bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Customer Responsiveness: Getting it Fast and Right Through Impatience and Intolerance
Authors: Meehan Sean , Dawson Charlie
Published: March 2003

Customer responsiveness is about being fast and right. The value of being right is obvious — customers get something that meets their needs. But the value also depends critically on the speed with which the response is produced. Maximising performance across the two dimensions constitutes excellent customer responsiveness. But, according to interviews with top executives, this may require a surprising management style.
Conditions Underlying Parents' Knowledge about Children's Daily Lives in Middle Childhood: Between‐ and Within‐Family Comparisons
Authors: Crouter Ann C. , Helms‐Erikson Heather , Updegraff Kimberly , McHale Susan M.
Published: March 2003

This study examined the correlates of mothers' and fathers' knowledge about the daily experiences of their firstborn (M = 10.9 years) and secondborn (M = 8.3 years) children in 198 nondivorced, predominantly dual‐earner families. Results revealed between‐ and within‐family differences in knowledge as a function of mothers' work involvement, sibship composition (i.e., sex, birth order), children's personal qualities (e.g., temperament), and parents' personal qualities (e.g., education, gender role attitudes). Mothers' knowledge did not vary as a function of how much they worked outside the home, but fathers knew more about their children's activities, whereabouts, and companions when their wives worked longer hours. Parents knew more about their younger than their older offspring. Both mothers and fathers knew more about offspring of the same sex than about opposite‐sex children, leading to greater within‐family differences in families with mixed‐sex siblings. Perhaps because parental involvement and monitoring are more “scripted” for mothers than fathers, fathers' knowledge was more consistently related to their children's characteristics than was mothers.'
Family Context and Gender Role Socialization in Middle Childhood: Comparing Girls to Boys and Sisters to Brothers
Authors: McHale Susan M. , Crouter Ann C. , Tucker Corinna J.
Published: March 2003

We studied the extent of sex‐typing across different areas of child functioning (personality, interests, activities) in middle childhood as a function of the traditionality of parents' gender role attitudes and the sex composition of the sibling dyad. Participants included 200 firstborn children (mean = 10.4 years old), their secondborn siblings (mean = 7.7 years old) and their mothers and fathers. Family members were interviewed in their homes about their attitudes and personal characteristics and completed a series of seven evening telephone interviews about their daily activities. We measured children's attitudes, personality characteristics, and interests in sex‐typed leisure activities (e.g., sports, handicrafts) as well as time spent in sex‐typed leisure activities and household tasks (e.g., washing dishes, home repairs) and with same and opposite sex companions (i.e., parents, peers). Analyses revealed that sex‐typing was most evident in children's interests and activities. Further, comparisons of girls versus boys and sisters versus brothers revealed that differences in children's sex‐typing as a function of fathers' attitudes and sibling sex constellation were most apparent for children's activities. A notable exception was sex‐typed peer involvement; time spent with same versus opposite sex peers was impervious to context effects. Analyses focused on children's sex‐typing as a function of mothers' attitudes generally were nonsignificant.
Drawing Development: Stages in the Representation of a Cube and a Cylinder
Authors: Toomela Aaro
Published: March 2003

A new schema for defining developmental stages in the drawing of geometrical objects is proposed. In four studies, (N = 917, 1851, 673, and 437, respectively) children and adults drew cubes and cylinders. The data demonstrate that the proposed stages appear in an invariant order: 2‐year‐old children almost always draw Scribbles; Single Units appear at the age of 3 years, Differentiated Figures at the age of 4 years, and Integrated Wholes after the age of 7 years.
Linking Maternal Efficacy Beliefs, Developmental Goals, Parenting Practices, and Child Competence in Rural Single‐Parent African American Families
Authors: Brody Gene H. , Flor Douglas L. , Gibson Nicole Morgan
Published: March 2003

With a sample of 139 rural, single‐parent African American families with a 6‐ to 9‐year‐old child, we traced the links among family financial resource adequacy, maternal childrearing efficacy beliefs, developmental goals, parenting practices, and children's academic and psychosocial competence. A multimethod, multiinformant design was used to assess the constructs of interest. Consistent with the hypothesized paths, financial resource adequacy was linked with mothers' sense of childrearing efficacy. Efficacy beliefs were linked with parenting practices indirectly through developmental goals. Competence‐promoting parenting practices were indirectly linked with children's academic and psychosocial competence through their association with children's self‐regulation.
Associations among Family Relationships, Antisocial Peers, and Adolescents' Externalizing Behaviors: Gender and Family Type Differences
Authors: Kim Jungmeen E. , Hetherington E. Mavis , Reiss David
Published: March 2003

