Investigated whether 3- to 6-year-olds in a Montessori school created more symmetrical than asymmetrical designs when working with building materials. Found that symmetry occurred in designs of children as young as age 3, with the tendency increasing with age. Examined the need for increased use of building materials for teaching symmetry in the…

Compared adolescents' (14 to 20 years) and young adults' (21 to 37 years) wisdom-related knowledge and judgment related to difficult and ill-defined life dilemmas. Rated responses along five wisdom criteria. Found that adolescents performed at lower levels than young adults but also demonstrated substantial age increments in performance.…

A study employed mixed effects regression growth curve analysis to assess the developmental course of discrepant (n=51) and nondiscrepant (n=89) poor readers identified in third grade and retested in fifth, eight, and twelfth grades. Discrepancy status did not differentiate the developmental course of basic reading skills or reading comprehension.…

A study examined the impact of a gifted enrichment program on 80 Israeli students (grades 4-8) from disadvantaged neighborhoods. After program participation, girls' performance on an intelligence test was higher than boys'. While girls started out with slightly lower scores, they ended up with slightly higher scores than boys. (Contains…

Previous work by our group has shown that infant emotional vitality (EV), the lively expression of shared emotion both positive and negative, predicts cognitive and language abilities in toddlerhood. Specifically, infants who demonstrated a pattern of high emotional expression combined with high bids to their caregivers, fared significantly better…

Unaccompanied Refugee Minors (URM), like all adolescents, have the right to be able to develop emotionally and cognitively to their fullest potential in host countries (Article 6, Convention of the Rights of the Child, 1991). URM make up a very special and vulnerable population of young people under the age of 18 who have been separated from their…

The present study explores how suppositions which conflict with accepted beliefs are represented and reasoned about. Two studies test the predictions regarding the nature and developmental changes in children's ability to represent and reason about hypothetical or make-believe suppositions which violate their everyday knowledge and beliefs. In…

This paper conceptualises a basis for understanding learning in workplaces. This comprises a duality between how access to workplace activities and guidance is afforded, on the one hand, and how workers elect to engage with what is afforded to them, on the other. This reciprocal basis for thinking, acting and learning is referred to as…

We articulate and explicate a mechanism for mathematics conceptual learning that can serve as a basis for the design of mathematics lessons. The mechanism, reflection on activity-effect relationships, addresses the learning paradox (Pascual-Leone, 1976), a paradox that derives from careful attention to the construct of assimilation (Piaget, 1970).…

D.V. Cicchetti, A.S. Kaufman, and S.S. Sparrow (this issue) examine various technical issues related to six studies of perinatal PCB exposure and neurodevelopment and one study of adult PCB exposure and motor function. They raise questions about possible imperfections of the studies, but many of their assertions are unsupported or frankly…

Pediatric exposure to polychlorinated biphynels (PCBs) is a national health concern with significant implications for school psychologists. According to the healthcare collaboration model, the school psychologist plays a key role in the provision of services to children affected by environmental teratogens. To effectively function as healthcare…

Cocaine use during pregnancy is a high-risk indicator for adverse developmental outcomes. Three levels of intervention (center, home, and primary care) were compared in a full service, birth to age 3, early intervention program serving children exposed to cocaine prenatally. Data were collected on 130 children from urban, predominantly poor,…

This study examined mother-child interaction as a predictor of mastery motivation (i.e., persistence on a problem-posing task) in 3-year-old children who were born premature and had either motor impairment or developmental delay (n = 34). Two aspects of mother-child interaction were hypothesized to predict for mastery motivation: response to…

Verbal-to-spatial associations in working memory may index a core capacity for abstract information limited in the amount concurrently retained. However, what look like associative, abstract representations could instead reflect verbal and spatial codes held separately and then used in parallel. We investigated this issue in two experiments on…

The Fullerton Longitudinal Study is a contemporary prospective investigation that spans approximately a quarter of a century. Commencing at age 1, children and their families were systematically followed every 6 months from infancy through preschool and annually at ages 5 through 17. They were again assessed at age 24. The course of development…