Autism is a heritable disorder characterized by phenotypic and genetic complexity. This review begins by surveying current linkage, gene association, and cytogenetic studies performed with the goal of identifying autism disease susceptibility variants. Though numerous linkages and associations have been identified, they tend to diminish upon…

Observing young children at play is a very common and useful method for identifying the presence or absence of certain developmentally appropriate skills. Such observations can vary from general overviews of typical classroom activities to extensive and highly detailed data-collection systems. Although educators should use a series of…

Roughly 20 per cent of all students in higher education have sustained clinically significant head injuries during childhood or adolescence. Although these injuries typically do not seem to lead to any long-term intellectual deficits, little is known about their possible impact upon the students' academic attainment. Nevertheless, many…

This study focuses on the ability of deaf children to predict the behaviours of other people, based on an understanding of their beliefs. An unexpected transfer task and a deceptive box task were used with a group of 55 severely/profoundly deaf children. Results reiterate the findings of other studies that many deaf children are grossly delayed in…

The impact of school-based Tae Kwon Do training on self-regulatory abilities was examined. A self-regulation framework including three domains (cognitive, affective, and physical) was presented. Children (N = 207) from kindergarten through Grade 5 were randomly assigned by homeroom class to either the intervention (martial arts) group or a…

This quasiexperimental research studies the effect of socioeconomic status (SES), language learning, and culture on gifted Hispanic children's performance in an alternative developmental scale (Qualitative Use of English and Spanish Tasks) of cognitive ability for generating developmental profiles. Results show the effect of SES and language…

The ability to form secure attachments during early childhood promotes a lifetime of emotional health. This article describes emotional milestones for babies (i.e., activities that promote self-comfort and self-control), as well as for toddlers. In the case of toddlers, a profound emotional milestone that is accomplished during the first year is…

This research examines variations in parenting and its effects on child cognitive outcomes across Latino subgroups from a national sampling that utilized a subset of 995 former Head Start Latino parents and children. Comparisons of the Parenting Dimension Inventory scaled scores revealed Latino subgroup differences on nurturance and consistency.…

The ability to critically evaluate whether information presented actually supports a given claim is essential for cognitive and social development. This paper presents a study focusing on developmental and contextual aspects of this ability (called antilogos). We tested antilogos for different variables: age group (Grades 8 and 10), direction of…

Previous research has shown that young children have difficulty searching for a hidden object whose location depends on the position of a partly visible physical barrier. Across four experiments, we tested whether children's search errors are affected by two variables that influence adults' object-directed attention: object boundaries and…

There is controversy over the basis for young children's experience of themselves and other people as separate yet related individuals, each with a mental perspective on the world--and over the nature of corresponding deficits in autism. Here we tested a form of self-other connectedness (identification) in children with and without autism, who…

Proficiency in problem solving is an important outcome in early childhood necessary for cognitive and emotional development. The development of an individual growth and development indicator of problem solving for children 1 to 4 years of age is described. Based on the general outcome measurement approach (Deno, 1997), the measure is intended for…

Absent reference comprehension is a critical achievement of early development, yet little is known about its emergence. In the current study, 12- and 16-month-old infants' recognition of properties of mentioned absent things was used as an index of absent reference comprehension. Infants were presented with displays matching the color and prior…

The paper attempts some clarifications and differentiations concerning (1) Bick's classic distinction between states of helpless unintegration and states of defensive disintegration; (2) the difference between a state and a phase, and Bick's apparent challenge to some aspects of object relations thinking. The paper then lists some types of early…

This paper is a response to a review of the conference titled, "Unintegration, Disintegration and Integration", written by Cathy Urwin and Maria Rhode in the ACP Bulletin. The review mentioned Michael Fordham, noting that he referred to a "good" kind of unintegration. In this paper, I point out that this is a somewhat misleading reference to what…