Memory Binding in Early Childhood: Evidence for a Retrieval Deficit

Previous research has suggested that performance for items requiring memory-binding processes improves between ages 4 and 6 ( J. Sluzenski, N. Newcombe, & S. L. Kovacs, 2006 ). The present study suggests that much of this improvement is due to retrieval, as opposed to encoding, deficits for 4-year-olds. Four- and 6-year-old children ( N  = 48 per age) were given objects, backgrounds, and object + background combinations to remember. Younger children performed equivalently to 6-year-olds during a working memory task for all types of memory questions but were impaired during a long-term memory task for the object + background combinations. Furthermore, this deficit was completely due to differences in false alarm rates, suggesting that separate analyses of hits and false alarms may be preferable to corrected recognition scores when studying memory development.     

Exploratory Behavior,Task Persistence,Across the Second Year of Life and Problem-Solving Ability

The present study focuses on individual differences in specific qualitative aspects of infants' exploratory behavior, task persistence, and problem-solving ability. Longitudinal questions concern the stability of these behaviors across the second year of life and the relationship between early exploration and task persistence and later problem- solving ability. Twenty-nine infants were observed at 12 months and again at 26 to 28 months of age. Behavior was observed on two exploratory and two problem-solving tasks, and a wide range of individual differences was found. The longitudinal results suggest stability between one and two years of age in terms of the cognitive sophistication of behavior rather than in correlations between identical index behaviors. Longitudinal stability was not found for task persistence. Also, infants who used more different schemes to explore at one year were found to be more successful and sophisticated in problem solving at age two. It is concluded that the quality and range of behaviors used during exploration have important developmental significance, rather than the use of any specific behavior, or persistent behavior, regardless of the degree of sophistication.     

Development of feedforward control in a dynamic manual tracking task

To examine the development of feedforward control during manual tracking, 117 participants in 5 age groups (6 to 7, 8 to 9, 10 to 11, 12 to 14, and 15 to 17 years) tracked an accelerating dot presented on a monitor by moving an electronic pen on a digitizer. To remain successful at higher target velocities, they had to create a predictive model of the target's motion. The ability to track the target at higher velocities increased, and the application of a feedback-based step-and-hold strategy decreased with age, as shown by increases in maximum target velocity and decreases in number of stops between ages 6–7 and 8–9 and between ages 8–9 and 10–11. The ability to exploit feedforward control in a dynamic tracking task improves significantly with age.     

The Timing of Prenatal Exposure to Maternal Cortisol and Psychosocial Stress Is Associated With Human Infant Cognitive Development

The consequences of prenatal maternal stress for development were examined in 125 full-term infants at 3, 6, and 12 months of age. Maternal cortisol and psychological state were evaluated 5 times during pregnancy. Exposure to elevated concentrations of cortisol early in gestation was associated with a slower rate of development over the 1st year and lower mental development scores at 12 months. Elevated levels of maternal cortisol late in gestation, however, were associated with accelerated cognitive development and higher scores at 12 months. Elevated levels of maternal pregnancy-specific anxiety early in pregnancy were independently associated with lower 12-month mental development scores. These data suggest that maternal cortisol and pregnancy-specific anxiety have programming influences on the developing fetus.     

Exploratory Behavior, Task Persistence, and Problem-Solving Ability Across the Second Year of Life

The present study focuses on individual differences in specific qualitative aspects of infants' exploratory behavior, task persistence, and problem-solving ability. Longitudinal questions concern the stability of these behaviors across the second year of life and the relationship between early exploration and task persistence and later problem- solving ability. Twenty-nine infants were observed at 12 months and again at 26 to 28 months of age. Behavior was observed on two exploratory and two problem-solving tasks, and a wide range of individual differences was found. The longitudinal results suggest stability between one and two years of age in terms of the cognitive sophistication of behavior rather than in correlations between identical index behaviors. Longitudinal stability was not found for task persistence. Also, infants who used more different schemes to explore at one year were found to be more successful and sophisticated in problem solving at age two. It is concluded that the quality and range of behaviors used during exploration have important developmental significance, rather than the use of any specific behavior, or persistent behavior, regardless of the degree of sophistication.     

