This study was designed to examine the knowledge base of pregnant teenagers relative to that of their never-pregnant peers and adults. It also compared the parenting attitudes of pregnant teenagers to those of their never-pregnant peers. (Author/PN)

This study is an examination of developmental changes in children's use of pointing gestures to achieve an accurate count. Based on the data gathered, it is argued that the functional relation between the recitation of number names and children's pointing gestures in counting changes over the course of development. (Author/AL)

Assessed the effect of cocaine/polydrug in utero exposure on early childhood development while controlling for covariant factors. Analysis of two matched samples of preschoolers (20 with drug exposure and 20 without) revealed that both groups scored approximately one standard deviation below the expected mean in social skills, auditory…

Examined electrical brain activity during negative and positive emotion expression in infants of depressed and nondepressed mothers. Found that, compared with infants of nondepressed mothers, infants of depressed mothers exhibited increased EEG activation in the frontal but not parietal region when expressing negative emotions. There were no…

A developmentally sensitive problem-solving task--the 20-Question Game--was used to examine development and treatment variables among 48 learning disabled and 48 normal boys at two age levels (8-13 years old). Results indicate that both younger boys and learning disabled boys demonstrated less efficient problem-solving skills than did others. (TJH)

The development of early vocalizations was investigated with 13 infants who had Down's syndrome and 27 infants developing normally, at bimonthly intervals from 4 to 18 months of age. Both groups demonstrated increased production of mature syllables over time as well as large variations in vocal development, both within and across groups and across…

This study found that 5 7-year-old and 4 10-year-old prelingually hearing-impaired children displayed evidence of anticipatory coarticulation based on temporal and spectral cues, but they did so to a lesser degree than normally hearing children. (Author/JDD)

Compared verbal and visuo-spatial working memory (WM) performance under initial, gain, and maintenance conditions for nine age groups from 6 to 57 years to determine if differences were attributable to specific or general processing functions. Found support for a general-capacity explanation of age-related differences, reflecting demands placed on…

Examined analytic methods for describing children's social risk. Found that the individual-risk-variables approach provided better overall prediction of developmental outcomes at a particular age. The risk-factor approach provided good prediction of developmental trajectories with moderate to large sample sizes. The risk-index was useful for…

Tested in two studies 4- to 7-year-olds' face recognition by manipulating the faces' configural and featural information. Found that even with only a single 5-second exposure, most children could use configural and featural cues to make identity judgments. Repeated exposure and feedback improved others' performance. Even proficient memories were…

Study examined the cross-racial comparability of maternal quality of assistance and supportive presence coded from a video protocol using data from the Infant Health and Development Program for low birth weight, premature 30-month-olds and their mothers. Comparisons across groups indicated similar variances and correlation between child and…

This article extends information from a text by Weinstein and Mignano (2003) to address classroom organization in terms of the physical environment. That text is an extrapolation of Steele's (1973) outline of six functions within the classroom setting: (1) security and shelter; (2) social contact; (3) symbolic identification; (4) pleasure; (5)…

Neonatal microstructural development in the posterior limbs of the internal capsule (PLIC) was assessed using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) fractional anisotropy (FA) in 24 very-low-birthweight preterm infants at 37 weeks' gestational age and compared with the children's gait and motor deficits at 4 years of age. There were 14 participants with…