This study investigated the relations among parenting, sibling relationship, peer group, and adolescent externalizing behaviors. With data obtained from a sample of 341 male and 313 female adolescents (M age = 14.4 years) and their parents and siblings from nonstepfamilies and stepfather families, cross‐sectional analyses supported the hypothesis that the contributions of parental negativity, parental monitoring, and sibling negativity to adolescents' externalizing behaviors would operate directly and also indirectly through deviant peer associations. The findings of multigroup comparison analyses suggested that the relationships between family and peer correlates and adolescent externalizing behaviors vary as a function of family type and adolescent gender.
Child Development and the PITS: Simple Questions, Complex Answers, and Developmental Theory
Authors: Horowitz Frances Degen
Published: March 2003

The enormous popular interest in the field of child development makes it incumbent upon developmental scientists to convey with care the complexity of development lest oversimplified popular accounts gain credibility. Recent attempted models of development do include the range of variables and complexities that need to be accommodated in accounting for development. A model is presented here that incorporates many of the elements of recent models but elaborates on the role of experience in relation to the constitutional, cultural, economic, and social factors that contribute to advantages and disadvantages in children's development. The importance of accommodating data from prior theoretical perspectives and the importance of the contributions from neuroimaging studies are discussed as they are critical for successful theory building in the field of child development.
A Perception–Action Perspective on Tool Use Development
Authors: Lockman Jeffrey J.
Published: March 2003

In this essay I argue for a new wave of research on tool use development. Advances in the literature on perception–action development hold important clues for how tool use unfolds in children. These advances suggest that tool use may be a more continuous developmental achievement than has been previously believed. On this view, tool use is rooted in the perception–action routines that infants employ to gain information about their environments. Although tools alter the properties of effector systems, children use tools to explore and change their environments, building on efforts that originate in infancy. Based on this approach, new research directions are suggested, including efforts designed to investigate the processes by which children detect and relate affordances between objects, coordinate spatial frames of reference, and incorporate early‐appearing action patterns into instrumental behaviors.
Science, Policy, and Practice: Three Cultures in Search of a Shared Mission
Authors: Shonkoff Jack P.
Published: March 2003

Research on child development, the design of social policies, and the delivery of human services for children and families reflect three related yet separate cultures. The capacity to navigate across their borders, to understand their different rules of evidence, to speak their distinctive languages, and to achieve credibility in all three worlds while maintaining a sense of intellectual integrity in each, requires respect for their differences and a commitment to their shared mission. The transmission of knowledge from the academy to the domains of social policy and practice is a formidable task. This challenge could be facilitated by a simple taxonomy that differentiates established knowledge from both reasonable hypotheses and unwarranted or irresponsible assertions that are made in the name of science. An investment in effective “cross‐cultural” translation offers a potent strategy for enhancing both the generation of new research and the application of cutting‐edge knowledge to make a difference in the lives of children and their families.
New Directions in Analyses of Parenting Contributions to Children's Acquisition of Values
Authors: Grusec Joan E. , Goodnow Jacqueline J. , Kuczynski Leon
Published: March 2003

Traditional theories of how children acquire values or standards of behavior have emphasized the importance of specific parenting techniques or styles and have acknowledged the importance of a responsive parent–child relationship, but they have failed to differentiate among forms of responsiveness, have stressed internalization of values as the desired outcome, and have limited their scope to a small set of parenting strategies or methods. This paper outlines new directions for research. It acknowledges the central importance of parents and argues for research that (1) demonstrates that parental understanding of a particular child's characteristics and situation rather than use of specific strategies or styles is the mark of effective parenting; (2) traces the differential impact of varieties of parent responsiveness; (3) assesses the conditions surrounding the fact that parents have goals other than internalization when socializing their children, and evaluates the impact of that fact; and (4) considers a wider range of parenting strategies.
Relating Quality of Center‐Based Child Care to Early Cognitive and Language Development Longitudinally
Authors: Burchinal Margaret R. , Roberts Joanne E. , Riggins, Jr. Rhodus , Zeisel Susan A. , Neebe Eloise , Bryant Donna
Published: March 2003

How quality of center‐based child care relates to early cognitive and language development was examined longitudinally from 6 to 36 months of age in a sample of 89 African American children. Both structural and process measures of quality of child care were collected through observation of the infant classroom. Results indicated that higher quality child care was related to higher measures of cognitive development (Bayley Scales of Infant Development), language development (Sequenced Inventory of Communication Development), and communication skills (Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales) across time, even after adjusting for selected child and family characteristics. In addition, classrooms that met professional recommendations regarding child:adult ratios tended to have children with better language skills. Classrooms that met recommendations regarding teacher education tended to have girls with better cognitive and receptive language skills. These findings, in conjunction with the growing child‐care literature, provide further evidence that researchers and policymakers should strive to improve the quality of child care to enhance early development of such vulnerable children.
Attachment Security in Infancy and Early Adulthood: A Twenty‐Year Longitudinal Study
Authors: Waters Everett , Merrick Susan , Treboux Dominique , Crowell Judith , Albersheim Leah
Published: March 2003

