3-5岁幼儿口语叙事能力对创造力发展的影响

为探讨3-5岁幼儿口语叙事能力对创造力发展的影响,采用修订后的叙事评估工具(NAP)与创造力测评工具(EPoC)对108名3-5岁幼儿进行个体施测。研究结果表明:(1)3-5岁幼儿口语叙事能力随年龄不断增长,4岁为快速发展期;(2)创造力的整体发展趋势随年龄增长呈倒U型,即在3-4岁幼儿创造力随年龄不断提高,在5岁时随年龄增长而下降;(3)3-5岁幼儿创造力与口语叙事能力发展均无显著性别差异;(4)3-5岁幼儿口语叙事能力中故事语法维度对幼儿发散性思维与语言创造力有显著正向预测作用,贡献率分别为7.6%和11.4%。     

Preschoolers' Saving Behavior: The Role of Planning and Self-Control

Planning and self-control were examined in relation to preschoolers' (41- to 74-months) saving behavior. Employing a marble run paradigm, 54 children participated in two trials in which they could use their marbles immediately on a less desirable run, or save for a more desirable run. Twenty-nine children received the opportunity to create a budget. On Trial 1, children in the budgeting condition saved significantly more than did children in the control condition, and their planning ability related to saving (after controlling for age and language). Those who consistently budgeted at least one marble for the more desirable run were more likely to save. Control children's performance improved across trials, with no between-condition differences on Trial 2. Self-control was not related to saving.     

Developmental Improvements and Persisting Difficulties in Children’s Metacognitive Monitoring and Control Skills: Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Perspectives

This study investigated age-dependent improvements of monitoring and control in 7/8- and 9/10-year-old children. We addressed prospective (judgments of learning and restudy selections) and retrospective metacognitive skills (confidence judgments and withdrawal of answers). Children (N = 305) completed a paired-associate learning task twice, with a 1-year delay. Results revealed improvements in retrospective, but not in prospective monitoring and control. Furthermore, control remained suboptimal, seemingly a consequence of overoptimistic monitoring. Both age groups showed stronger monitoring-based control at the second compared to the first assessment. The comparison with a cross-sectional sample (N = 144) revealed that improvements in retrospective monitoring can be mainly attributed to naturally occurring development, whereas retrospective control seemed to improve due to increased task familiarity.     

Long-Term Memory for a Single Infancy Experience

Children's memory of a single infant experience was evaluated. Children in the experimental groups (N = 16 for 2.5-year-olds; N = 8 for 1.5-year-olds) had participated at 6.5 months in a study of auditory localization where they reached in the light and dark for a sounding object. They were reintroduced to the laboratory and the dark procedure they had experienced on that one occasion either 1 or 2 years previously. The first 5 trials were uninstructed; for the remaining 5 trials, children were instructed to find the sounding object. For half of the older group, a potential reminder of the infant procedure was introduced. The original infant rattle was sounded for 3 sec out of reach in the dark one-half hour prior to test trials. Equal numbers of age-matched inexperienced control subjects were also tested. The older children with infant experience reached and grasped the sounding object significantly more overall, and on instructed trials, than age-matched control children. Experienced 2.5-year-olds were also more likely to remain in the testing situation than children in the control group. The reminder facilitated uninstructed performance of the experienced children. Instructions to reach were helpful to all subjects. We conclude that children remembered aspects of a single experience that occurred when they were 6.5 months of age.     

Let’s Cross the Next One: Parental Scaffolding of Prospective Control Over Movement

This investigation examined parental scaffolding of children’s prospective control over decisions and actions during a joint perception-action task. Parents and their 6-, 8-, 10-, and 12-year-old children (N = 128) repeatedly crossed a virtual roadway together. Guidance and control shifted from the parent to the child with increases in child age. Parents more often chose the gap that was crossed and prospectively communicated the gap choice with younger than older children. Greater use of an anticipatory gap selection strategy by parents predicted more precise timing of entry into the gap by children. This work suggests that social interaction may serve as an important experiential mechanism for the development of prospective control over decisions and actions in the perception–action domain.     

Crawling versus Walking Infants' Perception of Affordances for Locomotion over Sloping Surfaces

14-month-old toddlers vs. 8.5-month-old crawling infants were encouraged to ascend and descend a sloping walkway (10°, 20°, 30°, and 40°). Infants in both locomotor groups overestimated their ability to ascend slopes. However, on descending trials where falling was more aversive, most toddlers switched from walking to sliding positions for safe descent, but crawlers plunged down headfirst and many fell at each increment. Toddlers touched and hesitated most before descending 10° and 20° slopes, and they explored alternative means for descent by testing out different sliding positions before leaving the starting platform. In contrast, crawlers touched and hesitated most before descending 30° and 40° slopes, and they never explored alternative sliding positions. In addition, we analyzed measures of locomotor skill and experience in relation to children's ability to perceive affordances. Findings indicate that children must learn to perceive affordances for locomotion over slopes and that learning may begin by fine-tuning of exploratory activity.     

