reviews what is known about the formation of categories by infants during the first year of life. Although the process of forming categories extends across multiple domains, work conducted within the domain of vision is emphasized. While the entry begins with a discussion of older work that investigated how infants group common objects, their attributes, and their relations into categories, it also highlights more recent work examining how infants organize faces into social groupings such as male versus female and same versus other race. The entry covers evidence obtained with behavioral, computational, neuroimaging, and eye‐tracking methods, and discusses how developmentally early perceptual categories may transition into more mature conceptual–social categories.
Categorization in the Preschool Period
Authors: Fisher Anna V. , Unger Layla
Published: January 2020

Categorization is a fundamental cognitive process whereby one can perceive and represent readily discriminable entities (e.g., a husky and a German shepherd) as similar or the same in some fundamental ways (i.e., both are dogs). Because of the foundational role and numerous advantages of categorization in cognition, the development of the ability to learn, represent, and use categories has been studied since the inception of the field of cognitive development. This entry provides a brief overview of the historical and contemporary theoretical approaches to categorization during the preschool period, of methods used to study categorization in young children, and of major findings in this area of research.
Moral Reasoning
Authors: Helwig Charles C. , Chang Xiao Min
Published: January 2020

Moral reasoning entails thinking about moral and ethical issues, and is characterized by judgments of
ought
. Initial work on children's moral reasoning was conducted within global stage theories such as those of Piaget and Kohlberg, in which young children's moral reasoning was characterized as egocentric and dominated by concerns with authority, obedience, and punishment. Recent perspectives on moral development have shown that even young children distinguish morality from authority or simple obedience to social norms. Children develop nuanced understandings of justice and concern for others that they apply to situations of cooperation and distributive and retributive justice, and in more complex situations entailing issues such as prejudice, discrimination, civil liberties, and democracy.
Drawing
Authors: Lange‐Küttner Christiane
Published: January 2020

Research on children's drawings in general follows methods and concepts in developmental research. This entry describes early concepts of intellectual and visual realism in drawing. It explains children's drawing of objects and space systems; the impact of intelligence, perception, and neuropsychological status; and the onset of writing. It discusses structure, expression, and regression of drawing. It presents recent approaches that incorporate sensorimotor and executive skills with regards to drawing.
Intelligence
Authors: Stern Elsbeth , Edelsbrunner Peter A.
Published: January 2020

Individual differences in intelligence already show in early childhood, and they stabilize in early adulthood. Although it is uncontested among scientists that variance in intelligence can be traced back to genetic differences, favorable environmental conditions are required in order to exploit an individual's genetic potential. State‐of‐the‐art models of intelligence consider working‐memory functions, which include the obtaining, inhibition, and updating of information as the underlying cognitive construct. Based on these functions, and integrated into a cognitively stimulating environment, children and adolescents can acquire reasoning abilities that facilitate future learning, including the understanding of abstract concepts. Another source of cognitive development is core knowledge, which provides an initial, yet powerful, pool of cognitive functions in infants. Whether intelligence is a unitary ability or consists of multiple abilities is an open question, but recent studies favoring the latter have provided new insights into the origins and development of human intelligence.
Giftedness in Childhood
Authors: Pace Julie
Published: January 2020

Children are considered gifted when their abilities in one or more areas are significantly above what is typical for their age. Accurately identifying gifted learners, teaching them at an appropriate level and a suitable pace, and supporting their social–emotional needs helps these students reach their intellectual and academic potential.
Neurophysiological Theory and Foundations of Emotions
Authors: Shechner Tomer
Published: January 2020

From infancy and throughout the lifespan, emotions are foundational to the human experience. This entry focuses on the biological foundations underpinning emotion development during infancy and early childhood and unfolds in three sections. The first section, and the main focus of this entry, reviews current theoretical approaches and summarizes the empirical evidence on how emotions are created in the central nervous system, with a special focus on brain areas associated with emotion. The second section examines the neuroendocrine system, emphasizing the role of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis. The last section reviews two peripheral biomarkers of emotion, indexed by electrodermal activity and electromyography, looking at their biological foundations and noting their associations with typical and atypical development.
Psychoneuroendocrinology of Stress and Emotion
Authors: Lakhan‐Pal Shreya , Gunnar Megan
Published: January 2020

