Intellectual development in family constellations with adopted and natural children: a test of the Zajonc and Markus model

A confluence model was developed by Zajonc and Markus to account for the effects of birth order, child spacing, and family size on intellectual development. the fit of the model was tested on a sample of families with biological and adopted children. Although the model fits population data very well, it fails to account for intellectual patterns within families for whom both parent and child IQ data are available. The discrepancy is discussed in terms of sources of variance within and between families that are undetected in average values for a population.     

Family size,birth order,and intelligence in a large South American sample

The confluence theory, which hypothesizes a relationship between intellectual development birth order, and family size, was examined in a colombian study of more than 36,000 college applicants. The results of the study did not support the confluence theory. The confluence theory states that the intellectual development of a child is related to average mental age of the members of his family at the time of his birth. The mental age of the parents is always assigned a value of 30 and siblings are given scores equivalent to their chronological age at the birth of the subject. Therefore, the average mental age of family members for a 1st born child is 30, or 60 divided by 2. If a subject is born into a family consisting of 2 parents and a 6-year old sibling, the average mental age of family members tends, therefore, to decrease with each birth order. The hypothesis derived from the confluence theory states that there is a positive relationship between average mental age of a subject's family and the subject's performance on intelligence tests. In the Colombian study, data on family size, birth order and socioeconomic status was derived from college application forms. Intelligence test scores for each subject was obtained from college entrance exams. The mental age of each applicant's family at the time of the applicant's birth was calculated. Multiple correlation analysis and path analysis were used to assess the relationship. Results were 1) the test scores of subjects from families with 2,3,4, and 5 children were higher than test scores of the 1st born subjects; 2) the rank order of intelligence by family size was 3,4,5,2,6,1 instead of the hypothesized 1,2,3,4,5,6; and 3) only 1% of the variability in test scores was explained by the variables of birth order and family size. Further analysis indicated that socioeconomic status was a far more powerful explanatory variable than family size.     

Numeracy Abilities of Children in Grades 4 to 6 with Mild Intellectual Disability in Singapore

Mathematics is an important aspect of daily life. Basic numeracy skills are needed to accomplish everyday tasks. However, research regarding the relationship between cognitive ability, mental age, and basic numeracy skills for children with intellectual disability (ID) is scarce. This research study investigated the correlation between intellectual ability and the development of number sense and arithmetic abilities in individuals with ID. Thirty-two students from a special school for individuals with ID in Singapore participated in this research study. Based on the results, basic numeracy is more closely correlated to the mental ages of the students than their intelligence quotient. This finding will be discussed and suggestions for future research will be provided.     

Interplay of Biological and Social‐Environmental Factors in the Developmental Outcome of Prematurely Born Children From Infancy To Seven Years

THE DEVELOPMENT of 58 preterm infants classified as low‐risk was compared over their first 7 years with a control group of 100 full‐term healthy infants. One major conclusion from this ongoing study is the critical need to take account of age when outcomes for prematurely born children are compared with full‐term children. As well as finding “catch up” phenomena at certain ages, the study also found periods during which there were reverses of this favourable tendency. Further, the study provided evidence that perinatal risk conditions may have a differential impact on mental development, depending on social‐environmental factors. It was suggested that advantaged family circumstances may reduce or even fully compensate for the adverse effects of preterm birth whereas a disadvantaged environment may amplify them.     

