Categorization and Naming: Basic-Level Sorting in Eighteen-Month-Olds and Its Relation to Language

2 studies investigate whether 18-month-old children spontaneously sort objects into basic-level categories, and how this ability is related to naming. In Study 1, 18-month-old children were given spontaneous sorting tasks, involving both identical objects and objects with basic-level intracategory variation. Children were scored as having passed the tasks if they produced "exhaustive grouping," that is, physically grouped all the objects of one kind into one location and the objects of the other kind into a different location. The children also received means-ends and object-permanence tasks. Children's parents received a checklist of early names. Children who produced exhaustive grouping used significantly more names than those who did not, in both identical and basic-level cases. There was no such relation between object-permanence and naming or between means-ends performance and naming. In Study 2, children received arrays of the same objects, with either identical objects or objects with basic-level variation in each group. No significant differences were found between the identical and basic-level tasks. However, as in the previous task, performance on both types of categorization was related to naming. Children who produced exhaustive grouping were reported to produce more names than those who did not. There appears to be a close relation between object categorization and naming in young children. The theoretical implications of this empirical association are discussed.     

Gender differences in cognitive abilities of opposite-sex and same-sex twin pairs with reading disabilty

In order to compare the pattern of gender differences for cognitive measures in opposite-sex twin pairs to that in independent samples of twins from same-sex pairs, psychometric test data were obtained from four research-identified samples of children: (1) 96 pairs of opposite-sex fraternal twins in which at least one member of each pair is reading disabled; (2) 62 pairs of opposite-sex fraternal twins with no history of reading problems; (3) 167 males and 155 females from same-sex identical and same-sex fraternal twin pairs in which at least one member of each pair is reading disabled; and (4) a comparison sample of 126 males and 132 females from same-sex twin pairs with no history of reading problems. Results of multivariate analyses indicate that gender differences for cognitive measures are similar in twin pairs with and without reading disabilities. Moreover, a highly similar pattern of gender differences occurs for opposite-sex twin pairs who shared both prenatal and early postnatal influences and for independent samples of children from different families.     

Discrepant Utterances Resulting from a False Belief: Children's Evaluations

4–7-year-olds listened to message-desire discrepant stories in which a speaker doll, who believed wrongly that bag A was in location 1 and bag B in location 2, asked for the bag in location 1 (a request that should be treated as referentially opaque). In the first investigation, many children interpreted the utterance correctly, saying that the speaker really wanted the bag in location 2, yet wrongly evaluated the utterance positively, saying that the speaker had done a good job. Children found it no easier to evaluate the message-desire discrepant utterances negatively, than to evaluate ambiguous ones that way. However, in Investigation 2, children found it just as easy to judge that the speaker of a message-desire discrepant utterance had said the wrong thing, as they did to interpret the utterance nonliterally by taking into account the speaker's false belief. Moreover, Investigation 3 showed that children were more likely to judge that the speaker of a message-desire discrepant utterance had said the wrong thing, than to judge that she had done a bad job. The findings suggest that, contrary to previous arguments, young children can refrain from a performative response and, as a consequence, attend to the literal meaning under some conditions when evaluating utterances.     

Children's thinking and poetry

'We didn't do poems.'We used to do it as a punishment when we were talking."Whenever we did something wrong, all the class had to stand up and say two poems, one was about Abu Ben Adam and the other was about a girl who went to a party and fell off her chair.' (First year pupils)     

Are there positive effects of having a sibling with special needs? Empathy and prosociality of twins of children with non-typical development

This study examined whether typically developing (TD) twins of non-TD children demonstrate enhanced empathy and prosociality. Of 778 Hebrew-speaking Israeli families who participated in a twin study, 63 were identified to have a non-TD child with a TD twin, and 404 as having both twins TD. TD twins of non-TD children (27% males) were compared to the rest of the cohort of TD children (46% males) on measures of empathy and prosociality. Participants were 11 years old. TD twins of non-TD children scored significantly higher than TD twins of TD children in a measure of cognitive empathy (d = .43). No differences were found in emotional empathy and prosociality. The specificity of the positive effect on cognitive empathy is discussed.     

The Role of Strategic Planning in Accessing False-Belief Understanding

Recently, Chandler and Hala found that actively involving 3-year-olds in planning a deception facilitated performance on false-belief questions. The methodology used, however, provided no basis for determining whether the good performance of these young subjects was the result of the deceptive intent of their planning efforts, or whether other sorts of planning would have been equally effective. The research reported here systematically varied both ( a ) subjects' responsibility for planning where to relocate an object and ( b ) whether the goal behind this relocation was a deceptive one. The present research demonstrated, first, when subjects simply watched the transfer take place, it made no difference whether the object was moved for deceptive or some more practical reason. In contrast, those subjects who had themselves strategically planned a deception were markedly better at answering questions about another's false beliefs than those who simply witnessed the transfer taking place. No comparable facilitating effect was found when subjects planned a transfer but without deceptive intent. We argue that strategic planning works to underscore the importance of the belief states of others and provide opportunities not afforded by "standard" unexpected change or transfer tasks for showcasing 3-year-olds' emerging understanding of the possibility of false belief.     

Theory of mind may be contagious, but you don't catch it from your twin

The theory-of-mind abilities of twins, children with nontwin siblings, and only children were compared to investigate further the link between number and type of siblings and theory-of-mind abilities. Three- to 5-year-old children with nontwin siblings outperformed both only children and twins with no other siblings, twins who also had other siblings outperformed twins who did not, and children with at least 1 opposite-sex sibling outperformed children with only same-sex siblings. Twins performed significantly better when asked about the false beliefs of their twins than they did when asked about the false beliefs of their friends. Results are discussed in terms of potential mechanisms that may account for the twin and sibling effects.     

