This study investigates the influence of the acoustic properties of vowels on 6- and 10-month-old infants' speech preferences. The shape of the contour (bell or monotonic) and the duration (normal or stretched) of vowels were manipulated in words containing the vowels /i/ and /u/, and presented to infants using a two-choice preference procedure.…

Learning to walk is a dynamic process requiring the fine coordination, assembly, and balancing of many body segments at once. For the young walker, coordinating all these behavioral levels may be quite daunting. In this study, we examine the whole-body strategies to which infants resort to produce their first independent steps and progress over…

Young children's integration of weight and distance information was examined using a new methodology that combines a single-armed apparatus with functional measurement. Weight and distance values were varied factorially across the item set. Children estimated how far the beam would tilt when different numbers of weights were placed at different…

Background: Knowledge on the onset and the development of antisocial behavior in females is limited, because most of the research in this domain is based on males. Methods: We critically reviewed 46 empirical studies that examined developmental trajectories of antisocial behavior in females, notably to help determine whether or not an…

The sequential nature of action ensures that an individual can anticipate the conclusion of an observed action via the use of semantic rules. The semantic processing of language and action has been linked to the N400 component of the event-related potential (ERP). The authors developed an ERP paradigm in which infants and adults observed simple…

It is important for teachers to make the activities they present, including games, opportunities to promote children's development in one or more domains. Teachers need to select games that are developmentally appropriate. It is relatively simple to modify traditional games, such as Musical Chairs or Simon Says, to be cooperative instead of…

From a surprisingly young age, children are capable of a level of sophisticated social understanding and interaction for which they are rarely given credit. Indeed, beginning as early as 9 months, children are gaining the skills needed to become active members of the unique culture and society into which they are born. This article explores the…

Effortful control (EC) is an important developmental construct, associated with socioemotional growth, academic performance, and psychopathology. EC is defined as the ability to execute goal-directed behavior to inhibit or delay a prepotent response in favor of a subdominant response. Extant research indicates that EC may be multidimensional.…

Previous research on adolescent girls in relationships with older partners suggests a range of negative outcomes for the adolescent. Using three waves of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health and a life course perspective, we explore the connection between involvement in age discordant relationships (girls dating males…

This study evaluated the effectiveness of the Adults and Children Together (ACT) Against Violence Parents Raising Safe Kids program, developed by the American Psychological Association in collaboration with the National Association for the Education of Young Children, as an economical primary prevention intervention for child maltreatment. Using…

Adolescence is a developmental period that entails substantial changes in affective and incentive-seeking behavior relative to both childhood and adulthood, including a heightened propensity to engage in risky behaviors and experience persistent negative and labile mood states. This review discusses the emotional and incentive-driven behavioral…

As always, "what's happening" is a product of what has come before, and the past decade has been one of phenomenal and unprecedented social change, much of it fueled by the explosion in new and powerful technologies available to both adults and children. As the rightful boundaries between the adult world and the child's world have continued to…

This study piloted test items that will be used in a computer-delivered and scored test of productive grammatical ability in English as a second language (ESL). Findings from research on learners' development of morphosyntactic, syntactic, and functional knowledge were synthesized to create a framework of grammatical features. We outline the…

In order to unify two major theories of moral judgment, a novel task is employed which combines elements of Kohlberg's stage theory and of the theory of information integration. In contrast to the format of Kohlberg's moral judgment interview, a nonverbal and quantitative response which makes low demands on verbal facility was used. Moral…

For those in health education, the year 1969 marked the debut of "School Health Review," the forerunner to the current "American Journal of Health Education." The inaugural issue of "School Health Review," in September of 1969 included the article, "Changing Health behavior in Youth," by Dr. Godfrey M. Hochbaum. This article reviews the 1969…