Sixty White middle‐class infants were seen in the Ainsworth Strange Situation at 12 months of age; 50 of these participants (21 males, 29 females) were recontacted 20 years later and interviewed by using the Berkeley Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). The interviewers were blind to the participants' Strange Situation classifications. Overall, 72% of the infants received the same secure versus insecure attachment classification in early adulthood, κ= .44, p < .001. As predicted by attachment theory, negative life events—defined as (1) loss of a parent, (2) parental divorce, (3) life‐threatening illness of parent or child (e.g., diabetes, cancer, heart attack), (4) parental psychiatric disorder, and (5) physical or sexual abuse by a family member—were an important factor in change. Forty‐four percent (8 of 18) of the infants whose mothers reported negative life events changed attachment classifications from infancy to early adulthood. Only 22% (7 of 32) of the infants whose mothers reported no such events changed classification, p < .05. These results support Bowlby's hypothesis that individual differences in attachment security can be stable across significant portions of the lifespan and yet remain open to revision in light of experience. The task now is to use a variety of research designs, measurement strategies, and study intervals to clarify the mechanisms underlying stability and change.
Effects of Conflict Resolution Training Integrated into a Kindergarten Curriculum
Authors: Stevahn Laurie , Johnson David W. , Johnson Roger T. , Oberle Katie , Wahl Leslie
Published: March 2003

The effectiveness of a conflict resolution training program was examined in an American midwestern suburban elementary school. Participants were 80 kindergartners randomly assigned to an experimental or control condition in morning or afternoon time blocks. Children in the experimental condition received 9 hr of conflict resolution training integrated into a curriculum unit on friendship taught daily for 4 consecutive weeks. Children in the control condition were taught the identical friendship unit for the same period of time without conflict resolution training. Teachers rotated equally across conditions. Significant differences between trained and untrained children occurred in their knowledge and retention of the conflict resolution procedure, willingness and ability to use the procedure in conflict situations, and conceptual understanding of friendship.
Detecting Blickets: How Young Children Use Information about Novel Causal Powers in Categorization and Induction
Authors: Gopnik Alison , Sobel David M.
Published: March 2003

Three studies explored whether and when children could categorize objects on the basis of a novel underlying causal power. To test this we constructed a ‘blicket detector,’ a machine that lit up and played music when certain objects were placed on it. First, 2‐, 3‐ and 4‐year‐old children saw that an object labeled as a ‘blicket’ would set off the machine. In a categorization task, other objects were demonstrated on the machine. Some set it off and some did not. Children were asked to say which objects were ‘blickets.’ In an induction task, other objects were or were not labeled as ‘blickets.’ Children had to predict which objects would have the causal power to set off the machine. The causal power could conflict with perceptual properties of the object, such as color and shape. In an association task the object was associated with the machine's lighting up but did not cause it to light up. Even the youngest children sometimes used the causal power to determine the object's name rather than using its perceptual properties and sometimes used the object's name rather than its perceptual properties to predict the object's causal powers. Children rarely categorized the object on the basis of the associated event. Young children also sometimes made interesting memory errors — they incorrectly reported that objects with the same perceptual features had had the same causal power. These studies demonstrate that even very young children will easily and swiftly learn about a new causal power of an object and spontaneously use that information in classifying and naming the object.
Implicit Learning in Children Is Not Related to Age: Evidence from Drawing Behavior
Authors: Vinter Annie , Perruchet Pierre
Published: March 2003

Three experiments are reported on implicit learning in 432 children between the ages of 4 and 10 years, using a new paradigm (‘the neutral parameter procedure’) based on drawing behavior. The first two experiments demonstrated that children modified their drawing behavior following specially devised practice in such a way that these modifications could not be viewed as the result of deliberate adaptive strategies. The third experiment showed that these behavioral modifications lasted for at least 1 hr after the training phase. No age‐related differences appeared in the experiments. A comparison of children's data with similar adults' data also failed to reveal any age differences. These results provide compelling evidence that implicit learning processes are age independent. Some implications of these results for developmental issues are discussed, notably the hypothesis of the formation of implicit knowledge in the course of learning.
Same Beginnings, Different Stories: A Comparison of American and Chinese Children's Narratives
Authors: Wang Qi , Leichtman Michelle D.
Published: March 2003

