Current clinical diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) occurs between 3 and 4 years of age, but increasing evidence indicates that intervention begun earlier may improve outcomes. Using secondary analysis of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort data set, the current study identifies early predictors prior to the diagnosis of…

Metacognition is one of the promising contemporary research fields in psychology and education. The concept has been introduced to describe and explain how people gain control over their learning and thinking, particularly in the case of cognitive failures and difficulties they meet when dealing with information processing and problem solving…

Participation in high-risk behaviors, such as substance use or dangerous driving practices, is widely reported by young adults and college students. Psychosocial theories explain participation in high-risk behaviors by the effects of risk perception on the outcome of behavior. Physiological researchers assert that biological factors (such as the…

Introduction: In the last few decades, writing has been considered as a situated process inserted in a specific communicative situation. This implies that texts are characterized by them incorporating the different voice of the texts they dialogue with, so they cannot possibly considered as isolated products. Method: In this paper we present an…

Many children and youth have difficulty controlling emotions and impulsive behavior. Brain science is shining new light on the process by which children develop self-regulation and controls from within. This article expands upon Fritz Redl and David Wineman's pioneering work aiding children in the development of flexible and effective controls…

Helping children to refine and coordinate old ways of thinking is based on constructivist teaching, which promotes children's introspection skills. Several Japanese early childhood teaching practices align with constructivism, and Muto (2002) recommends that teachers reflect on their teaching methods and on their assessment of children by focusing…

This article reports that a new study has found that young men are less likely to attend college if they carry a common form of a gene associated with poor impulse control. The study also found that a strong environment--a high-quality high school and heavily involved parents--can counteract that genetic risk. For boys with this gene who grow up…

Many of the links of religiousness with health, well-being, and social behavior may be due to religion's influences on self-control or self-regulation. Using Carver and Scheier's (1998) theory of self-regulation as a framework for organizing the empirical research, the authors review evidence relevant to 6 propositions: (a) that religion can…

Objective: To describe the intention for healthy eating and its correlates among southern Appalachian teens. Methods: Four hundred sixteen adolescents 14 to 16 years old were surveyed with self-administered questionnaires. Results: About 30% of the adolescents surveyed had definite intentions to eat healthfully during the next 2 weeks. The scales…

How are bilinguals able to switch from one language to another? The prevailing inhibition hypothesis takes larger reaction-time (RT) costs for switching to the first language (L1) than to the second language (L2) as evidence for suppression of the non-target language. Switch cost asymmetries can alternatively be explained by an L1-repeat-benefit,…

The aim of the present investigation was to examine parent-child synchrony and its link to children's communicative competence and self-control. Data were collected from 80 families with toddler age children (41 girls, 39 boys) during a laboratory assessment. Five components of parent-child dyadic synchrony were assessed during a semi-structured…

Traditional and progressive educators alike have endorsed the benefits of self-discipline, the idea being for students to override their unconstructive impulses, resist temptation, and do what needs to be done. But author Alfie Kohn suggests that the concept of self-discipline is actually problematic in three ways: It reflects a simplistic…

Subjects participating in this research project were interviewed to gather data for this study. These participants were college students who were attending or had attended the University of Oklahoma and are members of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. These interviews investigated reasons for student enrollment, retention and withdrawal. The findings…

The purpose of this study was to examine communication/reasoning, behavioral control, and trust as predictors of resourcefulness among African American children during middle childhood (6-12 years of age). Mothers who practice promotive socialization strategies are more likely to rear children who are socially competent and well adjusted. Multiple…

Effortful control (EC) is an important developmental construct, associated with socioemotional growth, academic performance, and psychopathology. EC is defined as the ability to execute goal-directed behavior to inhibit or delay a prepotent response in favor of a subdominant response. Extant research indicates that EC may be multidimensional.…