Maturation of consonant perception,but not vowel perception,predicts lexical skills at 12 months

Consonants and vowels differentially contribute to lexical acquisition. From 8 months on, infants' preferential reliance on consonants has been shown to predict their lexical outcome. Here, the predictive value of German-learning infants' (n = 58, 29 girls, 29 boys) trajectories of consonant and vowel perception, indicated by the electrophysiological mismatch response, across 2, 6, and 10 months for later lexical acquisition was studied. The consonant-perception trajectory from 2 to 6 months (β = −2.95) and 6 to 10 months (β = −.91), but not the vowel-perception trajectory, significantly predicted receptive vocabulary at 12 months. These results reveal an earlier predictive value of consonant perception for word learning than previously found, and a particular role of the longitudinal maturation of this skill in lexical acquisition.     

Vocabulary Development and Trajectories of Behavioral and Emotional Difficulties Via Academic Ability and Peer Problems

This study investigates associations between trajectories of children's vocabulary development and subsequent behavioral and emotional difficulties via two potential mediating mechanisms; literacy and peer problems. Nationally representative data from 4,983 Australian children were used to examine trajectories of receptive vocabulary (4–5, 6–7, and 8–9 years) and hyperactivity-inattention, conduct problems and emotional symptoms (8–9, 10–11, 12–13, 14–15 years), and literacy and peer problems (8–9 years). Lower growth in vocabulary was related to trajectories of hyperactivity-inattention, conduct problems, and emotional symptoms. Literacy was a key mediator explaining these associations. Results were consistent for children below the 50th percentile for vocabulary at 4–5 years compared to the full sample. These findings suggest that early literacy-based interventions may alleviate declining academic, emotional and behavioral functioning in adolescence.     

Cohort differences in the development of civic engagement during adolescence

Investigating whether changing societal circumstances have altered the development of civic engagement, this study compared developmental changes from mid- to late adolescence (i.e., age 15–18) across two cohorts of representative Swiss samples (born in 1991, N = 1258, M_{age T1} = 15.30, 54% female, 33% migration background representing diverse ethnicities; born in 2000, N = 930, M_{age T1} = 15.32, 51% female; 33% migration background). Findings from latent multigroup models revealed similar levels in attitudes about social justice in both cohorts, remaining stable over time. Adolescents reported lower levels of political efficacy and informal helping in the cohort born in 2000. Both aspects slightly increased during adolescence. Informal helping had a steeper increase in the 1991 compared to the 2000 cohort, suggesting developmental differences between cohorts.     

The association between childhood maltreatment experiences and the onset of maltreatment perpetration in young adulthood controlling for proximal and distal risk factors

The evidence for association between child maltreatment victimization and later maltreatment perpetration is both scant and mixed. The objective of the present study was to assess the association between childhood maltreatment experiences and later perpetration of maltreatment in young adulthood controlling for proximal young adult functioning, prior youth risk behaviors, and childhood poverty. The study included 6,935 low-income children with (n = 4,470) or without (n = 2,465) maltreatment reports prior to age 18 followed from ages 1.5 through 11 years through early adulthood (ages 18–26). Administrative data from multiple regional and statewide agencies captured reports of maltreatment, family poverty and characteristics, system contact for health, behavioral risks and mental health in adolescence, and concurrent adult functioning (crime, mental health and poverty). After controlling for proximal adult functioning, repeated instances of neglect or mixed type maltreatment remained associated with young adult perpetration. Females and subjects with adolescent history of runaway, violent behaviors or non-violent delinquency also had higher risk. Greater caregiver education remained associated with reduced risk. The study concludes that prevention of recurrent neglect and mixed forms of maltreatment may reduce risk of maltreatment for future generations. Intervening to increase parental education and decrease adolescent risk behaviors may offer additional benefit.     

Continuity and Discontinuity in Perceptions of Family Relationships From Adolescence to Young Adulthood

The present 8‐year longitudinal study examined how multiple aspects of family relationships change across the transition from adolescence (M_age = 15 years) to young adulthood (M_age = 22 years) among 821 individuals. Results showed that there was more discontinuity than continuity in family relationships across this transition. Whereas a normative decline was evident in all measured aspects of family relationships during adolescence, this decline persisted for only a few dimensions of family relationships during young adulthood. Other aspects of family relationships stabilized or rebounded. There was little variation in these trajectories as a function of ethnicity or gender, suggesting that these changes in family relationships are generally normative. Results suggest that the transition to adulthood is a period of significant transformation in family relationships.     