The psychoneuroendocrinology of stress and emotion examines systems of stress‐related hormones as they interact with the brain. This entry describes the biology of human stress‐mediating systems and the neural architecture of stress and emotion. In particular, it reviews how these systems develop across childhood, and how early life stress changes physical and behavioral functioning. This entry provides an overview of recent findings and theoretical foundations in stress physiology and the effects of chronic early life stress.
Measurement of Emotion
Authors: Turpyn Caitlin C. , Poon Jennifer A. , Niehaus Claire , Chaplin Tara M.
Published: January 2020

Emotions are central to human development. Burgeoning research on emotion functioning in childhood underscores the importance of emotion‐related competencies for child health and development. However, despite the range of empirical and clinical advances in the field of child emotional development, issues relevant to measurement remain, including challenges in defining emotion, integrating social and cultural contexts, and incorporating the multiple methodologies needed to capture these complex phenomena. With developmental considerations in mind, this entry provides a summary of theoretical and conceptual considerations for measuring childhood emotional arousal—via self‐report, informant report, and observational methods—as well as practical recommendations for future research.
Assessment of Emotion Regulation and Dysregulation
Authors: Webb Haley J. , Hawes Tanya , Campbell Shawna Mastro , Clear Sarah J.
Published: January 2020

Emotion and the modulation of emotion are inherently human processes with which all readers of this entry will have intimate experience. Yet, defining and measuring emotion regulation, particularly in children, is a vastly more complicated task than it may at first seem. This entry introduces some of the key theoretical perspectives that underpin the understanding of emotion regulation, and presents important conceptual and developmental considerations that, together, result in a great diversity of ways in which emotion regulation is defined, conceptualized, and measured. It provides a summary of the four methods of assessing emotion regulation in children, including a discussion of the strengths and limitations of each, and a review of some of the more widely used measures.
Infant Crying and Colic
Authors: Zeskind Philip Sanford
Published: January 2020

The cry of the newborn and young infant is at once a biological signal and a social behavior that is critical to infant survival, health, and development. As a biological signal, variations in the sounds and amounts of crying, including excessive crying or colic, have their foundations in autonomic and central nervous system mechanisms that regulate infant arousal and maintain homeostasis. Specific variants of these sounds and amounts of infant crying reflect insults to the integrity of nervous system function, thus providing the basis for spectral analysis of crying to be used in the early assessment of risk for poor developmental outcomes, including sudden infant death syndrome and autism. As a social behavior, crying is part of a synchrony of arousal within which increases in infant arousal produce cry sounds that elicit synchronous increases in caregiver arousal. Depending on their affective state, caregivers' heightened arousal provides the basis for either nurturant care or, in extreme cases, physical abuse and neglect.
Emotion in Toddlers and Young Children
Authors: Bradshaw Jessica , Hendrix Cassandra L. , Dickson Kelsey S. , Evans Lindsey M.
Published: January 2020

Emotional development in toddlers and young children is characterized most prominently by the emergence of self‐conscious, or secondary, emotions. This entry provides an overview of self‐conscious emotions and discusses several themes related to emotions in the toddler and early childhood period. Cognitive achievements that are implicated in emotional development, such as self‐recognition and self‐concept, empathy, and executive functioning, are detailed. Cultural and gender differences in the development of emotions for toddlers and young children are also described. The concept of emotional competence is then discussed, as early childhood marks the developmental window in which children begin building skills related to emotion understanding, expression, and regulation. Finally, because emotional development has a profound impact on developmental, social, and academic outcomes for young children, intervention approaches designed to promote emotional development in toddlers and young children are introduced.
Self‐Conscious Emotions
Authors: Hendriks Eline , Meesters Cor , Muris Peter
Published: January 2020

Guilt, shame, and pride are self‐conscious emotions that play a crucial role in children's interpersonal functioning by motivating them to adhere to social norms and personal standards. This entry describes the nature of these emotions, their development during the childhood years, and their relationship to psychopathology.
Shame
Authors: Galmiche Dominique , Oades‐Sese Geraldine V.
Published: January 2020

Shame is a self‐conscious emotion elicited by stable and uncontrollable self‐attributions that associate failure with the global self. Research has found links between shame and a diversity of pathologies, and has shown that it is sustained by a vicious cycle. A thorough understanding of the workings and dynamics of this complex phenomenon is crucial to the implementation of remedies in therapeutic encounters and to the developing of resilience strategies in patients dealing with shame‐related concerns. The effects of shame on health and learning are discussed, as well as coping strategies that promote recovery from shame.
Jealousy
Authors: Hart Sybil L.
Published: January 2020