Seeing Iconic Gesture Promotes First- and Second-Order Verb Generalization in Preschoolers

This study investigated whether seeing iconic gestures depicting verb referents promotes two types of generalization. We taught 3- to 4-year-olds novel locomotion verbs. Children who saw iconic manner gestures during training generalized more verbs to novel events (first-order generalization) than children who saw interactive gestures (Experiment 1, N = 48; Experiment 2, N = 48) and path-tracing gestures (Experiment 3, N = 48). Furthermore, immediately (Experiments 1 and 3) and after 1 week (Experiment 2), the iconic manner gesture group outperformed the control groups in subsequent generalization trials with different novel verbs (second-order generalization), although all groups saw interactive gestures. Thus, seeing iconic gestures that depict verb referents helps children (a) generalize individual verb meanings to novel events and (b) learn more verbs from the same subcategory.     

Caregiver and peer responses to children with language and motor disabilities in inclusive preschool programs

The free-play social behaviors of 24 children with special needs in two discovery-oriented, inclusive preschool programs were compared with their typically-developing classmates who were matched by age and sex. Children who, for various reasons, used little or no productive language spent more time in solitary pursuits, seldom initiated interactions and, when they did, used a different entry strategy than any other group. Children who were incapable of independent locomotion were largely dependent on adults for initiating changes in their activities and for social exchanges. Although they received more adult support than children developing typically, perhaps because of limited sample size, children with disabilities who were capable of independent locomotion and displayed sufficient language to make their needs and intents clear did not differ significantly from the children who were developing typically. Adults’ behavior varied according to child condition and activity. From observing a single, 20-minute videotape of free play, naı̈ve observers agreed with our classifications of over 78% of the children.     

PROSPECTIVE MEMORY TRAINING IN OLDER ADULTS

This study evaluates the results of a training program for prospective remembering. The goal of the training was to improve prospective memory by associating cues from the retrieval situation with the to be remembered information. The training group consisted of 20 participants, aged between 45 and 81 years. The effects of strategy training were compared with those of an educational training group (N = 23 , age range 45-84) directed at reducing worries about forgetfulness, and a retest control group (N = 22 , age range 46-74). The educational training and retest control groups did not differ in demographic characteristics and test performance and were combined into one control group. Subjective evaluations revealed that subjects were very satisfied with the effects of training. This also was true for subjects in the educational training condition. The objective effects of training were evaluated with a telephone task which had to be performed in the daily life situation, and a prospective categorization task performed in the laboratory. Despite the low reliabilities of the prospective tasks, a significant but small effect of training compared to the combined control group was found on the sum score of prospective tests. The training effect was not related to age or pretraining performance level. At the three months follow-up, however, performance of the control group had increased to the level of the trained group. As expected, training effects did not generalize to other memory measures (assessed with tests for remembering names) or control measures (assessed with visuo-motor reaction time tests).     

Measurement properties of the MacArthur communicative development inventories at ages one and two years

In a prospective study of child development in relation to early-life otitis media, we administered the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (CDI) to a large (N = 2,156), sociodemographically diverse sample of 1- and 2-year-old children. As a prerequisite for interpreting the CDI scores, we studied selected measurement properties of the inventories. Scores on the CDI/Words and Gestures (CDI-WG), designed for children 8 to 16 months old, and on the CDI/Words and Sentences (CDI-WS), designed for children 16 to 30 months old, increased significantly with months of age. On several scales of both CDI-WG and CDI-WS, standard deviations approximated or exceeded mean values, reflecting wide variability in results. Statistically significant differences in mean scores were found according to race, maternal education, and health insurance status as an indirect measure of income, but the directionality of differences was not consistent across inventories or across scales of the CDI-WS. Correlations between CDI-WG and CDI-WS ranged from .18 to .39. Our findings suggest that the CDI reflects the progress of language development within the age range 10 to 27 months. However, researchers and clinicians should exercise caution in using results of the CDI to identify individual children at risk for language deficits, to compare groups of children with different sociodemographic profiles, or to evaluate the effects of interventions.     