Peer Effects on Early Language Development in Dual Language Learners

This study investigated the vocabulary development of children (N = 547) from linguistically and socioeconomically diverse classrooms in Germany from age 3 in preschool to age 7 in Grade 1. The results showed that for dual language learners (DLLs, n = 107) growth rates in their German majority language skills varied over classrooms. Compared to monolingual children, DLLs improved faster in classrooms with higher peer-level skills in the majority language than DLLs in classrooms with lower peer-level skills (controlling for socioeconomic status and classroom quality). DLLs showed stronger growth dynamics than monolingual children during later preschool stages. The findings highlight the role of preschool peers in DLLs’ acquisition of the majority language before entering elementary school.     

Inattention,hyperactivity and low parental education in children with conduct problems and poor reading skills

Concerns over the poor reading performance of children with conduct problems are often expressed by their parents and teachers. In order to intervene effectively with these children, it is necessary to know what their difficulties are, both at school and at home. To date, there is still a lot of ambiguity in relation to the specific difficulties children with conduct problems and coexisting poor reading experience in important academic domains and in the family context. The aim of the present study was to compare the problems of attention and hyperactivity in the classroom and parental education in four groups of children: conduct problems only (CP); conduct problems and coexisting poor reading (CP‐PR); poor reading only (PR); and a comparison group (COM). A sample of 2nd Grade Greek children (n = 113) was selected on the basis of the Conners' Teacher Rating Scale‐28 (CTRS‐28), Conduct Problems Scale and the Reading Ability Detection Test. The CTRS‐28, Inattention and Hyperactivity scales and a brief questionnaire on parental education were used to assess attention, hyperactivity and level of parental education, respectively. The results showed that children with CP‐PR were significantly more inattentive and hyperactive than the other groups of children. Their parents were also more likely to have spent fewer years in school than the parents of CP only and COM children. The earlier findings have implications for intervention planning and theoretical understanding of childhood conduct problems.     

Family resources and mid‐life level of education: a longitudinal study of the mediating influence of childhood parental involvement

This paper draws on the concept of parental involvement, popular among educators and policy‐makers, in investigating differences in level of attained education by family background. The question is if parental involvement in children's schooling at age 14 acts as a mediator between family resources and mid‐life level of attained education. Using structural equation modeling we analyze longitudinal survey and register data of a Swedish metropolitan cohort born in 1953 (n = 3300). Several of the commonly used indicators of involvement are investigated, distinguishing between parents' involvement beliefs, such as educational aspirations and agreement with school curriculum, and involvement practices, such as reading children's schoolbooks and helping with homework. We find that parents' educational aspirations are an important mediator between family resources and attained level of education, while other involvement forms are related to academic performance only. We also find that parental involvement is greater in families with more resources, which leads us to warn against developments turning more responsibility for children's schooling over to parents. Unless sensitive to the diverse family contexts this might increase the importance of family resources for children's educational outcomes.     

Trajectories of early childhood family instability and the development of externalizing behaviors from middle childhood to adolescence: A prospective study of at-risk families

This study examined associations between trajectories of family instability across early childhood and trajectories of externalizing behaviors from middle childhood to adolescence. Growth mixture models were fit to annual caregiver reports of instability from child ages 2–5 (N = 731; 49% girls, 50% White). A curve of factors model was fit to externalizing behaviors from child ages 7.5–14. Chronic, elevated instability across early childhood predicted elevated externalizing behaviors from middle childhood to adolescence. Data collection spanned from 2002 to 2017. Increasing or declining levels of instability predicted elevated externalizing behaviors in middle to late childhood, but not in adolescence. Caregiver depressive symptoms mediated the association between instability and the externalizing behavior intercept. Intervening on chronic instability may reduce child externalizing problems.     

Exposure to Parental Depression in Adolescence and Risk for Metabolic Syndrome in Adulthood

The psychosocial consequences of living with a depressed parent have been well characterized. Less well known, however, is how this exposure is predictive of later physical health problems. The present study evaluated how parental depression across youths’ adolescence (ages 11–18) was associated with youth metabolic syndrome at age 25 (n = 391). Youth self-regulation and health behaviors were considered as possible moderators of the link between parental depression and youth metabolic syndrome. Analyses revealed that parental depression in adolescence was associated with a composite score reflecting metabolic syndrome components in early adulthood. Furthermore, self-regulation and health behaviors moderated this link, such that links between parental depression and the metabolic syndrome existed only for youth with low self-regulation or unhealthy behaviors.     

