Examined family relationships and adjustment of two adolescent siblings in non-stepfamilies and in stabilized simple and complex stepfamilies. Found that complex stepfamilies were more different from non-stepfamilies than simple stepfamilies in which all children were fully biologically related siblings from mothers' previous marriage. Adolescents…

Discusses five areas concerning Heatherington et al.'s study: nature and nurture issues; deviance versus normative behavior in stepfamilies; context and meaning in different types of families; intersecting developmental trajectories; and gender differences. (JPB)

Comments on Skinner, Zimmer-Gembeck and Connell's study (PS 528 522) which investigated the relationship between elementary school students' beliefs-performance cycles and their perceived control and classroom engagement. Notes methodological and theoretical issues and controversial issues raised by the study. Discusses the links to other…

Two longitudinal studies examined social-cognitive skill emergence in 9- to 15-month olds, mother-infant interaction regarding joint attentional engagement, and infant's communicative competence. Findings indicated a reliable pattern of social-cognitive skill emergence and that amount of time spent in joint engagement with mothers and mothers' use…

Proposes an amended timetable for the origins of joint visual attention and offers theoretical alternatives for the development of point. Includes discussions of the origins of intentionality, the emergence of joint attention, the transition to pointing comprehension, the signal cues of different joint-attention cues, pointing comprehension, the…

Maintains that Carpenter, Nagell, and Tomasello's (1998) data reveal little definitive information on cognitive processes involved in infants' social interactive behaviors. Evaluates support for Carpenter et al.'s claims for infant social cognition and discusses the nature of infant cognition. Maintains that what is needed is experimental evidence…

Explored how mothers convey information about category structure during naturalistic interactions. Videotaped reading-aloud sessions between mothers and toddlers; coded their interactions for explicit and implicit discussion of animal and artifact categories. Found that mothers provided a rich array of information beyond simple labeling routines,…

Comments on the findings of study of maternal input into children's category knowledge in this monograph. Discusses such aspects of maternal input as the child's role in guiding the parent's language, conceptual development, ways of imparting information about category types, parental speech patterns and how they help children learn optimally, and…

Examined age differences in the operation of beliefs-performance cycles and the effects of these cycles on the development of children's perceived control and classroom engagement from the third to the seventh grade. Found that children who experienced teachers as warm and contingent were more likely to develop optimal profiles of control. Beliefs…

Examined data from 408 pairs of identical, same-sex fraternal twins at 14, 20, and 24 months to assess cognitive development and to identify genetic and environmental influences on phenotypic similarity. Found various patterns of development for separate constructs, for females versus males on each construct, and for individuals across constructs.…

Notes two faulty aspects of the Reznick et al., twin study (PS 526 688): the expressive language measure at 14 months, which has practically no spread of item difficulty, as well as measures included to assess specific cognitive characteristics; and the notion of infant transition as it affects interpretation of the results. (HTH)

Used Visual Expectation Paradigm to describe information processing changes and individual differences during first year of life. Found regular age changes in mean reaction time and variability but not in minimum reaction time, suggesting that growth rate of sensory-detection information is constant during first year but age changes occur in level…

Examines the meaning of reaction time (RT) and the possibility that it may predict other cognitive and motor skills in the first year of life. Considers two competing models that specify the information-processing components underlying RT performance. Describes the neural data needed to definitively choose between the models and considers…

Speculates on underlying processes for the reaction time variance and age differences in anticipation latency using the Visual Expectation Paradigm. Discusses the dichotomization of reactive and anticipatory behavior, limitations of longitudinal designs, drawbacks in using standard procedures and materials, and inferences that can be made…

Examined how infants acquire adaptive locomotion in the novel task of going up and down slopes. Found that infants' judgments became increasingly accurate and exploration became increasingly efficient, with no transfer over the transition from crawling to walking. Infants learned to gauge their abilities on-line as they encountered each hill at…