Life Satisfaction is considered a key component of psychological well-being as well as a psychological construct that gives an individual the ability to cognitively appraise his or her life. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the successful resolution of Erikson's fifth (adolescence), seventh (adulthood), and eighth…

Background: Despite the effectiveness of psychotropic treatment for alleviating symptoms of psychiatric disorders, youth adherence to psychotropic medication regimens is low. Adolescent adherence rates range from 10-80% (Swanson, 2003; Cromer & Tarnowski, 1989; Lloyd et al., 1998; Brown, Borden, and Clingerman, 1985; Sleator, 1985) depending on…

Elementary and secondary students identified as gifted produced representations of themselves as readers, writers, and mathematicians and were interviewed about what they chose to represent. Interviews indicated a developmental progression in the way academic learning is understood, a progression that also was evident in their representations.…

The purpose of this paper is to examine the predictors of children's media use in the USA, comparing cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. Data come from Waves 1 and 2 of the Child Development Supplement (CDS-I; CDS-II), a nationally representative sample of American children aged 0-12 in 1997 and 5-18 in 2002. Twenty-four hour time use…

Little is known about the female presentation of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) during early childhood. We investigated sex differences in developmental profiles using the Mullen Scales of Early Learning, autistic symptoms on the ADOS-G, and coexisting behavior problems on the CBCL in 157 boys and 42 girls with ASD aged 1.5-3.9 years. Overall,…

Ninth grade, observes Ruth Curran Neild, marks a critical juncture in American schooling. Students who manage the academic demands of the transition to high school have a high probability of graduating four years later. But those who do not--who fail to earn as many credits as they should during ninth grade--face a substantially elevated risk of…

An important issue in the field of clinical and developmental psychopathology is whether cognitive control processes, such as response inhibition, can be specifically enhanced by motivation. To determine whether non-social (i.e. monetary) and social (i.e. positive facial expressions) rewards are able to differentially improve response inhibition…

Perceived similarity of personality in same-sex friends was examined in a sample of 124 adolescents (63 girls). Adolescents rated themselves and a nominated friend (n = 42 reciprocated, 82 non-reciprocated dyads) on developmentally relevant personality items assessing autonomy, prosociality, and responsive caregiving. Results from hierarchical…

In this paper, we discuss a variety of spelling tests that are used to assess developmental spelling difficulties. We differentiate between tests that are valuable tools to monitor spelling development and spelling tests that should be used to further assess children who are not making sufficient progress in the mainstream classroom. We recommend…

The main aim of the study was to explore the ability of a brief developmental assessment to predict teacher-rated learning and attentional and behavioural skills in the first grade of school at both the group and individual levels. A sample of 394 children (181 males, 213 females) aged 4 years were followed to the age of 6 years, and 283 of the…

This article discusses traditional and contemporary definitions of middle childhood play, the value of such play for children's development and learning, the implications of home, school, and societal practices that have resulted in changing the play scenario of middle childhood, and suggestions for assuring that play's value will be maintained…

As children become proficient readers, there are substantial changes in the eye movements that subserve reading. Some of these changes reflect universal developmental factors while others may be specific to a particular writing system. This study attempts to disentangle effects of universal and script-dependent factors by comparing the development…

Children grow and change more rapidly during the first eight years of life than any other time in their life span. Progression through the physical, cognitive, and social-emotional developmental stages varies for each individual child. Children with atypical development experience a wide spectrum of variability in their development. Over the past…

The studies presented in this article longitudinally examined preschool children's learning behavior, which has received increased attention in recent years because of its positive influence on school readiness. The first study used a statewide database (N = 23,434) to examine whether and how learning behavior changed over time. The second study…

Psychoanalysis is challenging in many ways. Some misunderstandings occur, not only because of resistance, but also because of language obfuscation. Free association has become known as the fundamental rule in psychoanalysis. Free association, however, was mistranslated from the German. A more accurate translation would be "free…