Two studies with 80 5- and 8-year olds found that initial recognition tests elevated children's false-memory responses on delayed tests, and that false-memory creation exceeded true-memory inoculation in 5- and 8-year olds, producing net loss of accuracy over time. (MDM)

Two studies examined the memory of three- and four-year olds for identity of an object that they used in a previous episode of pretend play or that they observed someone else using. Found that more children correctly remembered the true than the pretend identity of the objects. (MDM)

Challenges Gentner's (1982) claim that nouns are universally predominant in children's early vocabularies, noting that when a conservative method of counting nouns was used, 9 out of 10 22-month-old monolingual Mandarin-speaking children produced more verbs or action words than nouns or object labels in their naturalistic speech. (MDM)

Two studies examined young children's ability to name the first letter of spoken words, finding that although children were good at telling that "beech" and "beaver" began with "b," some stated that "wife" began with "y" and that "seem" began with "c." These errors reflect the letter names at the beginnings of the spoken words. (MDM)

Examined how health and environmental risk affected mathematics and reading readiness among 867 5- and 6-year-old children from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Interaction analysis indicated that child morbidity was predictive of poor mathematics performance only for children from impoverished homes. (MDM)

Two studies documented and evaluated parental scaffolding of three- and four-year olds' spatial communication in direction-giving tasks. Found that both age groups benefited from directive prompts, but 3-year olds benefited less than 4-year olds from nondirective prompts. (MDM)

Seventy adolescent mother-child dyads were assessed longitudinally to determine relationships among prenatal maternal knowledge and attitudes about parenting before and after the birth of the child. Found that mothers who were more cognitively prepared for parenting had children who displayed better intellectual development and fewer behavior…

The potential impact of parenting on adult self-development was examined among 228 parents through the motivational construct of possible selves. Found that parents of infants were more likely to have hoped-for parenting selves than parents of preschoolers, while mothers in both groups were more likely to have feared parenting selves than were…

Examines the research of Morgan, Bonamo, and Travis (1995) to detect the effects of recasted error correction on children's emerging grammar. Notes that regression procedures used by Morgan and others could not discriminate between the data generated by models in which recasts totally determined grammatical learning, supplemented other learning,…

The failure of Bohannon, Padgett, Nelson, and Mark's (1996) time-series analysis to distinguish among varying models of recast function is shown to be attributable to confounding of parameters and idiosyncratic assumptions adopted in generating simulated data from these models. (MDM)

Examined whether parents' sexuality can influence the sexual orientation of their children. Subjects were 27 lesbian mothers with 39 children, and 27 heterosexual single mothers and their 39 children. Found that although children from lesbian families were more likely to explore same-sex relationships, the large majority of children who grew up in…

Examined the attachment status of infants in the home and laboratory by observing infant temperament and maternal parenting sensitivity, as well as parent reports of infant temperament. Subjects were 49 families and their infants. Results highlighted the need to consider other factors besides maternal sensitivity to explain the variability in the…

Examined factors contributing to individual differences in the educational attainment of African American young adults from families of low socioeconomic status. Subjects were 123 participants and their families. Found that characteristics of the participants at the time of school entry were predictive of the participants' achievement and…

Three experiments using "backward reasoning" found that: age differences occurred in predicting surprise relative to false belief; by age five or six, children claim that surprise occurs when gaining knowledge where one was previously ignorant or held a false belief; by age seven to nine, they understand that surprise will more likely result from…

Investigated beliefs about feeling the stares of an unseen other. Found that most adults and young children believed they could feel the unseen stares of another, and across age there were some increases in beliefs about the feeling. Participants believed that in order to feel stares, some cognitive maturity was required. (MOK)