Factors influencing the incidence of utilization deficiencies and other patterns of recall/strategy-use relations in a strategic memory task

Factors that influence the incidence of utilization deficiencies and other recall/strategy-use patterns on a strategic memory task were evaluated in two hundred and fourteen 7- and 9-year-old children. Both utilization deficiencies and the incidence of children showing increases in both recall and strategy use over phases were more likely to be observed on phase transitions involving prompting or when different lists of items were included on consecutive trials; in contrast, increases in recall in the absence of increases in strategy use were more likely to be found between trials consisting of the same stimulus items. This research clearly indicates that patterns of recall/strategy-use relations, including utilization deficiencies, vary meaningfully with the age of the child and a variety of contextual factors.     

四手操作技术在儿童恒磨牙窝沟封闭术中的效绩分析

目的：探讨在窝沟封闭术中,四手操作技术与工作效率、封闭脱落率的关系。方法：随机将200例7～9岁无龋病儿童分为四手操作组和医生独立操作组,对第一恒磨牙进行窝沟封闭,比较工作效率、封闭质量、封闭剂脱落率。结果：四手操作组能降低封闭剂脱落率,快速完成操作过程,与独立操作组相比其封闭剂脱落率下降10％,节省操作时间8min。结论：在儿童恒磨牙窝沟封闭术中,四手操作能顺应操作过程,缩短操作时间,提高效率。同时,四手操作能降低封闭剂脱落率,减少医生操作的返工率、重复率,提高治疗质量。     

Preterm Children at Early Adolescence and Continuity and Discontinuity in Maternal Responsiveness from Infancy

Patterns in mother-child interaction from infancy to age 12 were investigated in a prospective, longitudinal study of 44 English-speaking mothers and their preterm children. Maternal responsiveness was assessed by home observations during infancy and the Family Interaction Q-Sort at age 12, derived from 2 structured laboratory situations requiring cooperation of mother and child. A cluster of maternal behaviors of critical control toward the toddler was assessed at age 2 years. Children of mothers who were consistently more responsive during both infancy and early adolescence, as well as children whose mothers became more responsive by age 12, achieved higher IQ and arithmetic scores, had more positive self-esteem, and their teachers reported fewer behavioral and emotional problems than children of mothers who were consistently less responsive both during infancy and at age 12. Continuity in parenting behaviors was related to control and criticism beginning in the toddler period and not to degree of responsiveness to the infant.     

Can't Ignore—Distraction by Task-Irrelevant Sounds in Early and Middle Childhood

Attention control abilities are relevant for learning success. Little is known about the development of audio-visual attention in early childhood. Four groups of children between the ages of 4 and 10 years and adults performed an audio-visual distraction paradigm (N = 106). Multilevel analyses revealed increased reaction times in a visual categorization task when task-irrelevant novel sounds were presented, demonstrating involuntary distraction of attention. This distraction effect decreased with age and significantly differed between age groups. In addition, the two youngest age groups responded with a delay in trials following a distractor trial, indicating delayed reallocation of attention to the task at hand. Results indicate a significant maturation of audio-visual attention control within a few years during early childhood that continues throughout middle childhood.     

Developmental changes in item and source memory: evidence from an ERP recognition memory study with children, adolescents, and adults

Event-related potential (ERP) correlates of item and source memory were assessed in 18 children (7-8 years), 20 adolescents (13-14 years), and 20 adults (20-29 years) performing a continuous recognition memory task with object and nonobject stimuli. Memory performance increased with age and was particularly low for source memory in children. The ERP difference between first presentations of objects and nonobjects, reflecting generic novelty processing, showed only small developmental changes. Regarding item memory, adults showed the putative ERP correlates of familiarity and recollection, whereas ERP effects in children and adolescents suggested a strong reliance on recollection. ERP correlates of source memory refined with age, suggesting maturation of strategic recollection between childhood and adolescence and the development of postretrieval control until adulthood.     

幼儿午睡问题的调查研究

通过对南京市某幼儿园不同年龄班幼儿睡眠状况的调查,发现幼儿客观存在入睡困难、睡眠质量不高、不良睡眠行为时有发生以及教师难以管理等诸多问题。睡眠时间的安排科学与否是影响幼儿睡眠质量的重要因素。根据幼儿的年龄和季节特点合理调整午睡时间,适当延长午饭和午睡的间隔时间等,有助于提高幼儿午睡质量。     

Do Language‐Based Processing Tasks Separate Children with Language Impairment from Typical Bilinguals?

