Self-evaluation in young children.

A series of studies was conducted to examine the development of self-evaluation in children aged 1-5 years. Developmental changes in children's reactions to achievement-related outcomes were assessed in a variety of contexts, using different tasks and different criteria for success. The first study of 1-3-year-olds revealed an increased social orientation after the age of 21 months. Only children over this age were more likely to look up at the experimenter after they had produced an outcome themselves than after the same outcome had been produced by the experimenter. These older children were also more likely than younger children to call their mothers' attention to their achievements in a free-play situation. In a second study, on a task with visibly salient success versus failure outcomes, children aged 2-5 years responded to success with positive affect (e.g., smiling) and to failure with avoidance reactions (e.g., looking away from the experimenter). Praise enhanced children's positive affective reactions to success, but its effect was modest. In the final study, winning or losing on a competitive task was not understood by children below age 33 months and had no effect on their affective reactions to the task. In contrast, winning enhanced older children's pleasure in completing the task. Three stages are proposed in the development of self-evaluation. In the first stage, children experience joy in causality, but they lack the cognitive representational skills required for self-evaluation in a self-reflective sense, and they do not anticipate others' reactions to their performance. In the second stage, beginning before the age of 2 years, children anticipate adult reactions, seeking positive reactions to their successes and endeavoring to avoid negative reactions to failure. The proposed third stage involves a gradual internalization of external reactions, with children beginning to evaluate their performance and react emotionally to success and failure independently of their expectations of adult reactions. Although all studies focused on achievement outcomes, the development of self-evaluation in the moral domain may parallel this developmental sequence proposed for the achievement domain. It is also proposed that caretakers' reactions to rule violations might engender concerns about meeting adult expectations in achievement contexts.     

Parental verbal strategies and children’s capacities at 3 and 5 years during a memory task

In order to study the influence on memorization of external inputs as well as children’s own strategies, we examined both parental discourses in terms of distancing (Sigel, 1970) and spontaneous rehearsal by children during a memory task. Our aim was to assess the influence of each factor for children between 3 and 5 years of age. In our study of 72 parent-child dyads (36 dyads at 3 years and 36 dyads at 5 years), an initial factorial analysis revealed that parental discourse was organized on three levels of distancing: a basic level, a recontextualization level and a symbolic level. We also found that the children’s memory performances at both ages were chiefly influenced by the symbolic level, the most cognitively demanding. Lastly, the children’s rehearsal did not have any significant effect on memory performances, unlike their age, which was the primary predictor. A model featuring the various factors we studied is proposed in the discussion.     

Typography in children’s reading schemes may be suboptimal: Evidence from measures of reading rate

We investigated whether the layout of type in two popular children’s reading schemes was suitable for the intended reading age. 120 children read four passages of text that adopted the typography of four reading stages in each of the two schemes. The size and spacing of the texts decreased with successive stages as the intended reading age increased. The reading speed of children aged 5 to 7 years decreased as the text size decreased: in particular, these children read fastest the text designed for 5 and 6 year olds. Older children aged 8 to 11 years were neither assisted nor disadvantaged by text size. Children of all ages, particularly those susceptible to visual stress, were found to make more errors on the smaller than on the larger text. We conclude that the reading development of some children might benefit from a larger text size and spacing than is currently the norm, and that no children would be disadvantaged by such a change.     

9～14岁儿童合作条件认知及动机的发展研究

运用自编问卷,调查了229名9～14岁儿童的合作认知与合作动机,并通过年级比较来揭示其发展特点。结果发现：（1）9～14岁儿童认为与合作关系最密切的因素依次是互相帮助,一起行动,主动寻伴和共同目标,各年级学生对一起行动,相同任务,主动寻伴,关系要好等因素与合作的关系密切度判断上存在显著差异;（2）9—14岁儿童认为对小组合作成功来说最重要的因素是信任和共同目标,其次为沟通和分工。各年级学生在让步、共同目标、做同样事情和能力等因素的重要性评价上也存在着显著差异。（3）在儿童的合作动机中,情感动机取向所占比重较大,其次是任务动机取向,权威动机取向和关系动机取向。通过方差检验,发现各年级儿童在关系取向和权威取向上存在显著差异,男女儿童在情感取向上存在显著差异。     

