While nature contact is increasingly recognized for its health benefits, its role in human development and learning remains insufficiently examined. The present meta-analysis aimed to investigate (a) the extent to which nature contact predicts social functioning, cognitive functioning, and academic performance, (b) whether these associations vary…

An integrative literature review was conducted according to Coopers' guidelines in order to critique and integrate issues over the convergence among imaginative/Waldorf pedagogy, social-emotional learning and media literacy mindfulness in Primary and Secondary education. A comprehensive analysis of theoretical and empirical articles between 2005…

The developmental literature has focused extensively on deficits in the expression and recognition of emotion in people with autism, and has reported on the use of interactive tools to address the problems of affect. The behavioral literature has offered interventions to teach children with autism to engage in appropriate affective displays, and…

In this article, the author synthesizes research from several disciplines to shed light on play's central role in healthy development. Gordon builds on research in attachment theory that correlates secure attachment in infancy with adult well-being to demonstrate how playfulness might be a lifelong outcome of secure attachment and a primary…

Identity development and separation-individuation in parent-child relationships are widely perceived as related tasks of psychosocial maturation. However, a dynamic, developmental perspective that explains how intra-personal change in identity evolves from transactions between parents and children is not sufficiently represented in the literature.…

The purpose of this paper is to present a review of literature on internationally adopted children in the U.S. that provides context, references for normal development, and describes traumatic stress with children. This gives counselors and other professionals who work with young children and families of international adoption a conceptual…

This review synthesizes recent research evidence regarding the parenting characteristics associated with families with children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). ADHD is a complex, heterogeneous disorder with a range of genetic and environmental factors that contribute to its behavioral expression and different developmental…

Presents a model of the development of desociocentering, decentering relative to the social group, which is based on Piagetian research and theory and Wernerian concepts. (Author/SS)

Two related studies were conducted in order to investigate whether psychosocial and moral development appeared to have been disrupted and arrested in veterans diagnosed as having posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Study 1 was devoted to developing a measure of late adolescence, early adulthood, and adulthood stages of psychosocial…

With or without the support of research, clinicians must make judgments concerning relations between different areas of psychological functioning. Recently, studies have been made of possible relations between different areas of mental activity, including logical and emotional conception and social, emotional, and perceptual functioning. Nannis…

A social development theory of self is introduced as a framework for developmental psychopathology. Built on some of Piaget's principles, the theory is taken into the social domain and used to define the movements of self and important others throughout life. (PCB)

Discusses whether the cognitive development of developmentally delayed autistic children is the same as that of younger, normal children or whether it differs in significant ways that have implications for clinical assessment and treatment. (PCB)

Issues in studying pubertal events are examined, including whether puberty is best characterized as a social construction or a physical event, whether early adolescence is a transitional or distinct life period, life events associated with puberty, boundaries of early adolescence, and possible models for studying pubertal change. (Author/BW)

The issue of whether or not early adolescence is a transitional or stable period of development may be dependent on our ability to describe ways in which early adolescents are quantitatively and qualitatively different from when they were children and how these early adolescent characteristics are forerunners to the more elaborate constructs of…

The second of a four-part series on the development of infants and toddlers, this article reviews current research on social and emotional development during the first two years and provides a selected list of activities designed to promote infants' optimal development. Attachment behavior and affective behavior are two major topics explored. (EV)