The focus of the present study is on the developmental antecedents of domain-general experimentation skills. We hypothesized that false-belief understanding would predict the ability to distinguish a conclusive from an inconclusive experiment. We conducted a longitudinal study with two assessment points (t1 and t2) to investigate this hypothesis.…

As children enter elementary school they display behavioral orientations that reveal potential developmental trajectories. Developmental transitions offer unique opportunities for examining developmental pathways and the factors that influence emerging pathways. The primary goal of this investigation was to examine characteristics of family and…

During her first two years of teaching, a kindergarten teacher (first author) developed a writing program grounded in five instructional strategies that repeatedly appear in emergent writing research--modeling, Scaffolded Writing, invented spelling, word walls, and reader response--and in the overarching principle of Gradual Release of…

Previous research suggests that the prevalence of aggression is high among low-income urban youth who have to cope with a number of psychological stressors. Less is known about the early development and consequences of aggression and peer victimization prior to adolescence in these contexts. This study examined the correlates, interplay, and…

In this autobiographical journey through life-span developmental theory, the author reflects on her life as a player, embedding it in the context of Erik Erikson and Joan Erikson's stages of human development. The author builds on these basic ideas--theory, storytelling, play, and development--and defines them as simply as possible.

The pronounced gender imbalance in dance has been the norm for some time. Some studies focus on established male dancers and others focus on aspects of physical education in dance. However, studies about adolescent male dance students (nonprofessional dancers in any form) who take dance classes in a high school setting are almost nonexistent.…

Gender differences in symptoms representing the triad of impairments of Autism Spectrum Disorders remain unclear. To date, the majority of research conducted on this topic has utilized samples of older children. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to utilize a sample of toddlers to investigate gender differences in symptom endorsements of…

Against the backdrop of social, economic, and demographic changes of recent times, Arnett has proposed his theory of "emerging adulthood", essentially a new stage of the life-course between adolescence and adulthood. Arnett sees emerging adulthood as a distinct, historically unprecedented period demographically, subjectively, and in…

Experiences during early development profoundly affect development of the central nervous system (CNS) to impart either risk for or resilience to later psychopathology. Work in the developmental neuroscience field is providing compelling data that epigenetic marking of the genome may underlie aspects of this process. Experiments in rodents…

Visual working memory (VWM) capacity has been studied extensively in adults, and methodological advances have enabled researchers to probe capacity limits in infancy using a preferential looking paradigm. Evidence suggests that capacity increases rapidly between 6 and 10 months of age. To understand how the VWM system develops, we must understand…

Research on age-related cognitive change traditionally focuses on either development or aging, where development ends with adulthood and aging begins around 55 years. This approach ignores age-related changes during the 35 years in-between, implying that this period is uninformative. Here we investigated face recognition as an ability that may…

This study examined the development of executive function (EF) in a typically developing sample from middle childhood to adolescence using a range of tasks varying in affective significance. A total of 102 participants between 8 and 15 years of age completed the Iowa Gambling Task, the Color Word Stroop, a Delay Discounting task, and a Digit Span…

Past research has focused on pretend play in infants with autism because it is considered an early manifestation of symbolic or imaginative thinking. Contradictory research findings have challenged the meta-representational model. The intent of this paper is to propose that pretend play is the behavioral manifestation of developing imaginative…

This study examines the placement of finite and nonfinite lexical verbs and finite light verbs (LVs) in semispontaneous production and elicited imitation of adult beginning learners of German and French. Theories assuming nonnativelike syntactic representations at early stages of development predict variable placement of lexical verbs and…

The aim of this study was to examine the responsiveness of the Psychoeducational Profile-third edition (PEP-3) in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). We investigated the responsiveness in terms of three types of scores (i.e., raw scores, developmental ages, and percentile ranks) of the subtests and composites of the PEP-3 and three…