Prenatal cocaine exposure: a comparison of 2-year-old children in parental and nonparental care

Effects of prenatal cocaine exposure and parental versus nonparental care on outcome at 2 years of age were examined. The sample included 83 cocaine-exposed and 63 nonexposed children and their caregivers; 49 and 34 of the cocaine-exposed children experienced parental and nonparental care, respectively. Prenatal drug exposure was not related directly to children's outcome at 2 years of age. However, compared with cocaine-exposed children in parental care, those in nonparental care experienced a more optimal environment and performed better in several developmental domains at 2 years of age in spite of being at greater neonatal risk. Further analyses suggested that this protective effect of nonparental care was in part due to nonkin rather than kin care.     

The development of temporal metamemory

In two studies of knowledge about the properties and processes of memory for the times of past events, 178 children from 5 through 13 years of age and 40 adults answered questions about how they would remember times on different scales, how temporal memory is affected by retention interval, and the usefulness of different methods. The adults showed quite accurate knowledge about the main properties of memory for time and the processes that underlie it. Different properties and processes were first understood at ages ranging from 8 years to 12 years or later. Knowledge of the roles of reconstruction and impressions of temporal distances appear well after children use them to remember the times of events.     

Developmental trajectories of sex-typed behavior in boys and girls: a longitudinal general population study of children aged 2.5-8 years

The stability of sex-typed behavior from the preschool to the middle school years was examined. The Preschool Activities Inventory, a measure of within-sex variation in sex-typed behavior, was completed by the primary caregiver when the child was 2.5, 3.5, and 5 years, and a modified version, the Child Activities Inventory, was completed by the child at age 8. The investigation involved a general population sample of 2,726 boys and 2,775 girls. Sex-typed behavior increased through the preschool years, and those children who were the most sex typed at age 2.5 were still the most sex typed at age 5, with those children who showed the highest levels of sex-typed behavior during the preschool years continuing to do so at age 8.     

‘Slimmed down’ assessment or increased accountability? Teachers,elections and UK government assessment policy

Since coming to power in 2010, the UK Coalition government in power has implemented a range of reforms in relation to assessment at all stages of education in England. This paper focuses on two assessment reforms relating to children aged five and six years old, and considers their evolution from manifesto commitments to practice in classrooms. These reforms are the introduction of the Phonics Screening Check at age six, and the revised Early Years Foundation Stage Profile at age five. The main focus is on the coherence of these policies, both over time and as part of an overall government strategy on assessment in early years and primary education. It is argued that, despite claims of reducing bureaucracy, these assessment policies are driven by an agenda of increasing accountability in the first years of primary school.     

Pretend play and maternal scaffolding: Comparisons of toddlers with advanced development,typical development,and hearing impairment

This study used measures of pretend play and maternal scaffolding to explore and compare the early development of deaf children, typically developing children, and children showing advanced intellectual development. Marked differences were found among the groups in both play development and characteristics of mother‐child interactions. In particular, children who scored above 130 IQ at four years of age were found, as toddlers, to have demonstrated significantly advanced pretend play. In addition, the mothers of the high IQ children engaged in scaffolding behaviors involving higher stages of pretend transformations, verbal analogies and world links. The findings are discussed in relation to children's learning in Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development, as well as possible implications for future research on early gifted development.     

Children involved in bullying at elementary school age: their psychiatric symptoms and deviance in adolescence. An epidemiological sample

OBJECTIVE: This study investigated psychiatric symptoms and deviance at the age of 15 years among children involved in bullying at the age of 8 years or at the age of 12 years. Furthermore, the relationships between involvement in bullying at the age of 8 years, concurrent psychiatric deviance, and later psychiatric deviance were studied. METHOD: Questionnaires filled in by the parents, teachers and children themselves were used to reveal psychiatric symptoms and deviance. RESULTS: Children involved in bullying, in particular those who were bully-victims at early elementary school age and those who were victims in their early teens, had more psychiatric symptoms at the age of 15 years. The probability of being deviant at the age of 15 years was higher among children involved in bullying at the age of 8 or 12 years than among non-involved children. When concurrent psychiatric deviance was taken into account, involvement in bullying increased the probability of teacher-defined deviance at the age of 15 years. CONCLUSION: Bullying experiences are connected not only to concurrent psychiatric symptoms but also to future psychiatric symptoms. Furthermore, the probability of being deviant in adolescence is increased if the child has been involved in bullying at elementary school age.     

