Used event-related potentials to determine whether infants show differences in spatial and temporal characteristics of brain activation during face and object recognition. Found that infants' experience with specific examples within categories and their general category knowledge influenced the neural correlates of visual processing. (Author/KB)

Investigated the etiology of several measures of cognitive delay in over 3,000 pairs of 2-year-old twins, focusing on group-differences heritability for general and specific cognitive delays. Concluded that because the genetic and environmental origins of verbal and performance delays in infancy differ, they are better considered separately rather…

Evaluated gesture and speech in congenitally blind and sighted 9- to 17-year olds to assess hypothesized variations in representations of spatial tasks. Found that a majority of blind children gestured only in the small-scale path-description task. Absence of gesture among blind participants was related to "segmenting strategy" in speech rarely…

Examined developmental changes in time estimation among 5- to 99-year olds. Found that older adults and young children performed at lower levels than young adults; identified qualitative differences in error patterns of older adults and children. Proposed model of temporal generalization and bisection assuming developmental changes in noisiness of…

Recorded home television viewing of 2-, 5-, 8-, 12-year olds, and adults on time-lapse videotapes over 10-day period. Found that cuts, movement, and overt purposeful character behavior were positively related to viewer's looking behavior, independent of child versus adult programming. Associations with looking behavior for other features depended…

Investigated second- through sixth-grade children's word-reading skills by testing their processing of nonword primes. Determined that good readers showed more orthographic priming than poor readers at more times, and more pseudo-homophone priming at short durations. Determined that the quick, automatic and general activation of this priming…

Assessed the relative benefits of three styles of adult book reading for preschoolers' emergent literacy. Measured children's receptive vocabulary, print, and story comprehension skills after exposure to one style. Found that the describer style resulted in the greatest benefits for children's vocabulary and print skills; a performance-oriented…

Investigated toddlers' acquisition and use of nonsense verbs in passive and active voice. Children used various strategies to answer questions designed to elicit voice changes but did not usually change verb construction. When passive and active constructions were primed, older children were able to use an active-introduced verb in passive…

Investigated whether the content of infant speech productions is better characterized as preserving stressed and final syllables or as preserving a trochaic pattern; used a detailed longitudinal description of one child's syllable omission. Found that the trochaic template hypothesis was not supported by these early productions. (Author/JPB)

This study investigated novel word acquisition by 18- and 24-month-old children in the context of adult referential behavior independent of variations in salience. Findings suggest that 24-month olds use referential intent of the speaker to learn new words, but when learning, they may have a less secure grasp on the meaning of speakers'…

Examined whether fourth- and fifth-grade children's social goals and strategies in friendship conflict situations are predictive of their friendship adjustment, after accounting for level of peer acceptance. Found that children's goals were highly related to their strategies and that children's goals and strategies were predictive of their…

Observed functioning of same-sex triads of middle grade children during an intimate discussion, a cooperative puzzle task, a competitive game, and free play. Found that triads of girls were more intimate, exchanged more information, and were less aggressive than triads of boys. Girls and boys expressed similar attitudes toward triadic interaction,…

Examined role of friendship aspects in moderating behavioral antecedents and outcomes of peer victimization among fourth and fifth graders. Teacher-reported internalizing and externalizing behaviors predicted increases in peer-reported victimization; relation of internalizing behaviors to increases in victimization was attenuated for children with…

Examined elementary school children's memories for faces of preschool classmates after a three-year interval. Found that children recognized their classmates at an above-chance level but significantly below that of the preschool teachers. The classmate advantage on the face-matching task decreased across the three-year interval. Findings suggest…

Five studies investigated preschoolers' understanding of the biological germ theory of illness compared to that of 6- or 10- to 11-year-olds. Found that the younger the child, the less likely he or she was to judge germs as causes of illness. Studies undermined claim that preschoolers understand germs to be uniquely biological causal agents. (JPB)