A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Early Prelinguistic Gesture Development and Its Relationship to Language Development

Many Western industrialized nations have high levels of ethnic diversity but to date there are very few studies which investigate prelinguistic and early language development in infants from ethnic minority backgrounds. This study tracked the development of infant communicative gestures from 10 to 12 months (n = 59) in three culturally distinct groups in the United Kingdom and measured their relationship, along with maternal utterance frequency and responsiveness, to vocabulary development at 12 and 18 months. No significant differences were found in infant gesture development and maternal responsiveness across the groups, but relationships were identified between gesture, maternal responsiveness, and vocabulary development.     

Effect of Cognitive Style on Topographical Learning Across Life Span: Insights From Normal Development

Notwithstanding its well-established role on high-demanding spatial navigation tasks during adulthood, the effect of field dependence–independence during the acquisition of spatial navigation skills is almost unknown. This study assessed for the first time the effect of field dependence–independence on topographical learning (TL) across the life span: 195 individuals, including 54 healthy young-adults (age-range = 20–30), 46 teenagers (age-range = 11–14), and 95 children (age-range = 6–9) participated in this study. Field dependence–independence interacted with age in predicting TL. Also during childhood higher field independence was associated with better performances but not later in the life, that is, during adolescence and adulthood. This result suggests that field dependence–independence may have a role in fostering the acquisition of TL.     

English vocabulary trajectories of students whose parents speak a language other than English: steep trajectories and sharp summer setback

In this study, I used individual growth modeling methods to examine the English word-learning trajectories of adolescent students (N = 278) whose parents speak English at home (n = 210) and those whose parents speak a language other than English (n = 68). Sixth- (n = 130) and seventh-grade (n = 148) students attending an urban middle school took part in the study, with each student contributing up to four occasions of vocabulary-achievement data across three school years. I used the group reading and diagnostic evaluation (GRADE), a 40-item, group-administered assessment to measure vocabulary achievement. Students also provided information about the amount of time they spent reading independently during the summer and during the school year. Principal predictor variables included days between assessments, student home language, student free and reduced lunch status, time spent independent reading, and a dummy variable for the number of summers experienced between testing periods. On average, middle-school students experienced a loss of vocabulary over the summer, however students who spoke a language other than English at home had more pronounced summer setback and steeper learning trajectories, even when controlling for well-known predictors of vocabulary like independent reading and predictors of summer loss like free and reduced lunch status. These findings corroborate research showing low-income students experience summer loss, but suggest that in urban schools serving mostly low-income students, home-language status may be a stronger predictor of summer loss than socio-economic status or reading amount.     

Education and psychological distress in adolescence and mid-life: Do private schools make a difference?

This article extends the evidence base on childhood circumstances, education and psychological distress. We examine the link between childhood advantage and disadvantage, the type of school attended during adolescence and psychological distress at ages 16 and 42. The analysis uses a large, population-based birth cohort study, the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) (n = 17,198) using a structural equation modelling (SEM) approach. More advantaged young people were more likely to attend private schools, but we find no evidence for an effect of private schooling on psychological distress for men, and for women there was an association between private schooling and raised psychological distress at age 16. Having a university degree was associated with a modest reduction in psychological distress in mid-life. We establish that maternal psychological distress at age 10 was a risk factor for the offspring’s psychological distress both in adolescence and in mid-life, and adolescent psychological distress predicts psychological distress in mid-life. We conclude that schools which are academically successful do not necessarily provide wider benefits in terms of mental health.     

Family-based care buffers the stress sensitizing effect of early deprivation on executive functioning difficulties in adolescence

We examined whether family care following early-life deprivation buffered the association between stressful life events (SLEs) and executive functioning (EF) in adolescence. In early childhood, 136 institutionally reared children were randomly assigned to foster care or care-as-usual; 72 never-institutionalized children served as a comparison group. At age 16 years, adolescents (n = 143; 54% female; 67.1% Romanian) self-reported recent SLEs, completed a battery of memory and EF tasks, and completed a go/nogo task in which mediofrontal theta power (MFTP) was measured using electroencephalogram. More independent SLEs predicted lower EF and more dependent SLEs predicted lower MFTP, but only among adolescents with prolonged early deprivation. Findings provide preliminary evidence that family care following early deprivation may facilitate resilience against stress during adolescence on EF.     