Fish Oil Supplementation in Pregnancy and Neurodevelopment in Childhood—A Randomized Clinical Trial

A double-blind randomized controlled trial of n-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid (n-3 LCPUFA) supplementation or matching placebo during third trimester of pregnancy was conducted within the COPSAC₂₀₁₀ mother-child cohort consisting of 736 women and their children. The objective was to determine if maternal n-3 LCPUFA pregnancy supplementation affects offspring neurodevelopment until 6 years. Neurodevelopment was evaluated in 654 children assessing age of motor milestone achievement, language development, cognitive development, general neurodevelopment, and emotional and behavioral problems. Maternal n-3 LCPUFA supplementation during pregnancy improved early language development and reduced the impact of emotional and behavioral problems. The n-3 LCPUFA supplementation was in boys associated with the earlier achievement of gross motor milestones, improved cognitive development, and a reduced impact of emotional and behavioral problems.     

Effective family problem solving

Effective family problem solving was studied in 97 families of elementary-school-aged children, with 2 definite-solution tasks--tower building (TWB) and 20 questions (TQ), and 1 indefinite-solution task--plan-something-together (PST). Incentive (for cooperation or competition) and task independence (members worked solo or jointly) were manipulated during TWB and TQ, yielding 4 counterbalanced conditions per task per family. On TQ, solo performance exceeded joint performance; on TWB, competition impaired joint performance. Families effective at problem solving in all conditions of both definite-solution tasks tried more problem-solving strategies during TWB and deliberated longer and reached more satisfactory agreements during PST. Family problem-solving effectiveness was moderately predicted by 2 parents' participation in the study. Parental education, parental occupational prestige, and membership in the family of an academically and socially competent child were weaker predictors. The results indicate that definitions of effective family problem solving that are based on directly observed measures of group interaction are more valid than definitions that rely primarily on family characteristics.     

Gene-environment contributions to the development of infant vagal reactivity: the interaction of dopamine and maternal sensitivity

This study investigated dopamine receptor genes (DRD2 and DRD4) and maternal sensitivity as predictors of infant respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and RSA reactivity, purported indices of vagal tone and vagal regulation, in a challenge task at 3, 6, and 12 months in 173 infant-mother dyads. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) revealed that at 3 and 6 months, RSA withdrawal in response to maternal separation was greater (suggesting expected physiological regulation) in infants without the DRD2 risk allele than those with the risk allele. At 12 months, infants with the risk allele who were also exposed to maternal sensitivity showed levels of RSA withdrawal comparable to infants who were not at genetic risk. Findings demonstrate the importance of developmental analysis of gene-environment interaction.     

Approach to mathematical problem solving and students’ belief systems: two case studies

The goal of the study reported here is to gain a better understanding of the role of belief systems in the approach phase to mathematical problem solving. Two students of high academic performance were selected based on a previous exploratory study of 61 students 12–13 years old. In this study we identified different types of approaches to problems that determine the behavior of students in the problem-solving process. The research found two aspects that explain the students’ approaches to problem solving: (1) the presence of a dualistic belief system originating in the student’s school experience; and (2) motivation linked to beliefs regarding the difficulty of the task. Our results indicate that there is a complex relationship between students’ belief systems and approaches to problem solving, if we consider a wide variety of beliefs about the nature of mathematics and problem solving and motivational beliefs, but that it is not possible to establish relationships of causality between specific beliefs and problem-solving activity (or vice versa).     

Depression and Anxiety in the Postnatal Period: An Examination of Infants’ Home Language Environment,Vocalizations, and Expressive Language Abilities

This longitudinal study investigated the effects of maternal emotional health concerns, on infants’ home language environment, vocalization quantity, and expressive language skills. Mothers and their infants (at 6 and 12 months; 21 mothers with depression and or anxiety and 21 controls) provided day-long home-language recordings. Compared with controls, risk group recordings contained fewer mother–infant conversational turns and infant vocalizations, but daily number of adult word counts showed no group difference. Furthermore, conversational turns and infant vocalizations were stronger predictors of infants’ 18-month vocabulary size than depression and anxiety measures. However, anxiety levels moderated the effect of conversational turns on vocabulary size. These results suggest that variability in mothers’ emotional health influences infants’ language environment and later language ability.     