Seeing, hearing, and doing: a developmental study of memory for actions

The ability to recall and organize actions was studied in children from 5 to 11 years in age. 8 different auditory or visual commands were successively presented for 10 trials in each modality in a free-recall task. Younger children performed fewer commands but recalled relatively more recent ones, and they showed the same degree of subjective organization and the same degree and structure of hierarchical clustering as the older children. The hierarchical structure was independent of recall, age, and modality, with the motor actions being organized by the locus of the object or instrument of the verb in the command. The difficulty of the commands was highly correlated with uncertainty of the locus of the action, that is, the number of possible arguments (objects or instruments) a verb could assume, as measured by a subsidiary experiment on 8-year-olds who were asked to name as many parts of the body upon or with which one could perform each action. Developmental differences in recall appear to rise because of primary organization (retrieval) and rehearsal strategies rather than secondary organization.     

The interaction of vocabulary and short-term memory in predicting phonological awareness: a comparison of dyslexic and non-dyslexic children

Using data from a longitudinal comparative study of children at risk of dyslexia ( Snowling, Gallagher & Frith, 2003 ), this paper reports some replication of work by Gibbs (2004) . It was found that the development of phonological awareness might, for children between the ages of 6 and 8 years of age and not considered to be at risk of dyslexia, be facilitated by an interaction of memory span and lexical knowledge. This effect was not, however, found for children of the same age who were considered to be at risk of dyslexia. For these children an interaction, with contrasting implications, was found between the ages of 3 years 9 months and 6 years. Some theoretical and practical implications of these findings are outlined.     

Reading Comprehension of Dutch Deaf Children

In this study, the reading comprehension of deaf children and adolescents in the Netherlands is examined along with their word identification. The reading comprehension of 464 deaf students and the word identification of 504 deaf students between 6 and 20 years of age was examined. The results show the reading comprehension scores of deaf children to be far below the scores of hearing children. On average, the deaf subjects scored at a level equivalent to a hearing child in the first grade. The word identification scores of the deaf children, however, were almost equivalent to the scores of hearing children. Although reading comprehension and word identification appear to be related, this relation does not completely explain the comprehension difficulties encountered by deaf children. Additional factors are required to explain deaf children’s difficulties with reading comprehension.     

Patterns of child abuse and neglect associated with chronological age of children living in a midwestern county.

OBJECTIVE: The main objective of the study was to investigate the relationship between age of the very young victim and the type of abuse perpetrated against that victim. A secondary objective was to examine gender and racial differences in child abuse and neglect in children between the ages of birth and 7 years. METHOD: Archived data for all cases of substantiated abuse of children for the years of 1990-1996 inclusive were retrieved from a data bank at a county children services department (N = 876). Chi-square analyses were used to determine age, gender, and racial differences in child abuse and neglect in children 0 to 7 years of age. RESULTS: Neglect was the most common form of primary substantiated abuse recorded for this population of children under the age of 7 years, although the incidence of neglect decreased as chronological age of the child increased. Sexual abuse increased in occurrence as the children got older. Girls were more likely to be victims of sexual abuse than boys. No significant age differences were observed for physical abuse or for emotional abuse, and no racial differences were detected for any of the four types of abuse examined. CONCLUSIONS: Although the findings of this study are in agreement with those of previously published reports, there is some question as to whether archived data are an accurate reflection of actual patterns of maltreatment occurring in very young children or whether they represent the types of abuse that are subjectively identified and reported by authorities.     

A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of a 'State of the Art' Talent Identification Model

Sport Interactive is a talent identification (TI) program that matches young people to sports based on proficiency on 11 simple physical and performance tasks. An evaluation of the program with Scottish girls ( n = 1217, mean age = 12.68 years) and boys ( n = 1239, mean age = 12.54 years) identified a number of problems. Firstly, although talent is conceptualized as static, children are evaluated on unstable variables. Additionally, the proposed correlation between proficiency on the Sport Interactive tasks and specific sport aptitude lacks theoretical justification. Finally, problems accrued from the use of Australian norms to interpret the performances of Scottish children. It is concluded that models that are based on a static and uni-dimensional concept of talent are likely to lead to the premature de-selection of many talented children. An alternative TID process that is based on a dynamic and multi-dimensional concept of talent is discussed.     

