Three experiments were conducted to examine normal preschool and retarded children's use of similarity relations (two items go together because overall they are the most similar in a given set of stimuli) or dimensional relations (two items go together because they are the same size) as a predominant basis for classification. (MP)

Investigated the possibility that older children recall more than younger ones because they have more information about items available for multiple encoding. (Author/DB)

Verbal interaction of 12 mothers and 12 fathers with their 19-month-old children in parent/infant dyads and parents/infant triads was assessed. In the triad condition, fathers spoke less and took fewer conversational turns than did mothers. (JMB)

Results showed that play opportunity and training experience for four year olds produced roughly equivalent problem-solving speeds when the task was standard or direct. When the task was nonstandard or innovative, however, play opportunity produced faster problem solving than training. (JMB)

This study was conducted to determine how items of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, Form L-M, had performed in the 1930's standardization sample in comparison with the 1972 standardization sample. (SB)

Three experiments examined effects of language on developing knowledge of distinction between real and apparent properties. Found that when Spanish verbs for "to be" -- "Ser" and "Estar" -- were substituted for "is,""Ser" gave the Spanish-speaking and bilingual speakers a unique advantage in…

Examined acquisition of the mass/count distinction in English. Results indicated that at 7 years bilinguals did not infer from the linguistic context whether new nouns referred to objects or a substance. By 9 years, bilinguals who were strong in English responded similarly to monolingual peers, but bilinguals with lower English abilities still…

Preterm and full-term infants were assessed on several tasks involving retrieval of a toy. When corrected for age (since conception), but not when compared by chronological age, premature infants tolerated longer delays on AB retrieval tasks than full-term infants. There were no group differences for corrected or chronological age on any other…

Examined attachment classification of children with cleft lip and palate (CLP) and isolated cleft palate (ICP) and comparison group at 12 months of age; found no significant differences. Findings suggest that infants with clefts, despite special needs and caregiving requirements, seem not to have elevated risk for insecure attachments at the end…

Compared performance of preschool children, chimpanzees, and orangutans on nonverbal task of false-belief understanding and tested children's performance on a verbal version of the same task. Found that children's performance on verbal and nonverbal tasks were highly correlated, and no chimp or orangutan succeeded in the nonverbal false-belief…

Solicited 6- to 10-year olds' and adults' perceptually ambiguous drawings to which two different meanings could be attributed. Analyzed movement sequences to determine whether movements were modified in ways determined by the model's meaning. Found that drawing was sensitive to meaning at all ages. Sensitivity differed as a function of the model…

Examined concordance between foster mothers' attachment state of mind and infants' attachment quality. Found that two-way correspondence between maternal state of mind and infant attachment quality was similar to that of biological mother-infant dyads. Age at placement was not related to attachment quality. Concordance between maternal state of…

The theory-of-mind abilities of twins, children with nontwin siblings, and only children were compared to investigate further the link between number and type of siblings and theory-of-mind abilities. Three- to 5-year-old children with nontwin siblings outperformed both only children and twins with no other siblings, twins who also had other…

Study evaluates the functioning of the central nervous system (CNS) of 15 neonates born at-risk for neurological sequelae and 15 healthy controls. CNS information was generated through the use of two measures: (1) the Neurological and Adaptive Capacity Score (NACS) and the auditory brainstem response (ABR). (Author/RWB)

No differences were found in mother-infant attachment between nonadopted and intraracial adopted subjects or between intraracial and interracial adopted subjects. Suggests that the higher incidence of psychological problems found among adoptees in middle childhood and adolescence cannot be explained in terms of insecure attachment relationships…