Jealousy is operationally defined as negatively valenced emotionality that is elicited in an individual who feels threatened by the possibility of losing a valued relationship to a third party. It is distinct from the sense of loss that is precipitated by events that do not involve an interloper. Because of the interloper's involvement, jealousy can entail social comparison, where an individual judges herself and evaluates her self‐worth in relation to the individual by whom she was supplanted. As emotionality where an individual's grief over loss can be compounded by pain that arises from social comparison, in addition to anger toward the beloved and/or the rival, jealousy is understood as a blend of several different emotions and as the source of substantial intra‐ and interpersonal turmoil.
Rumination and Worry
Authors: Weaver Shelly , O'Shannessy Dustin , Donovan Caroline
Published: January 2020

Rumination and worry are cognitive processes characterized by repetitive, negative, and unproductive thoughts that are difficult to terminate. For many years, it was thought that children were incapable of rumination and worry. However, research shows that children can and do ruminate and worry, with most children experiencing nonpathological rumination and worry at times. Rumination and worry have the potential to become maladaptive and lead to psychological disorders such as major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder, as well as a range of other deleterious consequences. Research supports the efficacy of cognitive–behavioral therapy for child worry; however, effective treatment programs for child rumination have yet to be developed and tested. Various theories and models have attempted to conceptualize rumination and worry, with further pediatric research in the area clearly needed.
Positive Well‐Being
Authors: Holder Mark D. , Graydon Katherine
Published: January 2020

There is almost universal consensus regarding the high importance and desirability of positive well‐being in children. Despite this consensus, the study of children has traditionally focused on their ill‐being (e.g., anxiety, depression, and loneliness) and not on their well‐being (e.g., happiness, life satisfaction, and thriving). This entry reviews measures of the components of children's well‐being using quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods and discusses studies that use these methods to identify the correlates of well‐being in children throughout the world. Children with high positive well‐being tend to have high‐quality social relationships; to display a social, outgoing temperament relatively free of anxiety and shyness; and to report high levels of spirituality. Current research, summarized in this entry, is developing and testing strategies to enhance children's positive well‐being in enduring ways, including strategies that focus on giving and exercises in mindfulness. These strategies need to focus on individual differences and not assume that a single approach will be effective in enhancing the well‐being of all children across all cultures.
Emotional and External Eating
Authors: Damiano Stephanie R. , Paxton Susan J.
Published: January 2020

Lifelong eating patterns are established in childhood. Emotional and external eating are eating patterns proposed to increase the risk of overeating, higher weight, and disordered eating. This entry describes emotional and external eating in 2‐ to 12‐year‐old children, including commonly used measurement tools, prevalence, and the limited literature on the outcomes of emotional and external eating. It explores current research on the correlates of emotional and external eating in children, focusing on individual and biological correlates, including body image, and environmental correlates, including parental feeding practices. The entry concludes with implications for prevention and future research.
Temperament and Emotion
Authors: MacNeill Leigha A. , Pérez‐Edgar Koraly
Published: January 2020

Temperament is defined as an early appearing, biologically rooted, and relatively stable disposition that contributes to children's emotionality/affectivity, effortful control, activity level, and attention. Individual differences in temperament are evident in how infants and children experience, express, and regulate their emotions. This entry discusses approaches to the study of child temperament; the working definitions of temperament and emotion that have developed from these approaches; and the relations between temperament and emotion across infancy and childhood that lead to individual differences in behavior and socioemotional outcomes. It also discusses the development of temperament and emotion in terms of intrinsic (i.e., biological and cognitive) and extrinsic (i.e., contextual) processes. These intrinsic and extrinsic processes link early temperament to socioemotional behavior and later child adjustment.
Learning, Cognition, and Emotion
Authors: Fielding Jennifer C. , Ryan Katherine M. , Waters Allison M.
Published: January 2020

This entry reviews the key tenets of learning and cognitive models of emotion and provides a summary of the empirical evidence to support the roles of direct and indirect learning pathways and biases in attention, evaluation, and memory in the development of internalizing and externalizing emotional problems in children. The evidence suggests that enhanced acquisition and generalization of directly and indirectly conditioned fear as well as biases in attending to, evaluating, and retaining memories about stimuli associated with threat underpin children's anxiety symptoms. In contrast, children's depression may be characterized by reduced reactivity to conditioned threats, suggestive of withdrawal from salient environmental cues that should elicit reactivity, and biases in attention, evaluation, and overgeneralized memory for negative information. Conversely, failure to acquire inhibitory fear associations, reduced sensitivity to reward, and biases in attending to and evaluating stimuli associated with hostility, aggression, and injustice, and potentially an absence of memory biases for such stimuli, appear to underpin children's externalizing problems. These findings highlight common and distinct processes underlying the development and expression of children's emotions and underscore the importance of considering learning and cognitive processes in the conceptualization of internalizing and externalizing psychopathology in children.
Emotion Socialization in the Family
Authors: Lozada Fantasy T. , Brown Deon W.
Published: January 2020

