This longitudinal study investigated sex and age differences and the short- and long-term effects of low-income mothers' talk to their children. Twenty-four girls and twenty-four boys were audiotaped playing with magnets with their mothers at the ages of 5 and 9 years. When children were in sixth grade, they completed a test of reading…

This study examined longitudinal associations between child temperament (fearfulness, irritability, positive emotionality, self-regulation) and parenting (acceptance, involvement, inconsistent discipline) in predicting children's internalizing and externalizing problems using a community sample (N = 92) of children (ages 8-11) and their mothers.…

The association of mothers' report of family management practices (e.g., family routine and parental achievement expectations) with school achievement, school engagement, and problem behavior was assessed among African American mothers and adolescents. Findings revealed that family routine was positively associated with school achievement and…

Sociometric status classifications of 205 youths (average age 11.3 years) were assessed on three occasions with 1-year intervals, using the current nomination methods and a two-dimensional rating-based procedure (SSrat). The goal of the study was to compare the stability of the methods involved. Preliminarily, it is shown that (a) the data allowed…

This exploratory study used structured tasks as direct measures of approaches to learning to examine a potentially important domain of school readiness that is comprised of the multiple ways children engage in learning situations. A structured task designed to measure problem-solving flexibility was found to relate to a subset of a teacher rating…

The current study examined the relationships among authoritative parenting, parental scaffolding of long-division math problems, and children's academic competence. In a sample of 70 two-parent middle class families participating in a longitudinal study on the transition to school, authoritative parenting was assessed globally at the beginning of…

A national, multi-site study of behavioral health services integration developed a parent-child interaction assessment tool and culturally anchored videotape protocol. Representatives from programs serving Chinese, Native American, Latin-American, African-American, and Anglo-American families discussed cross-cultural issues in parenting and…

This longitudinal study assessed the emergence of gender differences in over 300 children's academic competency beliefs from kindergarten or first grade through fifth grade. Children, their parents and their teachers rated the children's competencies in math and literacy and their math and literacy skills were also assessed directly. Beginning in…

Dialogic reading is an evidence-based intervention to promote the language skills of 2- and 3-year-old children. This study examined conditions under which dialogic reading could be implemented in a community setting. Three methods of instruction were compared: (a) in-person with video instruction in small groups, (b) self-instruction by video…

In attempts to make assessments less threatening, children are sometimes asked to respond to questions about another child rather than about themselves. Little is known about how this manipulation of response format (self versus other) might influence children's responses. This study compared responses of 58 younger (5-7 years) and 68 older (8-11…

This study examined the social-cognitive and behavioral attributes of children who are concurrently aggressive and victimized by their peers. The characteristics of these ''aggressive victims'' were examined in comparison to bullies, passive victims, and normative comparison children. The sample included 240 urban Los Angeles elementary school…

Many injuries occur to school-age children when they are allowed independence in decisions about risk taking during play. The present study examined the influence of child attributes (sensation seeking, typical emotional responses in risk situations) and social-situational context (peer presence) on risk taking. Children in the Experimental Group…

Substantial evidence suggests that young children reason about illnesses using biological causal principles and that, with increasing age, children provide more explicit accounts of mechanisms underlying different conditions. To investigate these claims, sixteen 7-8 year-old children and sixteen 11-12 year-old children with attention…

This study investigated whether shared parent-infant book reading at 4 and 8 months would be associated with subsequent language abilities at 12 and 16 months. Parents of 87 typically developing middle-class infants reported on the presence or absence of shared reading in the home; infant language abilities were measured through laboratory…

This study examined the relationship between early maternal knowledge of child development and later quality of parenting behaviors. Differences by race/ethnic group were also examined. Mother-infant dyads (N=378) participated in the study. Mothers completed the Knowledge of Infant Development Inventory (KIDI) when the infant was 2-4 months, and…