Factors affecting performance on base-10 tasks were investigated in a series of four studies with a total of 453 children aged 5-7 years. Training in counting-on was found to enhance child performance on base-10 tasks (Studies 2, 3, and 4), while prior knowledge of counting-on (Study 1), trading (Studies 1 and 3), and partitioning (Studies 1 and…

Although prior research clearly shows that toddlers have difficulty learning from video, the basis for their difficulty is unknown. In the 2 current experiments, the effect of social feedback on 2-year-olds' use of information from video was assessed. Children who were told "face to face" where to find a hidden toy typically found it, but children…

In Study 1, English-speaking 3- and 4-year-olds heard a novel adjective used to label one of two objects and were asked for the referent of a different novel adjective. Children were more likely to select the unlabeled object if the two adjectives appeared prenominally (e.g., "a very DAXY dog") than as predicates (e.g., "a dog that is very DAXY").…

Marital conflict was examined as a predictor of the quality and quantity of sleep in a sample of healthy 8 to 9 year-olds. Parents and children reported on marital conflict, the quantity and quality of children's sleep were examined through an actigraph worn for 7 consecutive nights, and child sleepiness was derived from child and mother reports.…

This study demonstrated separate linkages between 2 features of positive parenting responsiveness to distress and warmth and different aspects of children's socio-emotional functioning, in a sample of 106 children (6-8 years old). As expected, mothers' and fathers' responsiveness to distress, but not warmth, predicted better negative affect…

Recent longitudinal data suggest that retrospectively defined earned-secures are not more likely than continuous-secures to have been anxiously attached to their mothers in infancy and indeed experience high-quality maternal parenting in childhood. Such findings leave unanswered the question of why earned-secures report negative childhood…

Previous studies have reported, but not explained, the reason for a robust association between reading achievement and antisocial behavior. This association was investigated using the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study, a nationally representative 1994-1995 birth cohort of 5 and 7 year-olds. Results showed that the association…

Walkers fall frequently, especially during infancy. Children (15, 21, 27, 33, and 39 month-olds) and adults were tested in a novel foam pit paradigm to examine age-related changes in the relationship between falling and prospective control of locomotion. In trial 1, participants walked and fell into a deformable foam pit marked with distinct…

This study investigates associations between social skills (aggression and prosocial behavior) and literacy achievement in a sample of low-income children (between 4 and 6 years old when the study began) during elementary school. Results revealed consistent associations between social skills and literacy achievement in the first, third, and fifth…

The effects of appetitive controllability on behavioral and cortisol reactivity to novelty in 12 infant rhesus monkeys were studied. Surrogate-peer-reared infants had homecage access to food treats contingently via lever pressing ("master") or noncontingently ("yoked") for 12 weeks from postnatal month 2. Masters lever-pressed more, but did not…

Advancing the process-oriented study of links between interparental discord and child adjustment, 2 multimethod prospective tests of emotional security as an explanatory mechanism are reported. On the basis of community samples, with waves spaced 2 years apart, Study 1 (113 boys and 113 girls, ages 9-18) identified emotional security as a mediator…

Three studies (N=144) investigated how toddlers aged 18 and 24 months pass the surprise-mark test of self-recognition. In Study 1, toddlers were surreptitiously marked in successive conditions on their legs and faces with stickers visible only in a mirror. Rates of sticker touching did not differ significantly between conditions. In Study 2,…

This study documents the development of symbolic, spatial, and temporal displacement of toddler's speech. Fifty-six children and their mothers were observed longitudinally 5 times from 18 to 30 months of age during a staged communication play while they engaged in scenes that encouraged interacting, requesting, and commenting and scenes that…

Beliefs about parents' legitimate authority and adolescents' obligations to disclose to parents and actual disclosure and secrecy in different domains were examined in 276 ethnically diverse, lower middle-class 9th and 12th graders (Ms= 14.62 and 17.40 years) and their parents (n=249). Adolescents were seen as more obligated to disclose prudential…

This multi-method study sought to identify parameters of developmental change and stability of child reaction patterns to interparental conflict in the context of family relations in a sample of 223 6-year-old children and their parents followed over the course of one year. Consistent with the sensitization hypothesis, interparental withdrawal and…