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FORMAL EDUCATION AND COGNITIVE FUNCTIONING: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

The influence of educational level on the intellectual performance of elderly individuals has been noted both in terms of intra‐ and inter‐generational differences. A number of studies are consistent in demonstrating that even at advanced ages, test scores are at least partially correlated with educational level. Thus, the relatively lower educational status of older cohorts could for several different reasons account for at least part of the apparent decline in intellectual functioning with age. For example, the average number of years of education is different today than it was 50 years ago. In addition, the comparability of the same levels ‘of education obtained at different points in time is questionable since even the content has changed. The fact that the opportunity to continue one's education exists as a realistic option is another distinguishing feature between today's high school graduates and those of 50 years ago. Thus, what may appear to be age differences may actually be a result of sociocultural and historical factors rather than ontogenetic change. When these factors are taken together with the longitudinal data on well‐educated adults who show little or no intellectual decline, the notion of universal decline in intelligence with age comes into question. Furthermore, recent evidence demonstrating that most elderly can perform well on intellectual measures given the appropriate contextual factors suggests that older individuals have considerably more intellectual potential than has previously been reported. Therefore, as successive cohorts receive greater educational opportunities, the negative stereotype of intellectual deterioration with age may no longer be accurate.     

Ages and ages: the multiplication of children’s ‘ages’ in early twentieth-century child psychology

This paper explores the trend, between 1905 and the late 1920s in UK and US child psychology, of ‘discovering’, labelling and calculating different ‘ages’ in children. Those new ‘ages’ – from mental to emotional, social, anatomical ages, and more – were understood as either replacing, or meaningfully related to, chronological age. The most famous, mental age, ‘invented’ by Alfred Binet in the first decade of the century, was instrumental in early intelligence testing. Anatomical age triggered great interest until the 1930s, with many psychologists suggesting that physical development provided a more reliable inkling of which grade children should be in than chronological age. Those ages were calculated with great precision, and educational recommendations began to be made on the basis of these. This article maps this psychological and educational trend, and suggests that it cultivated a vision of children as developmentally erratic, worthy of intense scientific attention, and enticingly puzzling for researchers.     

Mental age and syntactic development in the intellectually handicapped

Language samples from five mildly intellectually handicapped subjects with chronological ages ranging from 11 years 0 months to 11 years 8 months, and mental ages ranging from 6 years 2 months to 10 years 1 month were analysed syntactically. The results indicated problems in identifying the relationship between mental age and indices of linguistic sophistication. Most correlations were not significant, and the results suggested that these eleven year old mildly intellectually handicapped children may not show syntactic differences as great as those of mental age. At this age, differences exhibited in language may be due more to variables of individual experience, and especially the teaching strategies they experience. The results do not support the documented hypothesis that language development is closely related to mental age.     

Do you see what I mean? Shared reference in non-native, early signing deaf children

A group of non-native, early signing deaf children between the ages of 7 and 11 years were tested on a referential communication task. A group of hearing children matched for sex and mental and chronological age were also included in the study. The aim was to study the deaf children's ability to take another persons perspective in a task that resembled a real-life communicative situation to a higher extent than the standard theory of mind (ToM) tasks. A further aim was to investigate the possible importance of a number of background variables such as mental and chronological age, working memory, and false-belief attribution. Results show that the hearing children outperformed the deaf children on the referential communication task and that results were highly correlated with both chronological and mental age, as well as with working memory. There was a positive, but not significant, correlation between false belief and success on the referential communication task. This is an indication that the two tasks tap different abilities and that false belief might be necessary, but not sufficient in order to be skilled in the art of referential communication. The possible role of working memory in the referential communication task is also discussed. The results support the hypothesis of the importance of early talk about mental states for the later development of ToM abilities.     

The use of the McCarthy scales of children's abilities to assess moderately mentally retarded children

The performance of a sample of moderately mentally retarded children on the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities (MSCA) was investigated by comparing their obtained mental age (MA) scores with their Stanford-Binet MAs and Minnesota Child Development Inventory (MCDI) developmental ages (DAs). All three MA estimates correlated significantly, and there were no significant differences among mean MAs. However, valid MSCA Index scores could not be obtained for these moderately retarded children, using the current normative tables. Therefore, the MSCA cannot be recommended for measuring the intellectual level of retarded children for educational classification purposes.     

