Observed gesture and speech to investigate patterns of change in third and fourth graders' strategies for solving mathematical equivalence problems before and after an intervention. Children who received instruction were more likely to generate new strategies. Gradual change was more common. Abrupt strategy change was more common in children who…

Examined effect of age and conceptions of ability on information seeking, performance, and motivation among middle graders. Found that students who had acquired the concept of ability responded to the task condition with strivings to learn and requests for information relevant to acquiring mastery, and to the ego condition with strivings to…

Tested 3- to 7-year-olds' ability to calculate with whole numbers, fractions, and mixed-numbers, in a task in which an amount was displayed, then hidden. Subjects were to determine the hidden amount resulting when numbers were added or substracted. Found that, although fraction problems were more difficult than whole-number problems, competence on…

Evaluated gender differences in infant and maternal emotional expressivity and regulation with 6-month-old infants and their mothers, using Tronick's face-to-face still-face model. Found that maternal affect, matching, rate of change between matching and mismatching states, and synchrony in the play preceding the still face differentially mediated…

Examined the developmental courses of temperamental constructs using structural equation model fitting with children from 3 to 48 months of age. Found that across all measurement occasions, models that fit best were those that allowed for stability in temperament to be at least partially mediated through intermediate forms of the trait. (JPB)

Examined development of inhibitory control using a stop-signal procedure with subjects ages 6 to 81 years. Found that the speed of stopping becomes faster with increasing age throughout childhood, with limited evidence of slowing across adulthood. The go-signal reaction time clearly increased through childhood and slowed markedly through…

Assessed behavior and emotion regulation strategies of developmentally delayed and nondelayed young boys. Compared to nondelayed children, delayed children were equally able to understand others' play themes but were more intrusive in their entry attempts; appeared to have less effective emotion regulation strategies for coping with entry failure;…

Assessed mother-infant face-to-face play and infant difficult temperament at 3 and 9 months; assessed self-control, verbal IQ, and maternal warm discipline at 2 years. Found that maternal synchrony with infant affect at 3 months and mutual synchrony at 9 months were related to self-control at 2 years when temperament, IQ, and maternal style were…

Examined the prevalence of depressive mood in 12,000 Norwegian adolescents, ages 12-20. Found that from age 14 on, girls scored above boys in depressed mood, though no gender difference was found at age 12. The difference was partially explained by increased developmental challenges for girls, including puberty, weight and body dissatisfaction,…

Examined the relationship between housing status and depression, anxiety, and problem behaviors among elementary school-aged children from low-income, single-parent, female-headed families. Found that mother-reported problem behaviors were above normal levels for both homeless and poor, housed youths, but self-reported depression and anxiety were…

Assessed relationship between family instability and problem behaviors at ages 5 and 7 years. Found direct, concurrent relations between family instability and preschool children's externalizing behavior in the context of other family process variables, relations between subsequent family instability and first-grade children's internalizing…

Compared judgments of maltreated and nonmaltreated preschoolers regarding moral transgressions. Found that all children evaluated moral transgressions as very serious, punishable, and wrong in the absence of rules. Moral judgments and justifications differed as a function of context and type of transgression but not maltreatment status. Affective…

Compared arousal during peekaboo game of low birthweight infants with higher or lower perinatal risk to that of healthy full-term infants. Found that low birthweight babies showed less positive arousal, more negative arousal, and three mixtures of behavioral cues than full-term babies, who showed strong positive and negative responses. Perinatal…

Investigated developmental change in duration of auditory sensory memory for tonal frequency by measuring mismatch negativity, an electrophysiological component of the auditory event-related potential that is relatively insensitive to attention and does not require a behavioral response. Findings among children and adults suggest that there are…

Two studies investigated how 5- to 10-year-olds integrate perceptual causality with their knowledge of the underlying causal mechanism, using two devices in which a bell would ring when a ball was dropped in, either immediately or after a delay, depending on the mechanism inside. Findings suggest a link between temporal contiguity and causality in…