This study examined social, emotional, and cognitive characteristics of American and Chinese children's narratives. Twenty‐four American and 26 Chinese 6‐year‐old children participated. Each child was interviewed individually twice with a 1‐week delay interval. During the two interviews, children were asked to tell 11 stories prompted by pictures and standard verbal leads and to recount 7 emotional memories. Content analyses were performed on children's stories and memories. In line with predictions, findings indicated that compared with American children, Chinese children showed greater orientation toward social engagement, greater concern with moral correctness, greater concern with authority, a less autonomous orientation, more expressions of emotions, and more situational details in both their stories and memories. A few gender differences were found. Findings are discussed in terms of different value systems and early socialization practices in these two cultures.
Prediction of Elementary School Children's Externalizing Problem Behaviors from Attentional and Behavioral Regulation and Negative Emotionality
Authors: Eisenberg Nancy , Guthrie Ivanna K. , Fabes Richard A. , Shepard Stephanie , Losoya Sandra , Murphy Bridget , Jones Sarah , Poulin Rick , Reiser Mark
Published: March 2003

The purpose of this study was to examine the moderating role of individual differences in negative emotionality in the relations of behavioral and attentional (emotional) regulation to externalizing problem behaviors. Teachers' and one parent's reports of children's regulation (attentional and behavioral), emotionality, and problem behavior were obtained when children were in kindergarten to grade 3 and two years later (N=6 in major analyses); children's behavioral regulation also was assessed with a measure of persistence. According to the best fitting structural equation model, at two ages behavioral dysregulation predicted externalizing behavior problems for children both high and low in negative emotionality, whereas prediction of problem behavior from attentional control was significant only for children prone to negative emotionality. There were unique, additive effects of behavioral and attentional regulation for predicting problem behavior as well as moderating effects of negative emotionality for attentional regulation.
Biases in Young Children's Communication about Spatial Relations: Containment versus Proximity
Authors: Plumert Jodie M. , Hawkins Aimee M.
Published: March 2003

Four experiments examined 3‐ and 4‐year‐olds' ability to communicate about containment and proximity relations. One hundred twenty‐eight children either described where a miniature mouse was hiding in a dollhouse or they searched for the mouse after the experimenter described where it was hiding. The mouse was always hidden with a small landmark that was either in or next to a large landmark. When describing where the mouse was hiding, children were more likely to successfully disambiguate the small landmark when it was in the large landmark (e.g., under the plant in the dresser) than when it was next to the large landmark (e.g., under the plant next to the dresser). When searching for the mouse, 3‐year‐olds were faster to initiate their searches when the small landmark was in the large landmark than when it was next to the large landmark. Together, these results suggest that there are informational biases in young children's spatial communication.
Children's Social Reasoning about Inclusion and Exclusion in Gender and Race Peer Group Contexts
Authors: Killen Melanie , Stangor Charles
Published: March 2003

This study investigated whether children's and adolescents' judgments about exclusion of peers from peer group activities on the basis of their gender and race would differ by both age level and the context in which the exclusion occurred. Individual interviews about exclusion in several different contexts were conducted with 130 middle‐class, European American children and adolescents. Younger children were expected to reject exclusion, by using judgments based on moral reasoning, regardless of the potential cost to group functioning, whereas older children were expected to condone exclusion on the basis of group membership in cases in which the inclusion of these children might interrupt effective group functioning. On measures of judgments, justifications for those judgments, and ratings of the appropriateness of exclusion, the vast majority of children used moral reasoning and rejected exclusion in contexts in which only the presence of a stereotype justified it. As expected, however, older children (13 years) were more likely to allow exclusion than younger children (7 and 10 years) when group functioning was threatened, and they justified this exclusion by using appeals to effective group functioning.
Variation in Teenage Mothers' Experiences of Child Care and Other Components of Welfare Reform: Selection Processes and Developmental Consequences
Authors: Yoshikawa Hirokazu , Rosman Elisa Altman , Hsueh JoAnn
Published: March 2003

Developmental evaluations of the current wave of welfare reform programs present challenges with regard to (1) assessing child outcomes; (2) accounting for heterogeneity among low‐income families in both baseline characteristics and involvement in self‐sufficiency activities and supports, and (3) development of alternatives to experimental approaches to causal inference. This study (N = 1,079) addresses these challenges by examining effects on 4‐ to 6‐year‐old children of different patterns of child care, self‐sufficiency activities, and other service utilization indicators among experimental‐group mothers in a 16‐site welfare reform program. Outcomes in areas of cognitive ability and behavior problems were investigated. The study identified seven subgroups of participants engaging in different patterns of service utilization and activity involvement. A two‐stage simultaneous equation methodology was used to account for selection, and effects on child cognitive ability of participation in specific patterns of services and activities were found. For example, children of mothers characterized by high levels of involvement in center‐based child care, education, and job training showed higher levels of cognitive ability than children of mothers in groups characterized by high involvement in center‐based care and education, or center‐based care and job training. In addition, children of mothers in groups with high levels of involvement in any of these activities showed higher levels of cognitive ability than those with low levels of involvement. The bulk of selection effects occurred through site‐level differences, rather than family‐level socioeconomic status or maternal depression indicators. Implications for welfare reform program and policy concerns are discussed.
Dynamic Patterns of Time Use in Adolescence
Authors: Shanahan Michael J. , Flaherty Brian P.
Published: March 2003