Procedural and conceptual changes in young children’s problem solving

This study analysed the different types of arithmetic knowledge that young children utilise when solving a multiple-step addition task. The focus of the research was on the procedural and conceptual changes that occur as children develop their overall problem solving approach. Combining qualitative case study with a micro-genetic approach, clinical interviews were conducted with ten 5–6-year-old children. The aim was to document how children combine knowledge of addition facts, calculation procedures and arithmetic concepts when solving a multiple-step task and how children’s application of different types of knowledge and overall solving approach changes and develops when children engage with solving the task in a series of problem solving sessions. The study documents children’s pathways towards developing a more effective and systematic approach to multiple-step tasks through different phases of their problem solving behaviour. The analysis of changes in children’s overt behaviour reveals a dynamic interplay between children’s developing representation of the task, their improved procedures and gradually their more explicit grasp of the conceptual aspects of their strategy. The findings provide new evidence that supports aspects of the “iterative model” hypothesis of the interaction between procedural and conceptual knowledge and highlight the need for educational approaches and tasks that encourage and trigger the interplay of different types of knowledge in young children’s arithmetic problem solving.     

PERFORMANCE IN MATHEMATICAL PROBLEM SOLVING AS A FUNCTION OF COMPREHENSION AND ARITHMETIC SKILLS

Many factors influence a student’s performance in word (or textbook) problem solving in class. Among them is the comprehension process the pupils construct during their attempt to solve the problem. The comprehension process may include some less formal representations, based on pupils’ real-world knowledge, which support the construction of a ‘situation model’. In this study, we examine some factors related to the pupil or to the word problem itself, which may influence the comprehension process, and we assess the effects of the situation model on pupils’ problem solving performance. The sample is composed of 750 pupils of grade 6 elementary school. They were selected from 35 classes in 17 Francophone schools located in the province of Quebec, Canada. For this study, 3 arithmetic problems were developed. Each problem was written in 4 different versions, to allow the manipulation of the type of information included in the problem statement. Each pupil was asked to solve 3 problems of the same version and to complete a task that allowed us to evaluate the construction of a situation model. Our results show that pupils with weaker arithmetic skills construct different representations, based on the information presented in the problem. Also, pupils who give greater importance to situational information in a problem have greater success in solving the problem. The situation model influences pupils’ problem solving performance, but this influence depends on the type of information included in the problem statement, as well as on the arithmetic skills of each individual pupil.     

Effects of Response Format on Difficulty of SAT-Mathematics Items: It's Not the Strategy

Problem-solving strategy is frequently cited as mediating the effects of response format (multiple-choice, constructed response) on item difficulty, yet there are few direct investigations of examinee solution procedures. Fifty-five high school students solved parallel constructed response and multiple-choice items that differed only in the presence of response options. Student performance was videotaped to assess solution strategies. Strategies were categorized as "traditional"–those associated with constructed response problem solving (e.g., writing and solving algebraic equations)–or "nontraditional"–those associated with multiple-choice problem solving (e.g., estimating a potential solution). Surprisingly, participants sometimes adopted nontraditional strategies to solve constructed response items. Furthermore, differences in difficulty between response formats did not correspond to differences in strategy choice: some items showed a format effect on strategy but no effect on difficulty; other items showed the reverse. We interpret these results in light of the relative comprehension challenges posed by the two groups of items.     

Neural Correlates of Direct and Reflected Self-Appraisals in Adolescents and Adults: When Social Perspective-Taking Informs Self-Perception

Classic theories of self-development suggest people define themselves in part through internalized perceptions of other people's beliefs about them, known as reflected self-appraisals. This study uses functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare the neural correlates of direct and reflected self-appraisals in adolescence ( N  = 12, ages 11–14 years) and adulthood ( N  = 12, ages 23–30 years). During direct self-reflection, adolescents demonstrated greater activity than adults in networks relevant to self-perception (medial prefrontal and parietal cortices) and social-cognition (dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, temporal–parietal junction, and posterior superior temporal sulcus), suggesting adolescent self-construals may rely more heavily on others' perspectives about the self. Activity in the medial fronto-parietal network was also enhanced when adolescents took the perspective of someone more relevant to a given domain.     