This entry considers the manifestation, predictors, and outcomes of emotion socialization in the familial context in childhood. It discusses broad theoretical classifications of familial emotion socialization, including common conceptualizations and operationalizations of emotion socialization subtypes. It discusses child, parent, and sociocultural factors as predictors of familial emotion socialization. Finally, it examines outcomes associated with familial emotion socialization in childhood. Throughout, it considers empirical work that advances the theory and conception of the nature and process of emotion socialization.
Emotion Socialization in Peer Groups
Authors: Lynn Sasha , Carroll Annemaree , Houghton Stephen , Bower Julie M.
Published: January 2020

Emotion socialization is defined as a reciprocal process whereby children learn about emotions, and learn to adapt and modify their emotional displays based on others around them, and vice versa. Social interactions that occur on a daily basis are integral to emotion socialization processes. This entry defines important concepts relating to emotion socialization during childhood by describing aspects of peer relationships and interactions, and provides a summary of what is known about the influence of peer relationships and interactions on children's emotional development and emotional competence. The focus is on both the positive and the negative experiences that can occur within children's peer groups and friendships, and how these experiences can socialize children to understand emotion and its role in social interactions, and may be important for ongoing social, emotional, and learning outcomes.
Prejudice and Discrimination
Authors: Marks Amy K. , Lindsey Shamiria V. , Coll Cynthia García
Published: January 2020

Discrimination is a serious and detrimental social issue that negatively impacts the lives of many children worldwide. This entry offers a review of seminal studies that have sought to understand childhood discrimination, including how children come to develop biases, prejudice, and the ability to perceive discrimination. It presents the psychological and educational effects of discrimination on children as well as the methods that have been shown to alleviate prejudice and discrimination in childhood. In sum, understanding these developmental underpinnings of discrimination is essential to promote empirically supported approaches to preventing the many negative effects of childhood discrimination.
Body Image, Esteem, and Dissatisfaction during Childhood
Authors: Paraskeva Nicole , Diedrichs Phillippa C.
Published: January 2020

This entry outlines empirical evidence for the key influences on children's body image. It reviews the prevalence of body image concerns during childhood and examines the biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors that can influence children's body image. The methodological quality of research in this area is assessed, and the implications of the research, including the factors that could usefully be targeted in early prevention programs for children, are discussed.
Bipolar and Related Disorders in Childhood
Authors: MacPherson Heather A. , Wei Melissa A. , Weisz John R.
Published: January 2020

Though originally thought to be a disorder limited to adulthood, research now suggests that bipolar and related disorders can occur in both children and adolescents, with a prevalence of approximately 1–2%. Prepubertal onset of bipolar disorder, compared to onset in adolescence and adulthood, is associated with greater mood lability, dysregulation, chronicity of symptoms, and both psychosocial and functional impairment. Though the diagnostic criteria are generally the same across the lifespan, some differences in symptom presentation, phenomenology, risk factors, and course are evident. Given the serious and impairing nature of this disorder, especially in childhood, early and accurate identification and intervention are crucial. This entry reviews the diagnostic presentation, symptoms, phenomenology, course, comorbidities, differential diagnosis, etiologies, and evidence‐based treatments for pediatric bipolar disorder, and concludes with suggestions for future research.
Gender Dysphoria
Authors: Busa Samantha M. , Wernick Jeremy A. , Janssen Aron
Published: January 2020

Gender identity is not as simple as
boy
or
girl
, but is a complex interaction between an individual's sex assigned at birth, self‐concept, and social context. For a subset of individuals, their gender identity development may consist of distress related to discrepancies between identity and sex assigned at birth. This interaction is less understood in children, but there is a theoretical foundation and a burgeoning body of research that helps in understanding gender dysphoria in children. The entry reviews the concept of gender identity development, gender dysphoria, treatment for gender dysphoria, and the importance of parental support for children with gender dysphoria.
Domestic Adoption
Authors: Leve Leslie D. , Harold Gordon T. , Kintner Cady
Published: January 2020