Patterns of time use are tangible representations of individual identity and the meaning of age groups in the life course. How do young people allocate their time to multiple domains of involvement, including the school, workplace, family, and peer group? Drawing on longitudinal data from the Youth Development Study (N= 1,010), a person‐centered analytic strategy was used to describe configurations of time use through the high school years. Over half of the students were engaged in many domains, although a substantial percentage of students focused their time on one or two domains outside the school. Students who were highly engaged in multiple domains tended to remain so across grade levels, whereas students focused on one or two domains frequently changed their commitments. Plans for school, grade point average, future orientations that emphasize marriage and good citizenship, and gender significantly predicted time‐use patterns. These findings elucidate connections among school, work, and other contexts through the high school years.
“I Got Some Swords and You're Dead!”: Violent Fantasy, Antisocial Behavior, Friendship, and Moral Sensibility in Young Children
Authors: Dunn Judy , Hughes Claire
Published: March 2003

Relations between an early interest in violent fantasy and children's social understanding, antisocial and emotional behavior, and interactions with friends were investigated in 40 “hard‐to‐manage” preschoolers and 40 control children matched for gender, age, and school and ethnic background. Children were filmed alone in a room with a friend, and tested on a battery of cognitive tests, including false‐belief, executive function, and emotion understanding tasks. Teachers reported on their friendship quality. At age 6 years, the children's understanding of the emotional consequences of antisocial and prosocial actions was studied. The hard‐to‐manage group showed higher rates of violent fantasy; across both groups combined, violent fantasy was related to poor executive control and language ability, frequent antisocial behavior, displays of anger and refusal to help a friend, poor communication and coordination of play, more conflict with a friend, and less empathic moral sensibility 2 years later. The usefulness of a focus on the content of children's pretend play — in particular, violent fantasy — as a window on children's preoccupations is considered.
Hierarchical Structure of Moral Stages Assessed by a Sorting Task
Authors: Boom Jan , Brugman Daniel , Van Der Heijden Peter G. M.
Published: March 2003

Following criticism of Kohlberg's theory of moral judgment, an empirical re‐examination of hierarchical stage structure was desirable. Utilizing Piaget's concept of reflective abstraction as a basis, the hierarchical stage structure was investigated using a new method. Study participants (553 Dutch university students and 196 Russian high school students) sorted statements in terms of moral sophistication. These statements were typical for the different stages of moral development as defined in Colby and Kohlberg. The rank ordering performed by participants confirmed the hypotheses. First, despite large individual variation, the ordering of the statements that gave the best fit revealed that each consecutive Kohlbergian stage was perceived to be more morally sophisticated. Second, the lower the stage as represented by the items, the higher the agreement among the participants in their ranking; and the higher the stage as represented by the items, the lower the agreement among the participants in the rankings. Moreover, the pivotal point depended on the developmental characteristics of the sample, which demonstrated a developmental effect: The ordering of statements representative of moral stages below one's own current stage was straightforward, whereas the ordering of statements above one's own stage was difficult. It was concluded that the Piagetian idea of reflective abstraction can be used successfully to operationalize and measure the hierarchical nature of moral development.
Theory of Mind and Conceptual Change
Authors: Wellman Henry M. , Cross David
Published: March 2003

We agree with the commentaries by Scholl and Leslie, and also by Moses, that the meta‐analytic findings do not definitively rule out early competence accounts. But they do make extant versions of such accounts increasingly unlikely. In particular, the meta‐analytic findings argue against executive function expression accounts, including the Theory‐of‐Mind Mechanism/Selection Processor account advocated by Scholl and Leslie. Specifically, Scholl and Leslie articulate two explicit predictions of their account: that task manipulations that attenuate inhibitory demands should differentially advantage older children, and that theory‐of‐mind developments should occur with consistent timetables. Both of these specific predictions are clearly contradicted, not supported, by the meta‐analytic findings.
Negotiating the Transition to Middle School: The Role of Self‐Regulatory Processes
Authors: Rudolph Karen D. , Lambert Sharon F. , Clark Alyssa G. , Kurlakowsky Kathryn D.
Published: March 2003

