Subjects were six normal infants whose kicks were or were not reinforced. Examines how the temporal structure of kicking changed when infants learned a mobile task. Quantifies amplitude changes in spontaneous kicks versus those used operantly, and investigates whether reinforcement makes kicking more "efficient" through reducing extraneous…

Evaluates the growth of social-cognitive knowledge in deaf and hearing children during the early- and middle-school years and assesses the relative importance of language in two domains of social cognition. In addition, separately examines the child's ability to evaluate the concepts of good and bad and to take another person's perspective. (RH)

Investigates children's knowledge of the role of message quality in referential communication and their ability to evaluate the accuracy of a listener's feedback about his/her comprehension. Children evaluated a puppet listener's comprehension after they had given complete or inadequate directions and received his report that he did or did not…

Adults and children three, four, five, and six years of age were asked to complete statements by choosing a word from the following word pair alternatives: metaphorical/literal, literal/anomalous, and metaphorical/anomalous. A categorization task was used to determine how subjects viewed relationships among items. (Author/RH)

Results from one experiment indicated that the temporal pattern and spectral complexity of moderately intense auditory stimuli influenced cardiac responses in 24 alert newborns. A second study extended the temporal-pattern effect to other vowel stimuli in a no-delay discrimination paradigm. (Author/RH)

Attempts to determine whether the stimulus dimension to which infants respond is different in fixed-trial and infant-control methodologies. Infants 10 weeks of age were shown four facelike patterns differing along two dimensions: number of elements and extent to which elements were organized to resemble the human face. (Author/RH)

Investigated whether, in a sample of 30 infants, anger could reliably be observed in facial expressions as early as seven months of age. Also considered was the influence of several variables on anger responses: infants' familiarity with the frustrator, repetition of trials, and sex of the child. (Author/RH)

To investigate the nature of young infants' social competence, the effect of depressed maternal expression during face-to-face interaction was examined. An experimental analogue of maternal depression was employed. Subjects were 12 female and 12 male infants, ages 96 to 110 days, and their mothers. (Author/RH)

Findings support the general hypothesis that the nature of parent/infant interaction and infant development assessed at 12 months is anticipated by a complex pattern of variables, beginning with the parents' characteristics before the birth of their first child and extending via parent/infant and infant behavior throughout the first year of life.…

A total of 52 pairs of mothers and premature infants and 53 pairs of mothers and full-term infants participated in structured home interviews at one month and observations of behavioral interactions at four months. Although no group differences were found, both stress and support significantly predicted maternal attitudes at one month and…

Investigated relationships among socioeconomic status, family constellation, parental practices, and preschool-age children's awareness of and rationales for rules and conventions. Children's knowledge of rules and conventions was related to social class variables. Parental behaviors were found to be better predictors of the level of children's…

Differences were found between father/son and father/daughter dyads in such behaviors as father prohibitions, child mischievousness, mutual proximity, toy exchange, and child toy play. A total of 107 father/child dyads involving year-old children were observed. (Author/RH)

A total of 24 middle-class mothers and their two-and-a-half-year old children were observed on two occasions. Mothers were found to employ two types of control techniques: immediate contingent response to the child's undesired behavior and intentional direction of the child's attention without prior elicitation by the child. (Author/RH)

The ethological hypothesis that "parental" caregiving can be elicited by certain physical characteristics of infants was investigated in three experiments. Results demonstrated that age-related changes in physical appearance can alter the verbally reported tendency to protect or cuddle others. (Author/RH)

Examines 16 major community surveys designed to measure prevalence of childhood emotional and behavioral conditions, discussing definitions of deviance, instruments, and methodologies used, as well as potential correlates of disorders studied. Suggests directions for research. (Author/MP)