设计适合学生的高效率数学教学方法

数学教学高成效问题的研究与实践,已受到数学教育界的普遍关注.其中高效率数学教学方法的研究,更是丰富多彩,结构式讨论方法便是有效教学方法之一.该方法的基本思路是:知识结构的整体梳理;学生书面报告并发表自己的观点;错误分析;示范典型问题分析和解题方法研究;自我寻找正确解法的关键信息;认知任务的评价.     

Infant Sensitivity to Adult Eye Direction

Adult eye direction was manipulated while adults interacted with 3–6-month-olds over closed-circuit television (Experiment 1) or in person (Experiment 2). Infants received 4 1-min interaction periods. For experimental groups, adult eye contact was maintained during Periods 1 and 3, and averted during Periods 2 and 4 (by viewing infants on a television monitor to maintain contingency). Control infants received eye contact during all periods. Experimental infants' smiling declined whenever adults looked away; their visual attention simply decreased across periods. Control infants showed little change in gaze or smiling across periods. The implications of these results for Baron-Cohen's model of infant theory of mind and Morton and Johnson's 2-process theory of infant face perception are discussed.     

The Development of Emotion Recognition in Individuals With Autism

Emotion recognition was investigated in typically developing individuals and individuals with autism. Experiment 1 tested children (5–7 years, n  = 37) with brief video displays of facial expressions that varied in subtlety. Children with autism performed worse than the control children. In Experiment 2, 3 age groups (8–12 years, n  = 49; 13–17 years, n  = 49; and adults n  = 45) were tested on the same stimuli. Whereas the performance of control individuals was best in the adult group, the performance of individuals with autism was similar in all age groups. Results are discussed with respect to underlying cognitive processes that may be affecting the development of emotion recognition in individuals with autism.     

Non-organic failure to thrive: Implications of placement through analysis of videotaped interactions

This paper presents 6-month follow-up on a group of 16 infants hospitalized during the first months of life for non-organic failure to thrive (N-O FTT) and their mothers. Eight of these infants were placed in foster care and eight were returned home with their parents following hospitalization. The effects of placement on infant outcomes were examined through comparison of developmental scores and weight percentile changes, and the implications of foster care placements for mother-infant interactions were examined through analysis of patterns of interaction in videotaped sessions of feeding and play six months after hospital discharge. This analysis snowed that (1) mothers in both groups failed to make significant progress in resolving their own emotional or psychological conficts through treatment available; (2) weight and developmental status of the infants did not improve as expected in either group, and finally that (3) the patterns of interaction between mother and infant showed little change over time, and, regardless of placement at home or in foster care, remained concerning.     

A randomized controlled trial of a home-visiting intervention aimed at preventing relationship problems in depressed mothers and their infants

This study examined the effect of a mother–baby intervention on the quality of mother–child interaction, infant–mother attachment security, and infant socioemotional functioning in a group of depressed mothers with infants aged 1–12 months. A randomized controlled trial compared an experimental group ( n = 35) receiving the intervention (8–10 home visits) with a control group ( n = 36) receiving parenting support by telephone. There were assessments pre, post, and follow-up after 6 months. The intervention had positive effects on the quality of mother–infant interaction. Infants in the experimental group had higher scores for attachment security and for one aspect of socioemotional functioning, namely, competence. The intervention proved successful in preventing deterioration of the quality of mother–child interaction.     

Task characteristics and a stage 6 sensorimotor problem.

A previously demonstrated high rate of failure on a Stage 6 sensorimotor means-end problem, of children otherwise inferred to be in Stage 6 development, prompted a study of task characteristics of the problem. A component part of the task was modified by introducing an additional visual cue; the purpose of the problem was unchanged. Results indicated that problem solving was facilitated in the transformed condition, with older subjects performing somewhat better than younger subjects. The authors suggest that cognitive requirements of the problem, as representative of Stage 6 sensorimotor development, remained the same in the original or transformed condition. The modification appeared to permit children to focus their attention on the requirements of the problem, so that a greater number of children demonstrated mental representation. Task characteristics of sensorimotor problems need to be investigated further.