The present research examined the role of maladaptive self‐regulatory beliefs as vulnerability factors for academic and emotional difficulties during the transition to middle school. A short‐term longitudinal design was employed to follow two groups of early adolescents: 187 adolescents who experienced a school transition between the fifth and sixth grades, and 142 adolescents who did not experience a school transition between the fifth and sixth grades. Adolescents completed measures of perceptions of academic control and importance of academic success, experience of chronic academic strain, daily school hassles, and depressive symptoms. Teachers reported on students' academic engagement, including levels of helpless behavior, effort, and academic performance. Consistent with the proposed model of self‐regulation, maladaptive self‐regulatory beliefs (i.e., decreased perceptions of academic control and importance) predicted individual differences in perceived school‐related stress and depressive symptoms over the course of the middle school transition, but were not associated with academic and emotional difficulties in adolescents who remained in a stable school environment. Moreover, a self‐regulatory sequence was identified proceeding from maladaptive self‐regulatory beliefs, to academic disengagement, to enhanced perceptions of school‐related stress, to depressive symptoms. This study bridges prior theory and research concerning the psychological impact of normative developmental transitions, the developmental context of depression, and the associations among self‐regulatory beliefs, achievement‐related behavior, and emotional experience.
When Half a Word Is Enough: Infants Can Recognize Spoken Words Using Partial Phonetic Information
Authors: Fernald Anne , Swingley Daniel , Pinto John P.
Published: March 2003

Adults process speech incrementally, rapidly identifying spoken words on the basis of initial phonetic information sufficient to distinguish them from alternatives. In this study, infants in the second year also made use of word‐initial information to understand fluent speech. The time course of comprehension was examined by tracking infants' eye movements as they looked at pictures in response to familiar spoken words, presented both as whole words in intact form and as partial words in which only the first 300 ms of the word was heard. In Experiment 1, 21‐month‐old infants (N=32) recognized partial words as quickly and reliably as they recognized whole words; in Experiment 2, these findings were replicated with 18‐month‐old infants (N=32). Combining the data from both experiments, efficiency in spoken word recognition was examined in relation to level of lexical development. Infants with more than 100 words in their productive vocabulary were more accurate in identifying familiar words than were infants with less than 60 words. Grouped by response speed, infants with faster mean reaction times were more accurate in word recognition and also had larger productive vocabularies than infants with slower response latencies. These results show that infants in the second year are capable of incremental speech processing even before entering the vocabulary spurt, and that lexical growth is associated with increased speed and efficiency in understanding spoken language.
The Development of Self‐Regulation in the First Four Years of Life
Authors: Kochanska Grazyna , Coy Katherine C. , Murray Kathleen T.
Published: March 2003

This study examined longitudinally the development of self‐regulation in 108 young children during the first 4 years of life. Children's committed compliance (when they eagerly embraced maternal agenda) and situational compliance (when they cooperated, but without a sincere commitment) were studied. Both forms of compliance were observed in “Do” contexts, in which the mothers requested that the children sustain unpleasant, tedious behavior, and in “Don't” contexts, in which they requested that the children suppress pleasant, attractive behavior. Children's internalization while alone in the similar contexts was also studied. Parallel assessments were conducted when the children were 14, 22, 33, and 45 months of age. At all ages, the Do context was much more challenging for children than the Don't context. Girls surpassed boys in committed compliance. Both forms of compliance were longitudinally stable, but only within a given context. Children's fearfulness and effortful control, observed and mother reported, correlated positively with committed compliance, but mostly in the Don't context. Committed, but not situational, compliance was linked to children's internalization of maternal rules, observed when the children were alone in the Do and Don't contexts. These links were both concurrent and longitudinal, context specific, and significant even after controlling for maternal power assertion. There was modest preliminary evidence that committed compliance may generalize to interactions with adults other than the mother.
The Relations of Regulation and Emotionality to Children's Externalizing and Internalizing Problem Behavior
Authors: Eisenberg Nancy , Cumberland Amanda , Spinrad Tracy L. , Fabes Richard A. , Shepard Stephanie A. , Reiser Mark , Murphy Bridget C. , Losoya Sandra H. , Guthrie Ivanna K.
Published: March 2003