Acquisition of certain grapheme-phoneme correspondences in normally achieving and disabled readers

The present study was designed to assess the development of the understanding of certain aspects of grapheme-phoneme correspondences in normally achieving and disabled readers. The correspondences rules were studied using both English words and pseudowords, the latter designed to contain the same features as the real words. The subjects were 76 normally achieving and 32 reading disabled children aged 6 to 14 years. The stimuli included words and pseudowords that tested the following: consonant blends, final e, r-influenced vowels, regular and irregular words, function words, and consistent and inconsistent vowels. When matched for chronological age, the reading disabled children performed significantly more poorly than normally achieving children on all of the tasks involving pseudowords. A similar pattern was found for the words with the exception of the highest frequency words (cvc, final e, consonant blends) at the oldest age level, 11–14 years. In this case, the performance of the oldest reading disabled children was similar to that of the normals on the words, but was still significantly poorer when the stimuli were pseudowords. Complexity and irregularity were significant determinants of difficulty. Comparisons were also made for groups of children matched on reading grade level. Even when the reading disabled and normally achieving children were matched on reading grade, the reading disabled children had significantly more difficulty, particularly with pseudowords. Reading disabled children had significant difficulty in abstracting the basic rules for grapheme-phoneme correspondences in English, and even when they have mastered these rules in connection with real words, they still had difficulty applying these rules to pseudowords. In normal development, the learning of these correspondences appears to be consolidated by approximately 9 years of age. However, reading disabled children appear to have a significant and persistent problem with the learning of basic grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules.     

Reading and Comprehension: a longitudinal study of ex‐Reading Recovery students

The paper reports the results of a longitudinal case study conducted in Australia and New Zealand. The study compares the reading and comprehension age of children in their fifth and sixth years in school. Reading and comprehension ages of 121 children who had Reading Recovery intervention at age 6 were compared with those of a Comparison group of 121 children, drawn from the same classes who, at age 6 years, had been better performers in literacy. Reading and comprehension assessment was conducted with the use of the Neale Analysis of Reading and analysed by means of a t‐test. Results show that the mean reading age of ex‐Reading Recovery children was nearly 12 months superior to that of the Comparison group and that the mean comprehension age was nearly 13 months superior at very highly significant levels. The results strongly suggest that Reading Recovery tuition at age 6 years enabled the 121 ex‐Reading Recovery children to make greater progress in literacy than children in the Comparison group.     

Training for Environmental Aides

Abstract

This paper reviews the results of a study of 267 children in the second, fifth, eighth and eleventh grades. A battery of tests was used to examine children's knowledge and attitudes toward animals, and behavioral contacts with animals. A typology of basic attitudes toward animals and appropriate scales were employed. Children's knowledge and attitudes toward animals were also compared to adults eighteen years of age and over. Major differences occurred among children distinguished by age, sex, ethnicity, and urban/rural residence. Additionally, significant knowledge and attitude variations occurred among diverse animal-related activity groups (e.g., among children who hunted, birdwatched, learned about animals in school). Perhaps the most important finding was the identification of three stages in the development of children's perceptions of animals. The transition from six to nine years of age primarily involved major changes in affective, emotional relationships to animals. The change from ten to thirteen years of age was marked by a major increase in cognitive, factual understanding, and knowledge of animals. The shift from thirteen to sixteen years of age witnessed a dramatic broadening in ethical concern and ecological appreciation of animals and the natural environment.     

Child-Directed Speech Is Infrequent in a Forager-Farmer Population: A Time Allocation Study

This article provides an estimation of how frequently, and from whom, children aged 0–11 years (Ns between 9 and 24) receive one-on-one verbal input among Tsimane forager-horticulturalists of lowland Bolivia. Analyses of systematic daytime behavioral observations reveal < 1 min per daylight hour is spent talking to children younger than 4 years of age, which is 4 times less than estimates for others present at the same time and place. Adults provide a majority of the input at 0–3 years of age but not afterward. When integrated with previous work, these results reveal large cross-cultural variation in the linguistic experiences provided to young children. Consideration of more diverse human populations is necessary to build generalizable theories of language acquisition.