The transition from high school to college is an important developmental milestone that holds the potential for personal growth and behavioral change. A cohort of 2,245 students was recruited during the summer before they matriculated into college and completed Internet-based surveys about their participation in a variety of behavioral risks…

Using a reliable and broad-based measure of morphological awareness, which tapped knowledge of relational, syntactic, and distributional morphology, we examined the development of morphological knowledge among older elementary students and the relationship of their morphological knowledge to a range of literacy measures. We found that…

This article examines some common assumptions made by clinicians about the relationship between intelligence and mental health difficulties. Drawing on work by Thomas Ogden (1976) and Alex Coren (1997) on academically successful students who present with serious mental health concerns, it aims to provide a psychodynamic, developmental…

We report rates of regression and associated findings in a population derived group of 255 children aged 9-14 years, participating in a prevalence study of autism spectrum disorders (ASD); 53 with narrowly defined autism, 105 with broader ASD and 97 with non-ASD neurodevelopmental problems, drawn from those with special educational needs within a…

Sex differences in the latent general and broad cognitive abilities underlying the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities were investigated for children, youth, and adults ages 6 through 59. A developmental, multiple indicator-multiple cause, structural equation model was used to investigate sex differences in latent cognitive abilities as…

How to be in a relationship may be the most important "skill" children ever learn. While many teachers acknowledge their importance in helping children learn early academic and social skills, they sometimes underestimate the value of their personal relationships with children as supports for children's healthy development and learning. This…

In this contribution it is shown that Gilbert Gottlieb's theoretical contributions to developmental science, in particular his focus on individual development and his discussion of the limitations of developmental behavior genetics in this respect, are vindicated by recent theoretical developments in mathematical biology and psychometrics.

A purported hallmark of temperament characteristics is that they appear very early in the course of development and are persistent across time and situation. There is, however, a small, but growing cadre of research findings that question this traditional view. It may be that temperament characteristics are not necessarily established during the…

There continues to be a debate whether educators should use brain research to their advantage in the classroom. This debate should not prevent educators from using their new found knowledge toward enhancing their students' learning. By understanding how the brain learns, educators are able to determine what developmental level the child is…

What are the essential properties of human intelligence, currently unparalleled in its power relative to other biological forms and relative to artificial forms of intelligence? We suggest that answering this question depends critically on understanding developmental process. This paper considers three principles potentially essential to building…

Young human children at around 2 years of age fail to predict the correct location of an object when it is dropped from the top of an S-shape opaque tube. They search in the location just below the releasing point (Hood, 1995). This type of error, called a "gravity bias", has recently been reported in dogs and monkeys. In the present study, we…

At adolescence, the young one sees himself already as a miniature adult, and would want to express the autonomy that goes with it. Even though parents may recognize this and would want some measure of freedom for their adolescent children, they are not unaware too that a lot of exuberance goes with adolescence. Most parents are aware that, young…

The present study explores word boundary behaviours in the spontaneous speech of a group of 6 preschool children. Speech collected in play settings is examined for the presence of normal and atypical connected speech behaviours, and to identify specific instances of open and close word juncture behaviours. The findings suggest that developmental…

Age differences in decision making indicate that children fail to anticipate outcomes of their decisions. Using heart rate and skin conductance analyses, we tested whether developmental changes in decision making are associated with (a) a failure to process outcomes of decisions, or (b) a failure to anticipate future outcomes of decisions.…

To find out if children could make functions before age 4, 73 children aged 1 to 4 were encouraged to imitate the use of a lever to make a beanbag fly up. Functions are mental relationships that preoperational children can make between 2 things at a time in a unidirectional way (Piaget, Grize, Szeminska, & Bang, 1968/1977). The child's…