Trajectories of cognitive and neural development suggest that, despite early emergence, the ability to extract environmental patterns changes across childhood. Here, 5- to 9-year-olds and adults (N = 211, 110 females, in a large Canadian city) completed a memory test assessing what they remembered after watching a stream of shape triplets: the…

Adolescents who drop out of high school experience enduring negative consequences across many domains. Yet, the circumstances triggering their departure are poorly understood. This study examined the precipitating role of recent psychosocial stressors by comparing three groups of Canadian high school students (52% boys; M[subscript…

Two experiments investigated response tendencies of preschoolers toward yes-no questions about actions. Two hundred 2- to 5-year-old children were asked questions concerning actions commonly associated with particular objects (e.g., drinking from a cup) and actions not commonly associated with particular objects (e.g., kicking a toothbrush). The…

The behavior of 10 newborn babies given pacifiers in response to spontaneous empty sucking, rooting, and mouthing was compared to that of 10 controls. Observations, conducted at 24-hour intervals for four days, began 2 hours before and concluded 1 hour after feedings. (RH)

Examines the performance on verbal, nonverbal, and memory tasks of 11 girls (ages 8 to 11 years) identified as having an extra X chromosome at birth. Results showed that the triple-X girls were markedly inferior in their performance on the tasks, indicating a rehearsal deficit, an inability to use list structures, and weaker language skills.…

Premature infants vocalized less, played less, and were more fretful than full-term infants of the same chronological age, although they looked at objects and looked around their environment more. Mothers of premature infants demonstrated more caretaking and affectionate behavior toward their infants. Between-group differences decreased as age…

A total of 20 children with idiopathic precocious puberty; 27 adolescents with clinically delayed puberty; and an equivalent number of controls matched for sex, age, and IQ were given a battery of tests including measures of verbal and spatial abilities and a task using a dichotic listening procedure to assess hemispheric lateralization.…

A sample of 838 children ages 5 through 15 years in Australia, England, North America, and Sweden were interviewed about physical and sexual development. The study covers essentially the same area as Bernstein and Cowan (1975) but extends the sample on the dimensions of age, number, randomness, and comparisons made. (Author/RH)

Aggressive unpopular, withdrawn unpopular, aggressive-withdrawn unpopular, and average status children were identified by peer evaluation and compared in terms of peer and self-perceptions of competence in various social and nonsocial domains. Results indicated that the three groups of unpopular children exhibited distinct profiles according to…

Three methods for training communication skills, social-conflict method, modeling, and conflict-modeling, were devised to correct specific deficiencies in children's communication behavior. Subjects were 40 kindergarten, first-, second-, and third-grade children. (CM)

Assessed attachment/indiscriminate friendliness in children who spent at least eight months in Romanian orphanages (RO); a nonadopted, never-institutionalized Canadian group; and an early-adopted Romanian group. Found that RO children showed more insecure attachment and indiscriminate friendliness than others. Insecure RO children had more…

The relations between parent and child acculturation and family and child adjustment were examined among 91 immigrant Chinese families in Canada with early adolescents (average age of 12). Acculturation was assessed in public (e.g., language use) and private (e.g., values) domains separately in Chinese and Canadian cultures. With one exception,…

Compared Chinese and Canadian 7-, 9-, and 11-year-olds' moral evaluations of lie- and truth-telling in stories involving pro- and antisocial behavior. Found that Chinese children rated truth-telling less positively and lie-telling more positively in prosocial settings than Canadians. Both rated truth-telling positively and lie-telling negatively…