More than 100,000 domestic adoptions occur each year in the United States through public agency, private agency, and independent adoptions. A growing body of evidence highlights the important role of the adoptive family in facilitating the healthy development of the adopted child, as well as the role that experiences prior to adoption play in the adoptee's development. This entry summarizes key research studies on adopted children (age 0–12 years), including a recent intervention study with adoptive families. International research and the value of the domestic adoption design in addressing questions about the interplay between nature and nurture are also discussed.
International Adoption
Authors: Friedman Susan , Lynch Amy
Published: January 2020

The climate of international adoption has changed over the years. The actual number of children arriving in the United States and other countries as a result of international adoption has decreased but the medical complexity has increased. The number of “open” countries sending adopted children has dwindled. However, children from marginalized settings continue to find their way into homes in the United States via adoption. These children bring unique prenatal and postnatal histories into their adoptive homes. Understanding of the impact of preadoption history upon physical, mental, emotional, cognitive, and developmental well‐being is imperative for adoptive parents and for medical and mental health professionals, and schools.
Bonding
Authors: Erhart Andrew , Olsavsky Aviva K. , Kim Pilyoung
Published: January 2020

The process of becoming a parent is accompanied by myriad psychological and biological changes. This entry reviews two psychological phenomena that drive the formation of the parent–child bond: parental preoccupation and positive parenting thoughts. Parental preoccupation refers to intrusive thoughts about a new baby that begin during pregnancy and that tend to persist until approximately four months postpartum. Positive parenting thoughts are positive feelings about infants and the parenting experience that tend to increase following birth. These two psychological phenomena serve complementary roles in supporting parent–child bonding across time. Following discussion of these psychological phenomena, we discuss biological mechanisms, including brain networks and hormones, and how they support the psychological changes necessary for optimal parenting. Next, parental psychopathology is reviewed, including how it relates to differences in parental preoccupation and positive parental thoughts, with a focus on postpartum depression and anxiety disorders. Finally, future directions for research on parental psychological changes supporting bonding are discussed.
Transition to Parenthood
Authors: Young Cecily
Published: January 2020

The transition to parenthood is one of the sharpest developmental curves in the lifespan. New parents must negotiate a number of key tasks during this time, including creating a bond with their child, incorporating parenthood into their self‐concept, negotiating significant relationship changes, and building new peer support networks. There is a robust literature exploring relationship changes and the identification and treatment of psychological disorder during the transition to parenthood. Areas of interest for future research include fathers' experiences, LGBTQI families, cross‐cultural comparisons, and the impact of new technologies.
Parenting Stress
Authors: Diener Marissa L. , Swedin Melissa N.
Published: January 2020

All parents experience stress related to the parenting role when demands placed on the parent exceed the resources available to the parent. Greater parenting stress results from child characteristics, parent characteristics, contextual stressors, and daily hassles. While many parents successfully cope with parenting stress, high levels of parenting stress may result in poor‐quality parenting, nonoptimal parent–child relationships, and predict children's emotional and behavioral problems, as well as lower cognitive and social development. Child behavior problems are both consequences and antecedents of parenting stress. Interventions focusing on coping skills, self‐efficacy, parenting strategies, and child behavior have produced decreases in parenting stress.
Attachment Measures
Authors: Woolgar Matt
Published: January 2020

In attachment theory, the attachment pattern is the external manifestation of the underlying quality of the internal working model of attachment. This entry considers measures of attachment, including the Strange Situation procedure, the Attachment Q‐Sort, representational measures, and the Child Attachment Interview.
Twins and Other Multiples
Authors: Thorpe Karen , Staton Sally , Bekkhus Mona
Published: January 2020

Being a multiple birth child is a unique social circumstance that places siblings together from the time of their conception. During their early years, multiple birth siblings spend considerably more of their time together than close‐spaced single‐born children, a situation that presents opportunities for learning and companionship but also greater potential for comparison, competition, and conflict. A key focus for research has been questioning the developmental effects of growing up in these unique circumstances: Does being a multiple birth child present risks for development? Are there developmental strengths associated with being a multiple birth child? What are the variations in the multiple birth children's relationship and how might these affect relationships with others? What are the implications of being a multiple birth child for social experiences beyond the family? Does being a multiple birth child affect social inclusion and quality of peer relationships? This entry addresses these key questions.
Adverse Childhood Experiences
Authors: Dion Jacinthe , Nilsen Wendy , Gagné Anne‐Sophie , Lapierre Andréanne , Hébert Martine
Published: January 2020