The purpose of this study was to examine the relation of different types of negative emotion and regulation and control to 55‐ to 97‐month‐olds' internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors. Parents and teachers provided information on children's (N=214) adjustment, dispositional regulation and control, and emotion, and children's regulation was observed during several behavioral tasks. Internalizing was defined in two ways: as social withdrawal (to avoid overlap of items with measures of emotionality) or, more broadly, as anxiety, depression, and psychosomatic complaints. In general, children with externalizing problems, compared with children with internalizing problems and nondisordered children, were more prone to anger, impulsivity, and low regulation. Children with internalizing symptoms were prone to sadness, low attentional regulation, and low impulsivity. Relations between internalizing problems and emotionality were more frequent when the entire internalizing scale was used. Findings suggest that emotion and regulation are associated with adjustment in systematic ways and that there is an important difference between effortful control and less voluntary modes of control.
Salivary Cortisol as a Predictor of Socioemotional Adjustment during Kindergarten: A Prospective Study
Authors: Smider N. A. , Essex M. J. , Kalin N. H. , Buss K. A. , Klein M. H. , Davidson R. J. , Goldsmith H. H.
Published: March 2003

This study, based on a sample of 172 children, examined the relation between average afternoon salivary cortisol levels measured at home at age 4.5 years and socioemotional adjustment a year and a half later, as reported by mothers, fathers, and teachers. Cortisol levels were hypothesized to be positively associated with withdrawal‐type behaviors (e.g., internalizing, social wariness) and inversely related to approach‐type behaviors, both negative and positive (e.g., externalizing, school engagement). Higher cortisol levels at age 4.5 predicted more internalizing behavior and social wariness as reported by teachers and mothers, although child gender moderated the relation between cortisol and mother report measures. An inverse relation was found between boys’ cortisol levels and father report of externalizing behavior. A marginal inverse relation was found between child cortisol levels and teacher report of school engagement. Behavior assessed concurrently with cortisol collection did not account for the prospective relations observed, suggesting that cortisol adds uniquely to an understanding of behavioral development.
Evaluation of a Social Contextual Model of Delinquency: A Cross‐Study Replication
Authors: Scaramella Laura V. , Conger Rand D. , Spoth Richard , Simons Ronald L.
Published: March 2003

The present study empirically examined three theoretical approaches designed to predict risk for delinquency during adolescence: an individual difference perspective, a social interactional model, and a social contextual approach. Hypotheses derived from each perspective were tested using two independent samples of early adolescents followed over a 4‐year period. Six‐hundred sixty‐seven children (in sixth grade at Time 1), and their parents comprised the first sample (Project Family); and 451 children (in seventh grade at Time 1), their parents, and a close‐aged sibling made up the second sample (Iowa Youth and Families Project). Results from a series of structural equation models suggested that a social contextual approach provided the best fit with the data across both samples and genders. Consistent with the social contextual approach, results indicated that a lack of nurturant and involved parenting indirectly predicted delinquency by increasing children’s earlier antisocial behavior and deviant peer relationships; child antisocial behavior also predicted similar decreases in nurturant parenting over time. Both child antisocial behavior and deviant peer affiliations at Time 2 predicted delinquency 1 year later. Implications for theoretical development and future research priorities are discussed.
Parenting and Development of One‐Year‐Olds: Links with Parental, Contextual, and Child Characteristics
Authors: Van Bakel Hedwig J. A. , Riksen‐Walraven J. Marianne
Published: March 2003

A set of hypotheses derived from Belsky’s process model of the determinants of parenting was tested in a sample of 129 Dutch parents with their 15‐month‐old infants. Parental ego‐resiliency and education, partner support, and infant social fearfulness were found to explain significant and unique portions of variance in the observed quality of parental behavior, which, in turn, was linked to the infants’ attachment security and cognitive development. Parental intelligence was both indirectly‐through parenting‐and directly related with infant Bayley Mental Developmental Index, whereas parental ego‐resiliency was both indirectly and directly linked with infant Attachment Q‐Set security. Belsky’s claim that parents’ personal resources are most effective and child characteristics are least effective in buffering the parenting system was not empirically confirmed.
Are Effective Teachers Like Good Parents? Teaching Styles and Student Adjustment in Early Adolescence
Authors: Wentzel Kathryn R.
Published: March 2003

This study examined the utility of parent socialization models for understanding teachers’ influence on student adjustment in middle school. Teachers were assessed with respect to their modeling of motivation and to Baumrind’s parenting dimensions of control, maturity demands, democratic communication, and nurturance. Student adjustment was defined in terms of their social and academic goals and interest in class, classroom behavior, and academic performance. Based on information from 452 sixth graders from two suburban middle schools, results of multiple regressions indicated that the five teaching dimensions explained significant amounts of variance in student motivation, social behavior, and achievement. High expectations (maturity demands) was a consistent positive predictor of students’ goals and interests, and negative feedback (lack of nurturance) was the most consistent negative predictor of academic performance and social behavior. The role of motivation in mediating relations between teaching dimensions and social behavior and academic achievement also was examined; evidence for mediation was not found. Relations of teaching dimensions to student outcomes were the same for African American and European American students, and for boys and girls. The implications of parent socialization models for understanding effective teaching are discussed.
The Perception of Static Subjective Contours in Infancy
Authors: Kavšsek Michael J.
Published: March 2003