A latent transition analysis of academic intrinsic motivation from childhood through adolescence

A longitudinal modeling approach was utilized to determine the existence of latent classes with regard to academic intrinsic motivation and the points of stability and transition of individuals between and within classes. A special type of latent Markov Chain model using Mplus was fit to data from the Fullerton Longitudinal Study, with academic intrinsic motivation measured from ages 9 through 17. Model fit using the Bayesian Information Criterion index was examined. The best fit involved a 3-class model, with classes designated as motivationally gifted, intermediate, and at-risk. Transitions between classes occurred mainly during childhood, whereas stability ensued by age 13. Methodological contributions are discussed, as well as theory and applications of the findings with regard to academic intrinsic motivation.     

The Lamer Social Competence in Preschool (LSCIP) Scale: Structural Validity in a Large Norwegian Community Sample

There is an increasing emphasis on the importance of social competence for children's development, well-being, and learning. Thus age- and context-appropriate measures are needed. This study addresses the structural validity of the Lamer Social Competence in Preschool (LSCIP) scale, developed to accommodate the Nordic model of early childhood pedagogy. The authors specify the theoretical basis for a bi-factor model of social competence. This model is tested in a large (n?=?1157), community based sample of Norwegian children, including teacher- (at age 2, 3, and 4), mother- (at age 4), and father- (at age 3) reports. A model with a main factor for social competence, and three bi-factors fit data across ages and reporters, with factorial, but not strong, invariance over time.     

Mental Rotation With Tangible Three‐Dimensional Objects: A New Measure Sensitive to Developmental Differences in 4‐ to 8‐Year‐Old Children

There is an emerging consensus that spatial thinking is fundamental to later success in math and science. The goals of this study were to design and evaluate a novel test of three‐dimensional (3D) mental rotation for 4‐ to 8‐year‐old children (N = 165) that uses tangible 3D objects. Results revealed that the measure was both valid and reliable and indicated steady growth in 3D mental rotation between the ages of 4 and 8. Performance on the measure was highly related to success on a measure of two‐dimensional (2D) mental rotation, even after controlling for executive functioning. Although children as young as 5 years old performed above chance, 3D mental rotation appears to be a difficult skill for most children under the age of 7, as indicated by frequent guessing and difficulty with mirror objects. The test is a useful new tool for studying the development of 3D mental rotation in young children.     

Children,Television and Learning in Nursery and Infants’ Schools

Whether young children learn from television is a contentious issue. Some people believe that learning takes place through the very fact of watching a television picture while others feel that young children view passively. The child as an individual, the purposes for using television and the facilities at a teacher's disposal are rarely taken into account within the considerations. This paper argues that attention needs to be given to levels on mental development, interpretation of curriculum and resources available when children, television and learning in nursery and primary schools are examined.     

注意力缺陷多动障碍核心缺损:行为抑制还是能量库?

本研究采用信号停止任务范式,考察不同声音唤醒水平下注意力缺陷多动障碍儿童 和普通儿童反应抑制功能的表现,探讨唤醒水平和行为抑制功能之间的关系,以验证行为 抑制模型和认知能量模型.研究中注意力缺陷多动障碍儿童15名,普通儿童15名,匹配 年龄、年级、性别和智力水平.结果表明:(1)注意力缺陷多动障碍儿童的反应错误率和抑 制失败率显著高于普通儿童;(2)中、高唤醒水平下,注意力缺陷多动障碍儿童正确反应的 被试内变异性降低,与普通儿童的表现相当;(3)唤醒水平对两类儿童的抑制失败率没有影 响.唤醒水平没有提高注意力缺陷多动障碍儿童的行为抑制功能,但促进了其一般反应认 知功能,说明能量库缺损并不是比抑制功能更为核心的缺损.     