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are very prevalent, affecting at least 40% of children worldwide in high‐ and low‐income countries. ACEs range from household challenges, such as parental divorce or the incarceration of a household member, to child maltreatment (neglect, sexual, physical, and emotional abuse) and community violence. These potentially traumatic events are not only widespread; they may have negative short‐term and long‐lasting effects on health and well‐being. This entry focuses on the prevalence and definitions of ACEs and on their associated neurological, psychological, and health outcomes. It also provides an overview of the protective factors that may foster resilience against ACEs.
Scapegoating and Favoritism
Authors: Van Leeuwen Karla
Published: January 2020

Scapegoating and favoritism are family processes that both refer to a pattern of treating one child in a family differently from the others. Scapegoating refers to unfairly blaming the child for difficulties of other family members, whereas favoritism concerns receiving better parental treatment compared to a sibling. To try to understand the etiology and consequences of these phenomena, this entry uses two theoretical frameworks: family systems theory and developmental systems theory. It refers to the research literature on parental differential treatment (PDT) and draws attention to some methodological issues in the measurement of PDT. It discusses the association between scapegoating and child maltreatment and the consequences of (dis)favoritism for child development. It argues that it is important to take into account all family members in the approach to scapegoating and favoritism, but also that the perspective of the child who is treated one‐sidedly is valuable.
Child Protective Services
Authors: Topple Trasie A. , Ellett Alberta J.
Published: January 2020

Worldwide, young children, who are dependent on others for their survival and healthy development, are victims of maltreatment (abuse and neglect) by their caregivers, often with long‐lasting, cascading effects on their personal lives and communities. Child maltreatment takes place in all cultures, religions, ethnicities, and socioeconomic classes, with younger children being the most vulnerable to such maltreatment. How can societies and communities, each with its own complicated legal and moral systems, organize around the well‐being of children and respond appropriately and in a timely manner to the maltreatment of minors? In the United States, a complex and broad child welfare system has evolved over time to meet the multitude of needs of maltreated children and their families. Typically, child welfare services include Child Protective Services (CPS), family preservation, reunification, foster care, and adoption services.
Child Witch Accusations
Authors: Igwe Leo
Published: January 2020

Until recently, limited attention has been paid to witchcraft accusations against children. This entry provides an overview of the child witch phenomenon, with an emphasis on its impact on child development. It traces the history of child witch accusation, noting its manifestation in early modern Europe and in contemporary Africa. It discusses the nature and function of these allegations and the various explanations that scholars have advanced to make sense of this social reality. It is suggested that manifestations of child witchcraft allegations demonstrate the resilience and adaptiveness of child witch beliefs to modernity, as well as the limitations of the measures and initiatives taken so far to combat these allegations.
Perinatal Mood Disorders
Authors: Mercer Jean
Published: January 2020

Perinatal mood disorders are significant mood disturbances, found primarily in women but possible in men, that occur during pregnancy and the first year after childbirth. They include depression and anxiety at levels that interfere with infant care and social relationships, and in rare cases culminate in harm to infants or suicide. Evaluation and treatment are still infrequent but can be quite helpful, especially if begun during pregnancy.
Parent Discipline and Socialization in Middle Childhood
Authors: Hawes David J. , Tully Lucy A.
Published: January 2020

Child discipline refers not only to the setting of limits on misbehavior (e.g., punishment), but also to the socialization practices through which parents and caregivers shape the competencies upon which children's behavioral and emotional development relies. These parenting practices have generally been conceptualized along two broad dimensions corresponding to control (e.g., methods and degrees of monitoring and limit setting) and responsiveness (e.g., expressions of affect that span warmth and sensitivity through to hostility and rejection). This entry provides an overview of discipline in middle childhood as it relates to parent–child relationship processes, specific discipline techniques, differences related to sex and culture, and child outcomes.
Moral Development in the Family
Authors: Sengsavang Sonia , Krettenauer Tobias
Published: January 2020

Morality is inherent in human interaction, and questions about the nature of human morality and what promotes the development of virtue and character in a person's life have been extensively studied over the past century. The focus of this entry is, in particular, how the family contributes to the promotion and development of morality. The entry summarizes the current state of key research in the major approaches in developmental psychology that illuminate the role of the family in children's moral development. It then considers more recent research that will likely gain attention in the near future.