Data from 122 Head Start children were analyzed to examine the impact of computer use on school readiness and psychomotor skills. Children in the experimental group were given the opportunity to work on a computer for 15-20 minutes per day with their choice of developmentally appropriate educational software, while the control group received a…

The deleterious effects of early substance use have been well documented. Past research has produced mixed results regarding the extent to which the profile of risk differs for urban African American and suburban Caucasian youth. Sixth graders from urban (n = 420; 92% African American) and suburban (n = 391; 89% Caucasian) schools in metropolitan…

Community violence exposure (CVE), a critical urban problem, is associated with negative academic outcomes. Children who report feeling safe, however, may perform better than those who do not. The purpose of this study was to examine the relations among CVE, feelings of safety, and cognitive outcomes among 6- and 7-year-olds born to women…

This study examined personal, psychosocial, sociocultural, and environmental predictors in tobacco use for 1,671 Arab American adolescents. Cigarette smoking in the past 30 days was 6.9%. This increased from 1% at age 14 to 14% at age 18. Twenty-nine percent of the youths reported having ever smoked cigarettes. Experimentation with narghile was…

A personal account of a program of research on homelessness and poverty spanning the past 20 years is provided, with a focus on the many methodological, practical, and ethical difficulties encountered. Interesting discoveries and enjoyable aspects of the research process are also presented. Several role conflicts that arose for the researcher in…

This study compared the long-term predictive validity of person-centered personality types and variable-centered personality dimensions assessed between ages 4-6 years in a population sample of 154 children. Results indicated that the predictive power of both approaches was remarkably robust between age 17 and 22, and even increased in the case of…

Basic research can inform social policy in a number of ways. First, it can draw the attention of policy makers to problems. Second, it can deflect policy makers away from focusing on issues that are not really problems. Third, it can help policy makers understand whether or not factors are causally related to problems and the processes underlying…

In order to understand why some children are vulnerable to difficulties in their language development and their acquisition of reading skill, the Jyvaskyla Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia followed 200 Finnish children from birth to school age. Half of these children had a family history of reading problems and were considered at risk for dyslexia;…

This 4-year study of 698 young adolescents examined the covariates of early onset substance use from Grade 6 through Grade 9. The youth were randomly assigned to a family-centered Adolescent Transitions Program (ATP) condition. Variable-centered (zero-inflated Poisson growth model) and person-centered (latent growth mixture model) approaches were…

Sensitive and responsive caregiving is associated with better cognitive and language outcomes. Using the longitudinal data set from the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, this study asks how changes in the sensitivity of both mothers and caregivers from 6 months to 6…

A two-year longitudinal investigation examined adolescents' (N = 100 girls and 99 boys) perceptions of social support in relationships with mothers, close friends, and romantic partners from Grade 10 (ages 14-16) to Grade 12 (ages 16-18). Adolescents, mothers, and close friends also provided descriptions of the participants' global self-worth and…

Emotional availability (EA) is a prominent index of socioemotional adaptation in the parent-child dyad. Can basic psychometric properties of EA be looked at from both variable (scale) and person (cluster) points of view in individuals and in dyads? Is EA stable and continuous over a short period of time? This methodological study shows significant…

Researchers in the fields of cognitive and language development have made less use of large-scale longitudinal designs and of person-centered approaches to data analysis than have researchers in the fields of social and personality development. It is argued that differences among domains of developmental psychology in the research methods employed…

The goal of this study was to examine whether the security of the relationship between mothers and children influenced the relation between maternal emotional expressiveness and aspects of children's social development. Fifty-one preschool children (M age = 52.80 months) and their mothers took part in the study. At their homes, mothers completed…

The present commentary gives a brief overview of the person-oriented and variable-oriented approaches, how they are commonly used in longitudinal research, and what one should take into consideration before using either approach. In addition to presenting an empirical example on girls' adjustment problems using both approaches, this commentary…