Investigates the prediction of children's (1) academic achievement on the basis of cognitive tasks given prior to kindergarten, and (2) academic attitudes on the basis of teachers' and mothers' ratings of the children's general cognitive abilities and actual achievement through grades 1, 2, 3, 5, and 10. (HOD)

Investigated perceptions of social support of 249 children of 6-12 years. Data indicated that subjective impressions about social support can be measured with reliability and validity and that children understand and care about the quality and differentiation of support. (RJC)

Examined behavioral, cognitive, and demographic factors associated with early school dropout in 475 seventh graders. Clusters of students most vulnerable to early school dropout were characterized by high levels of aggressiveness and low levels of academic performance. (RJC)

Examined factors that influence children's competence in mathematics when they begin first grade. Results indicated that parent education, family economic resources, and parent expectations influenced children's competence. Race and family structure, when considered apart from other variables, were not significant influences. (PCB)

Performance of U.S. first and fifth graders was consistently inferior to that of Chinese children on both problems requiring computation and problems requiring application of knowledge about mathematics. The poor performance of U.S. students appeared to be attributable to low motivation of students, low standards of parents, and low interest of…

Considered the relation between peer status and aggressive behavior, the temporal relation between peer group behavior and emerging sociometric status, differences in behavioral correlates of peer status as a function of time that peers have known each other, and age differences in the consistency of status across settings and in behavior patterns…

Predictive links between social difficulties in early childhood and problems in middle childhood were examined. Peer, teacher, and self-assessments of behaviors and difficulties were obtained. Early peer rejection and aggression predicted later externalizing difficulties. Early poor peer acceptance, social isolation, and social incompetence…

Reports on three experiments showing the crucial importance of the "half boundary" in children's proportional judgments. Concludes that the concept of "half" plays a crucial role in children's early proportional reasoning and that the half boundary is similar to, though not as powerful as, the category boundaries discovered in speech perception.…

Studied the relationship between academic performance and socially responsible behavior, sociometric status, goal setting, interpersonal trust, and problem solving in a sample of 423 sixth and seventh graders. Found that each aspect of social competence was related to students' grades. (BC)

In a study of 452 kindergartners and first graders, it was found that young children understand the concept of loneliness and can make reliable reports of their loneliness. Results indicated that it was possible to reliably assess the loneliness of young children. (GLR)

Hispanic first graders who spoke only Spanish at home (OSH) and those who spoke English and Spanish at home (ESH) performed near the mean on a Spanish adaptation of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-R). The ESH children scored higher than OSH children on the PPVT-R. (BC)

Using an experimental design that avoided some methodological difficulties of earlier studies, this study found a relationship between harsh parental discipline and kindergarten children's aggression. This relationship was apparently not a result of confounding factors such as child temperament, SES, and marital violence. (BC)

Examined the empirical validity of a model of human motivation as it applies to school success and failure, assessing how indicators of context, self, and action related to measures of risk and resiliency. Subjects were 10- to 16-year-old African American youth in 3 independent samples. Found that parental engagement predicted school performance…

Examined processes in socialization that might account for an observed relationship between early socioeconomic status (SES) and later child behavior problems. Subjects were 585 children, followed from preschool to grade 3. Found that SES in preschool significantly predicted teacher-rated externalizing problems and peer-rated aggressive behavior.…

Comments on the ideas presented by Entwisle and Astone in this issue. Suggests that to produce sound measurements of children's socioeconomic background requires a substantial investment in coding, data collection, and management. Nevertheless, a standard set of racial-ethnic and socioeconomic variables, no matter how well measured, cannot serve…