Only a few empirical investigations have focused on infants’ ability to perceive static subjective contours. Furthermore, these experiments have provided contradictory findings regarding the age at which this capability emerges. The present study examined the development of infants’ sensitivity to an elliptical version of the subjective circle described by Ehrenstein. A habituation–dishabituation procedure was used to test the ability of 4‐, 5‐, and 7‐month‐old infants (N= 128) to differentiate between a subjective ellipse and a nonsubjective pattern that was constructed by displacing the inducing elements of the illusory figure. Results indicated that even the 4‐month‐olds were capable of discriminating between the subjective ellipse and the nonillusory display. A control experiment secured that this behavior was not generated by certain local differences between the test patterns. Furthermore, the results suggest that the perceived strength of the subjective contour was size dependent. This observation is discussed within the context of more recent neurophysiological models.
Sleep, Neurobehavioral Functioning, and Behavior Problems in School‐Age Children
Authors: Sadeh Avi , Gruber Reut , Raviv Amiram
Published: March 2003

The aim of this study was to examine the associations between sleep and neurobehavioral functioning (NBF) in school‐age children. These variables were assessed for 135 unreferred, healthy school children (69 boys and 66 girls), from second‐, fourth‐, and sixth‐grade classes. Objective assessment methods were used on the participants in their regular home settings. Sleep was monitored using actigraphy for 5 consecutive nights; and NBF was assessed using a computerized neurobehavioral evaluation system, administered twice, at different times of the day. Significant correlations between sleep‐quality measures and NBF measures were found, particularly in the younger age group. Children with fragmented sleep were characterized by lower performance on NBF measures, particularly those associated with more complex tasks such as a continuous performance test and a symbol‐digit substitution test. These children also had higher rates of behavior problems as reported by their parents on the Child Behavior Checklist. These results highlight the association between sleep quality, NBF, and behavior regulation in child development; and raise important questions about the origins of these associations and their developmental and clinical significance.
Adoption Losses: Naturally Occurring or Socially Constructed?
Authors: Leon Irving G.
Published: March 2003

The American definition of kinship based on biological ties, the practice of closed adoption, and stigmas associated with adoption may decisively influence adoption‐related losses. Cross‐cultural and historical accounts of adoption that do not apply to these contemporary American constructs of parenthood and practices of adoption suggest outcomes that are not as integrally based on loss. Adoption in infancy is defined as parenting a child with one set of (adoptive) parents and two (adoptive and birth) families. Implications for adoption research, policy, and practice are discussed.
Signposts to Development: Theory of Mind in Deaf Children
Authors: Woolfe Tyron , Want Stephen C. , Siegal Michael
Published: March 2003

Possession of a “theory of mind” (ToM)—as demonstrated by an understanding of the false beliefs of others—is fundamental in children's cognitive development. A key question for debate concerns the effect of language input on ToM. In this respect, comparisons of deaf native‐signing children who are raised by deaf signing parents with deaf late‐signing children who are raised by hearing parents provide a critical test. This article reports on two studies (N= 100 and N= 39) using “thought picture” measures of ToM that minimize verbal task‐performance requirements. These studies demonstrated that even when factors such as syntax ability, mental age in spatial ability, and executive functioning were considered, deaf late signers still showed deficits in ToM understanding relative to deaf native signers or hearing controls. Even though the native signers were significantly younger than a sample of late signers matched for spatial mental age and scores on a test of receptive sign language ability, native signers outperformed late signers on pictorial ToM tasks. The results are discussed in terms of access to conversation and extralinguistic influences on development such as the presence of sibling relationships, and suggest that the expression of a ToM is the end result of social understanding mediated by early conversational experience.
Delay‐Induced Bias in Children's Memory for Location
Authors: Hund Alycia M. , Plumert Jodie M.
Published: March 2003

Two experiments examined how imposing a delay between learning and reproducing locations influences children's memory for location. In Experiment 1, ninety‐six 7‐, 9‐, and 11‐year‐old children and adults learned the locations of 20 objects in an open, square box divided into four regions by opaque walls. During test, participants attempted to place the objects in the correct locations without the aid of the dots that had marked the locations or the boundaries that had divided the space. The test phase began either immediately following learning or following a 12‐min delay. As predicted by the Category‐Adjustment model, bias toward category centers increased significantly following an intervening delay. Moreover, the magnitude of categorical bias followed a systematic U‐shaped developmental pattern. Results from a second study (N= 72) replicated this developmental pattern. Discussion focuses on the implications of these results for understanding how children and adults remember locations.