Mapping the Trajectory of Socioeconomic Disparity in Working Memory: Parental and Neighborhood Factors

Working memory (WM) is positively correlated with socioeconomic status (SES). It is not clear, however, if SES predicts the rate of WM development over time or whether SES effects are specific to family rather than neighborhood SES. A community sample of children (n = 316) enrolled between ages 10 and 13 completed four annual assessments of WM. Lower parental education, but not neighborhood disadvantage, was associated with worse WM performance. Neither measure of SES was associated with the rate of developmental change. Consequently, the SES disparity in WM is not a developmental lag that narrows or an accumulating effect that becomes more pronounced. Rather, the relation between family SES and WM originates earlier in childhood and is stable through adolescence.     

Grandparent learning and cultural differences

People are living longer so expectations of grandparents should be redefined. Learning for them should focus on fulfilling family and community roles to retain a sense of purpose. Grandparent education requires a willingness to learn from the observations of younger family members. The intergenerational perceptions of American grandparents were examined to identify conditions for success in a technological environment. The 2,535 non-consanguineous participants were three generations of African-Americans (n = 777), Caucasian-Americans (n = 1,086), and Mexican-Americans (n = 672). Perceptions of the grandparents (n = 1,117), parents (n = 624), and grandchildren (n = 794) were compared within and between the cultures. Each generation completed a separate version of the Grandparent Strengths and Needs Inventory. The six subscales of this instrument assess grandparent Satisfaction, Success, Teaching, Difficulty, Frustration, and Information Needs. All generations and cultures identified favorable aspects of grandparent behavior as well as contexts for further learning. Significant differences were found in observations of grandparent attitudes and behavior across cultures and between generations within cultures. The most significant demographic variable was amount of time a grandparent spent with a grandchild. Lesson themes that represent the uniqueness of cultures and the observations of three generations are recommended as a framework for a differentiated curriculum in grandparent education.     

Children learning to read later catch up to children reading earlier

Two studies from English-speaking samples investigated the methodologically difficult question of whether the later reading achievement of children learning to read earlier or later differs. Children (n = 287) from predominantly state-funded schools were selected and they differed in whether the reading instruction age (RIA) was either five or seven years. Study 1 covered the first six years of school following three cohorts across a two-year design. Analyses accounted for receptive vocabulary, reported parental income and education, school-community affluence, classroom instruction, home literacy environment, reading self-concept, and age. The earlier RIA group had initially superior letter naming, non-word, word, and passage reading but this difference in reading skill disappeared by age 11. In Study 2, the decoding, fluency, and reading comprehension performance of 83 additional middle school-age children was compared. The two groups exhibited similar reading fluency, but the later RIA had generally greater reading comprehension. Given that the design was non-experimental, we urge further research to better understand developmental patterns and influences arising from different RIAs.     

Longitudinal links between maternal cultural socialization,peer ethnic-racial discrimination,and ethnic-racial pride in Mexican American youth

This paper used cross-lagged panel models to test the longitudinal interplay between maternal cultural socialization, peer ethnic-racial discrimination, and ethnic-racial pride across 5th to 11th grade among Mexican American youth (N = 674, M_age = 10.86; 72% born in the United States; 50% girls; Wave 1 collected 2006–2008). Maternal cultural socialization predicted increases in subsequent youth ethnic-racial pride, and youth ethnic-racial pride prompted greater maternal cultural socialization. However, peer ethnic-racial discrimination was associated with subsequent decreases in ethnic-racial pride. The magnitude of these associations was consistent across 5th to 11th grades suggesting that maternal cultural socialization messages are necessary to maintain ethnic-racial pride across adolescence, thus families must continually support the development of ethnic-racial pride in their youth to counter the effects of discrimination.     

Concurrent and Subsequent Associations Between Daily Digital Technology Use and High‐Risk Adolescents’ Mental Health Symptoms

Adolescents are spending an unprecedented amount of time using digital technologies (especially mobile technologies), and there are concerns that adolescents’ constant connectivity is associated with poor mental health, particularly among at‐risk adolescents. Participants included 151 adolescents at risk for mental health problems (M_age = 13.1) who completed a baseline assessment, 30‐day ecological momentary assessment, and 18 month follow‐up assessment. Results from multilevel regression models showed that daily reports of both time spent using digital technologies and the number of text messages sent were associated with increased same‐day attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and conduct disorder (CD) symptoms. Adolescents’ reported digital technology usage and text messaging across the ecological momentary assessment (EMA) period was also associated with poorer self‐regulation and increases in conduct problem symptoms between the baseline and follow‐up assessments.