This article reports on the common academic standards proposed for state adoption which outline what students must master by graduation in order to flourish in college or good jobs. Defining how they reach those goals, however, means spelling out what they must learn at each step of the way, starting in kindergarten. And those expectations are…

The understanding of nature and nurture within developmental science has evolved with alternating ascendance of one or the other as primary explanations for individual differences in life course trajectories of success or failure. A dialectical perspective emphasizing the interconnectedness of individual and context is suggested to interpret the…

Relations between nonrelative child care (birth to 4 1/2 years) and functioning at age 15 were examined (N = 1,364). Both quality and quantity of child care were linked to adolescent functioning. Effects were similar in size as those observed at younger ages. Higher quality care predicted higher cognitive-academic achievement at age 15, with…

This article reviews the Parenting Relationship Questionnaire (PRQ) which was developed to assess variables of family and parenting relationships that are significant in the development of a socially and emotionally healthy child. The PRQ does an adequate job of assessing the domains present in a parent-child relationship and would be useful in…

Two comprehension experiments were conducted to investigate whether young French-learning children (N = 76) are able to use a single number cue in subject-verb agreement contexts and match a visually dynamic scene with a corresponding verbal stimulus. Results from both preferential looking and pointing demonstrated significant comprehension in…

In this article, we draw on postfoundational frameworks to make visible the subjectification processes by which practitioners simultaneously master and become mastered by developmental theories. We emphasize the implication of the entire minded-body in the processes of the developmental worker formation. We show these processes through empirical…

The nature of the childhood development of immediate recall has been difficult to determine. There could be a developmental increase in either the number of chunks held in working memory or the use of grouping to make the most of a constant capacity. In 3 experiments with children in the early elementary school years and adults, we show that…

How and when do children develop an understanding of extraordinary mental capacities? The current study tested 56 preschoolers on false-belief and knowledge-ignorance tasks about the mental states of contrasting agents--some agents were ordinary humans, some had exceptional perceptual capacities, and others possessed extraordinary mental…

This chapter presents a brief introduction to the developmental and educational literature linking children's moral emotions to cognitive moral development. A central premise of the chapter is that an integrative developmental perspective on moral emotions and moral cognition provides an important conceptual framework for understanding children's…

More than 50 years after the appearance of the term "gender" in the clinical setting, we have yet to uncover the mechanisms and factors that lead to gender identity formation. Based on human embryology principles, the scientific reasoning with regard to the sexual differentiation of the body is erroneously applied to gender identity formation. The…

The relation between the maturation of brain mechanisms responsible for the N400 elicitation in the event-related brain potential (ERP) and the development of behavioral language skills was investigated in 12-month-old infants. ERPs to words presented in a picture-word priming paradigm were analyzed according to the infants' production and…

The diagnosis of specific language impairment (SLI) requires non-verbal ability to be in the normal range, but little is known regarding the extent to which general reasoning skills are preserved during development. A total of 122 children were tested; 40 SLI, 42 age-matched controls, and 40 younger language-matched controls. Deductive reasoning…

In this chapter, the authors examine the differences between mothers and fathers in the socialization of specific emotions in preschool-aged boys and girls. They argue that mothers and fathers play both distinct and complementary roles in the development of children's emotional competence; these roles are influenced both by parents' own gender, as…

The role of caregivers requires that they continuously assess the needs and performance of children and provide the support necessary for them to achieve their potential. A thorough understanding of child development, including the role and impact of sensory development, is critical for caregivers to properly evaluate and assist these children.…

The article provides an ethnographic study of the logic of conducting routine paediatric checkups in children from birth to the age of 5 in Germany (U1 to U9). These checkups are meant as a continual evaluation of a child's developmental process and progress, and their outcomes inform decisions on children's careers in educational institutions.…