Modeling IQ change: evidence from the Texas Adoption Project

An analysis of genetic and environmental contributions to intellectual change was carried out by means of a path model applied to IQ data from the Texas Adoption Project, an adoption study in which children were measured on 2 occasions approximately 10 years apart. Included in the model were assortative mating, selective placement, genotype-environment correlation, a measure of socioeconomic status, and alternative hypotheses about cross-generation environmental transmission and the persistence of a trait over time. Some form of environmental transmission across generations was necessary, but either of the 2 forms tested was sufficient. The data were best fit by considering persistence over time to occur at the level of the developed trait. The effect of both genes and family environment was significant at the time of the first measurement, but only the genes made an additional contribution between the first and the second, suggesting the necessity of revising some popular stereotypes about development.     

Relations between maternal input and theory of mind understanding in deaf children

This study investigates the relationship between theory of mind (ToM) skills in deaf children and input from their hearing mothers. Twenty-two hearing mothers and their deaf children (ages 4-10 years) participated in tasks designed to elicit talk about the mind. The mothers' mental state talk was compared with that of 26 mothers with hearing children (ages 4-6 years). The frequency of mothers' mental talk was correlated with deaf children's performance on ToM tasks, after controlling for effects of child language and age. Maternal sign proficiency was correlated with child language, false belief, and mothers' talk about the mind. Findings are discussed in relation to experiential accounts of ToM development and roles of maternal talk in children's social understanding.     

Theory of Mind: Deaf and Hearing Children's Comprehension of Picture Stories and Judgments of Social Situations

We compared 20 prelingually profoundly deaf adolescents (age: 11-16 years) and 20 matched, hearing adolescents on a picture-sequencing task and on a social judgment test. In addition, we also tested 14 younger deaf children (age: 6-10 years) and compared their data with those from 20 hearing peers as well as those from the older deaf participants on the picture-sequencing task. The results from this study did not provide evidence for the hypothesis that deaf adolescents possess significantly poorer knowledge about social reasoning than age-matched hearing peers, but it did present further additional support for Peterson and Siegal's (1995) conversational hypothesis: a proposal that a deprivation in conversations about mental states leads to an impairment in the development of an awareness of mental states in the younger deaf children.     

Textbooks at the Crossroads: Scientific and Philosophical Textbooks in 18th Century Greek Education

Greek society of the eighteenth century did not have the institutional or theoretical background for the development of an original interest in scientific pursuits. The contact with the new scientific ideas aimed basically at the assimilation of these ideas in the body of the existing contemplative philosophy and the context where such undertaking took place was exclusively education. At the same time, education was the field where the political and ideological pursuits of various social groups intersected. A quasi modernistic profile of the educational activity was especially favored by a new generation of scholars who wished to assert their distinctive intellectual physiognomy, as well as by the emergent group of merchants who strove to establish their distinctive cultural and political authority. As a result, the new interest in the sciences reflects the confluence of the aims of these two social groups. The study of scientific textbooks, which were produced under these circumstances, depicts the consequences of this confluence and brings to light some important aspects of the social and intellectual environment within which the contact of Greek intellectual life with modern sciences occurred.     

Exploration of the autistic child's theory of mind: knowledge, belief, and communication

26 autistic children with mental ages of 3-13 years were tested on 3 tasks that are within the capability of 3- or 4-year-old normal children. The first task tested understanding of a mistaken belief. Children were shown a typical box of a certain brand of sweets, and they all thought that it contained that kind of sweet. To their surprise, however, the box contained something else. Yet, only 4 out of the 26 autistic children were able to anticipate that another child in the same situation would make the same mistake. In contrast, all but 1 of 12 children with specific language impairment, matched for mental age, understood that others would be as misled as they had been themselves. The autistic children were also tested for their ability to infer knowledge about the content of a container from having or not having looked inside. All 4 children who had passed the belief task and an additional 4 performed perfectly, but most failed. The third task assessed children's pragmatic ability to adjust their answers to provide new rather than repeat old information. Here, too, most autistic children seemed unable to reliably make the correct adjustment. These results confirm the hypothesis that autistic children have profound difficulty in taking account of mental states.