In families with two working parents, fathers make important contributions to children's early language skills. Results from a new study by FPG Child Development Institute show that children whose fathers' vocabulary was more varied when they were two, had greater language skills at age three. Mother's vocabulary was not found to have a…

In a significant work, "Metaphor in educational discourse", Cameron has suggested that we study metaphor as "prosaics" (i.e. as a feature of mundane talk). In this paper, by means of some brief examples, we point to instances of such talk in the setting of preschool. We also discuss opportunities for learning that such talk could offer children,…

More children than ever are in care centers, and child care experiences of infants and toddlers are believed to have a powerful and lasting impact on children's well-being. A team of researchers from the FPG Child Development Institute created a study to examine the effects that transitions have on children's behavior and observable stress when…

The objective of this research was learning about the chosen aspects of self-knowledge in 8-year-old children, evoked through self-presentation of the public and private self. The issues considered dealt with particular, significant features of "personal narrative" analysed through both the content and the form of the self-presentation utterance.…

Individual differences in temperament and personality influence children's development of self-regulation, social relationships, and adaptation within varied contexts. For young children with disabilities and/or family poverty, early school experiences provide both significant challenges and opportunities. In this study, teachers rated the…

Eleven years ago, FPG Child Development Institute (FPG) launched a longitudinal study of a little known form of mental retardation known as fragile X syndrome (FXS). The Carolina Fragile X Project has since grown into a multidisciplinary team studying diverse aspects of the condition, ranging from early identification to school performance. The…

Methodological implications of a person-oriented, holistic-interactionistic perspective in research on individual development are outlined, desirable properties of a mathematical model of a phenomenon are discussed, and selected methods for carrying out person-oriented research are briefly overviewed. These methods are: (1) the classificatory…

This chapter discusses the "person approach" to studying developmental processes by focusing on the distinction and complementarity between this holistic-interactionistic framework and what has become designated as the variable approach. Particular attention is given to measurement models for use in the person approach. The discussion on the…

Temperament and attachment, as defined by Bowlby and his followers, are fundamentally different constructs, and research guided by the attachment perspective cannot meaningfully be assimilated to the temperament construct. Qualitative aspects of relationships simply cannot be reduced to individual behavioral dimensions. (RH)

Quantifies behavioral periodicities or cycles during face-to-face interaction between three- and five-year-old term and preterm infants and their mothers. Compares the temporal organization of social interaction between term and preterm infants. Spectral and cross-spectral techniques showed the existence of periodicities. Differences were found…

Addresses the utility of a noninvasive measure of cardiac vagal tone in predicting developmental outcome among infants at risk for cognitive disabilities. Results suggest that measurement of cardiac vagal tone may provide an important means for assessing risk in birth-stressed populations. (Author/RH)

Activity of 50 children whose motility had been monitored by an electronic activity monitor when they were neonates was again monitored by an ambulatory microcomputer when they were four to eight years old. Results are consistent with evidence from several longitudinal studies suggesting that individual activity characteristics tend to persist…

Results of two experiments indicate that dimensions of the social situation in which social behaviors are modeled influence eight-month-old children's tendency to imitate and their choice of recipients for their imitation. (Author/RH)

Examined seven-month-old infants' perceptions of happy and fearful facial expressions. Infants could generalize discrimination of expressions across male and female faces if first familiarized with happy faces. Infants tended to look longer at fear faces than at happy faces. Preferential responding was not specific to any individual face.…

A laboratory procedure was developed for assessing imitation in the second year of life. Results demonstrate that 14- and 24-month-olds can imitate a simple action with an unfamiliar object, both immediately and after a 24-hour delay. Implications for research design and theory of infant memory are discussed. (RH)