We report results from 2 language‐based processing tasks designed to investigate the performance of linguistically diverse learners. The tasks were the Competing Language Processing Task (CLPT) and Non‐Word Repetition (NWR). Participants were 100 school‐age children in 1 of 3 different experimental groups: monolingual English‐speaking children with specific or primary language impairment (LI), typical English‐only‐speaking children (EO), or typical Spanish–English bilingual children (BI). On both CLPT and NWR, EO group performance was best and LI group performance was poorest, with BI group performance falling in between. Likelihood ratios indicated that performance on these tasks does not provide compelling diagnostic power for separating typically developing bilinguals from monolingual children with LI. One exception is that children who obtained an NWR score of 93 percent or higher could be ruled out of the LI group with a high degree of confidence.     

Training and Extension of a Memory Strategy: Evidence for Utilization Deficiencies in the Acquisition of an Organizational Strategy in High- and Low-IQ Children

143 9- and 10-year-old children were classified into high- and low-IQ groups and given 4 different sort/recall lists (baseline, training, near [immediate] extension, far [1-week] extension) to assess training and extension of an organizational memory strategy. All children received categorized items of moderate typicality for Phases 1, 3, and 4. For Phase 2, children were assigned to either a training or control group, with half of the children in each group receiving category typical items and the others category atypical items. Levels of recall, sorting, and clustering were greater in Phase 2 for high-IQ children, for the typical lists, and for trained children. Both the high- and low-IQ children trained with typical items continued to show high levels of recall on the near extension phase. No group of subjects maintained high levels of recall after 1 week, although levels of sorting and/or clustering on the extension trials remained high for all groups of subjects except the low-IQ control children. This latter pattern (elevated sorting/clustering with low levels of recall) is an indication of a utilization deficiency , a phase in strategy development when children use a strategy but gain little or no benefit in performance. The results provide evidence for IQ, training, and material effects in the demonstration of a utilization deficiency.     

Dissociation predicts later attention problems in sexually abused children

OBJECTIVE: The goals of this research are to develop and test a prospective model of attention problems in sexually abused children that includes fixed variables (e.g., gender), trauma, and disclosure-related pathways. METHODS: At Time 1, fixed variables, trauma variables, and stress reactions upon disclosure were assessed in 156 children aged 8-13 years. At the Time 2 follow-up (8-36 months following the initial interview), 56 of the children were assessed for attention problems. RESULTS: A path analysis involving a series of hierarchically nested, ordinary least squares multiple regression analyses indicated two direct paths to attention problems including the child's relationship to the perpetrator (beta=.23) and dissociation measured immediately after disclosure (beta=.53), while controlling for concurrent externalizing behavior (beta=.43). Post-traumatic stress symptoms were only indirectly associated with attention problems via dissociation. Taken together, these pathways accounted for approximately 52% of the variance in attention problems and provided an excellent fit to the data. CONCLUSIONS: Children who report dissociative symptoms upon disclosure of CSA and/or were sexually abused by someone within their family are at an increased risk of developing attention problems. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Findings from this study indicate that children who experienced sexual abuse at an earlier age, by someone within their family, and/or report symptoms of dissociation during disclosure are especially likely to benefit from intervention. Effective interventions should involve (1) providing emotion regulation and coping skills; and (2) helping children to process traumatic aspects of the abuse to reduce the cyclic nature of traumatic reminders leading to unmanageable stress and dissociation.     

Developmental milestones in abused children, and their improvement with a family-oriented approach to the treatment of child abuse

Few objective measures of the efficacy of intervention programs in the treatment of child abuse exist. One such measure may be improvement in the developmental delays often seen in abused children. Using the Learning Assessment Profile, we tested 53 abused children, ages 2.5-5 years, just before and after involvement in our Family Development Center Program (FDC). The FDC emphasizes therapy-group-interaction for parents, where alternative ways of expressing anger are explored. Children attend daily preschool classes, and take occasional outside field trips. Of the 53 children tested 42 (79%) showed greater than expected developmental skills gains. Six children demonstrated no improvement in developmental skills, four of whom had severe developmental delays in one or two areas. Fine motor and language skills were significantly delayed for the group as a whole; these areas showed the greatest improvement after FDC. There did not appear to be an overall association between increased improvement in developmental skills and length of time in the FDC program, although certain subgroups of children appeared to improve with time while others appeared to lose ground. A five-year follow-up study of these children is presently underway. We conclude that a program which involves both parent and child, and focuses on their interaction, appears to be effective in dealing with abusive families; monitoring developmental levels in the abused children is one means of assessing their progress in such a program. Further controlled prospective trials are needed in this area.