The genetic and environmental contributions to the development of general cognitive ability throughout the first 16 years of life were examined using sibling data from the Colorado Adoption Project. Correlations were analyzed along with structural equation models to characterize the genetic and environmental influences on longitudinal stability…

Identifying mechanisms that explain the children's differential vulnerability to violence exposure is an important research focus. Developmentally sensitive theories and methods are recommended to better understand children's risk and resilience to violence exposure. Examples are provided of promising research that links violence exposure to…

This paper elaborates on components of a working definition of developmental dyslexia proposed in 1995 by G. R. Lyon. The 2003 revised definition, based on converging scientific evidence, was developed by a working group of the International Dyslexia Association. The new definition notes the condition's neurobiologic origin and typical presence of…

Five-year-olds, 5 1/2-year-olds, 6-year-olds, and adults were tested for the presence of two intuitions about thinking hypothesized to be part of the adult theory of mind (a) when engaged in a mentally demanding activity, a person's thinking will be directed toward that activity, and (b) when the activity is not mentally demanding, the person's…

We examined 3- to 6-year-old children's attributions of pretence when their own or another's behaviours were characterized as similar (usually unintentionally) to that of a real or nonexistent animal. In some pretence tasks, we asked children if they were trying to look like or looked like the animal they were characterized as looking like; in…

This paper examines what children believe about unmapped number words--those number words whose exact meanings children have not yet learned. In Study one, 31 children (ages 2-10 to 4-2) judged that the application of "five" and "six" changes when numerosity changes, although they did not know that equal sets must have the same number word. In…

Autism is a lifelong developmental disorder that is associated with severe difficulties with ''theory-of-mind''--the understanding that others' behaviors are motivated by internal mental states. Here, we raise the possibility that research examining the neural bases of theory-of-mind reasoning has the potential to inform researchers about the…

In selecting the canonical colors of color-specific objects, children may use verbal mediation, a cognitive process whereby an object and its color are matched using verbal rather than pictorial representation [British Journal of Developmental Psychology 14 (1996) 339]. To investigate this process, 108 2- to 5-year-old children were asked to…

Cognitive acceleration programmes, started in the early 1980s, have now been run in many hundreds of schools in many parts of the world. One important feature of these programmes is that their effects have been evaluated by following up participant students for some years after the intervention. This has provided extensive experience in the…

We studied how category typicality and out-of-category relatedness affect speeded category verification (vote ''yes'' if pictured object is clothing) in typically developing 4- to 14-year-olds and adults. Stimuli were typical and atypical category objects (e.g., pants, glove) and related and unrelated out-of-category objects (e.g., necklace,…

Most 4-year-olds can predict the behavior of a person who wants an object but is mistaken about its location. More difficult is predicting behavior when the person is mistaken about location and wants to avoid the object. We tested between two explanations for children's difficulties with avoidance false belief: the Selection Processing model of…

Recent research examining infants' understanding of intentional action claims to be studying the early origins or precursors of children's later theories of mind. If these infant understandings are continuous with later preschool achievements, there should be empirical connections between the two. We provide initial evidence that infants' social…

Several investigators find that infants fail to use property information to individuate objects until 12 months of age (e.g., Xu & Carey, 1996), while others find that infants successfully employ property information in the service of object individuation at 9.5 months (e.g., Wilcox & Baillargeon, 1998a). This study investigated…

This article speaks to the relationship between counselors-in-training level of efficacy (achievement), their cognitive style (assimilator/accommodator) and their level of readiness (disposition). Further discussion is given to the roles of supervisors as it relates to counselors-in-training levels of readiness and cognitive style. It is hoped…

The use of four types of psychological state words (physiological, emotional, desire, and cognitive) during mother-child play sessions at ages 3, 4, and 5 years was examined in 30 children diagnosed with delayed expressive language at 24-31 months and 15 age-matched comparison children with typical development. The children's mean length of…