Infant novelty scores correlated significantly with measures of cognitive outcome beginning at 24 months of age and continuing at 34, 40, and 72 months of age. Parental education was strongly correlated with cognitive outcome beginning at about two years of age. (RH)

Measures of prenatal exposure in 123 infants to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), cord serum PCB level, and maternal report of contaminated fish consumption predicted less preference for a novel stimulus on Fagan's test of visual recognition memory (VRM) at 7 months. Preference for novelty decreased in a dose-dependent fashion and postnatal…

A total of 114 infants at three age levels (11, 18, and 28 weeks) were rated by their mothers on a termperament questionnaire and subjected to a habituation procedure. Results suggest that subject loss in habituation studies may be the result of nonrandom individual difference factors and not just the result of temporary fluctuations in state.…

Twenty-five infants were tested every two weeks on the AB Object Permanence Task, from the time they first reached for a hidden object until they were 12 months old. Results indicate that the AB provides an index of the ability to carry out an intention based on stored information despite a conflicting habitual tendency. (Author/RH)

That a mother's affective illness may interfere with her ability to relate to her child in ways that promote a secure attachment is documented in these data. Depression decreased the likelihood of secure attachment between mother and child. Children of unipolar and bipolar depressed mothers had different patterns of attachment. (RH)

When maternal communication with two-and-one-half- to three-and-one-half-year-old children was analyzed, significant differences between mothers' speech to daughters and sons were found. Males consistently received more verbal stimulation of the type thought to facilitate cognitive development. Differential treatment of girls and boys was lessened…

Among 278 inner-city men studied for four decades and over three generations, eight variables captured 28 percent of the explained variance in upward social mobility: IQ, mother's education, mother's occupation, boyhood ego strength, and four ego defense mechanisms--intellectualization, dissociation, sublimation, and anticipation.…

Preschoolers did use certain aspects of the "child-directed speech" register: they addressed their infant siblings with a high pitch, with relatively short utterances, and with many directives and self-repetitions. However, linguistic interactions of preschool-age siblings and infants were different from those of mothers and infants in several…

Capacity to react to the cost of a request in relation to interlocutor's behavior is acquired early; ability to maintain good interactions by increasing the politeness of a request occurs later. Only from 9 years on do children use linguistic politeness as a criterion in judging a request's appropriateness according to addressee's status. (RH)

Strategies young children used to correct errors in nesting seriated cups changed substantially with age, becoming increasingly more flexible and involving more extensive restructuring of the relationships among the cups. The same trend toward increasing flexibility of thought and action also appeared in procedures children used to combine the…

Move sequence analysis revealed that, when presented with problems having subgoals difficult to order, 40 preschoolers between 45 and 70 months of age (1) tended to avoid backup; (2) were sensitive to incremental progress toward a goal; and (3) searched moves ahead for a goal. None of several indices of performance were reliably correlated with…

When 60 five-year-old and 48 10-year-old children heard three stories, each containing three target objects from each of three taxonomic categories, younger children received greater benefit than older children from strongly scripted story presentations and from constrained category-cue and script-cue retrieval conditions. Cues and the extent to…

Despite assertions to the contrary, preschool children are capable of understanding cinematic events conveyed through camera techniques and film editing. This ability nevertheless substantially increases with age among children from four- to seven-years-old. (Author/RH)

Western and Chinese children six years of age judged that an initially intense positive or negative emotional reaction would wane gradually over time. Children four years of age were less consistent, but, when steps were taken to insure their comprehension, they too judged that emotion wanes gradually over time. (Author/RH)

Acquisition of sentient-nonsentient distinction in 48 children between four- and seven-years-of-age occurred later than animate-inanimate distinction. The children's use of naturalistic or nonnaturalistic explanations depended on the logical nature of events in which objects were involved rather than familiarity with objects themselves. Ability to…