Individual, family, and neighborhood factors distinguish resilient from non-resilient maltreated children: a cumulative stressors model

OBJECTIVE: Children who are physically maltreated are at risk of a range of adverse outcomes in childhood and adulthood, but some children who are maltreated manage to function well despite their history of adversity. Which individual, family, and neighborhood characteristics distinguish resilient from non-resilient maltreated children? Do children's individual strengths promote resilience even when children are exposed to multiple family and neighborhood stressors (cumulative stressors model)? METHODS: Data were from the Environmental Risk Longitudinal Study which describes a nationally representative sample of 1,116 twin pairs and their families. Families were home-visited when the twins were 5 and 7 years old, and teachers provided information about children's behavior at school. Interviewers rated the likelihood that children had been maltreated based on mothers' reports of harm to the child and child welfare involvement with the family. RESULTS: Resilient children were those who engaged in normative levels of antisocial behavior despite having been maltreated. Boys (but not girls) who had above-average intelligence and whose parents had relatively few symptoms of antisocial personality were more likely to be resilient versus non-resilient to maltreatment. Children whose parents had substance use problems and who lived in relatively high crime neighborhoods that were low on social cohesion and informal social control were less likely to be resilient versus non-resilient to maltreatment. Consistent with a cumulative stressors model of children's adaptation, individual strengths distinguished resilient from non-resilient children under conditions of low, but not high, family and neighborhood stress. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that for children residing in multi-problem families, personal resources may not be sufficient to promote their adaptive functioning.     

Heading in the rat: Determination by environmental shape

After a 75-sec intratrial delay, rats that had been shown the location of hidden food within a rectangular box correctly dug at that location in a second identical box, which had been moved into the same position within the room. For some rats, the opposing ends of the boxes were differentiated by distinctive corner panels; for others, there were no panels. When, during the delay interval, the turntable supporting both boxes was rotated by more than 180°, so that the second box no longer took the place of the first box within the room, the rats showed performance decrements. Nevertheless, 4 subjects selected the correct location significantly more often than the rotationally equivalent location, which corresponds to the correct location when the ends of the box are confused. The amount of rotation had no significant effect for any rat. In a final phase, the rats were denied perceptual access to cues outside the test box, which now had differentiating corner panels for all rats. Despite the distinctive panels, no rat showed a significant difference between correct digs and rotational errors; that is, no rat reliably distinguished one end of the box from the other. Results confirm previous findings that rats rely primarily on environmental shape to establish their heading. They ignore distinctive features of the surfaces that define environmental shape, even when the shape by itself is insufficient to establish a unique orientation.     

Treating twins as individuals: Maternal educative practices

For twins’ parents, the process of building up each child’s individuality is more complex than for singleton’s parents. The dyadic interaction becomes a triadic situation and the mother has to face the problem of distinguishing one twin from the other without comparing them. The analysis of mother’s twin care patterns provides highly relevant information on the processes promoting twins’ individualization and maternal adjustment to the triadic situation. An empirical study illustrates this point of view. It surveys forty parents of twins on their attitudes towards twin rearing and observes parental behaviour in the home to assess consistency between statements of actual practices. Observation and correspondence analysis show that: I) Some types of child care are more conductive to implementing differentiation strategies than others (dress and choice of toys in contrast to bedtime and meals); 2) mothers of twins who are explicit about child rearing practices are generally coherent about putting them into practice; mothers with less explicit views are less inclined to try to individualize their twins; 3) SES and degree of physical resemblance between twins both affect the type of differentiation strategies.     

A typology of the three-year-old twin sibling relationship drawn from two different environments: School and home

The main purpose of this study was to describe the relational structure of child twins on the basis of their mothers' representations of their behavior in two everyday settings, at school and in the home. This study looks in particular at dependence on the co-twin and the dominant/dominated relationship in these two life environments. Fifty-seven questionnaires were gathered from mothers of twins three months after the children had begun preschool. A multiple correspondence analysis and an automatic classification of the data pointed out several relational structures of the twin sibling relationship, in contrast to the often stereotyped single representation of twinship. A secondary aim was to associate the observed relational structures with (a) the type of twinship and the sex makeup of the twin pair (b) the mothers' child-raising behaviors, which may or may not tend to turn the twins outward (first short separation of the children before preschool). Contrary to predictions, no particular relational structures could be differentiated on the basis of the type of twinship (monozygotic vs. same-sex dizygotic twins). On the other hand, pairs composed of a boy and a girl exhibited a number of specific characteristics. Parents who were in favor of short separations did not have children who were more co-twin independent in the school environment. However these twins showed a dominant/dominated relationship in the home.     

Sensitivity and Consistency of Maternal Writing Mediation to Twin Kindergartners

This study investigated whether mothers are responsive to their children's literacy level, thus employing different writing mediation styles with each twin according to the child's level, or whether they possess a consistent style employed with both twins. The sample included 28 sets of twin kindergartners (56 children, M age = 68.89 months) and their mothers. Children's literacy underwent individual assessment in their kindergartens. During home visits, mother–child writing interactions with each twin were videotaped. Interactions underwent analysis for task-specific measures (grapho-phonemic mediation, printing mediation, demand for precision, reference to orthography) and for general measures (atmosphere, mutuality, reinforcements, task perception). Findings demonstrated that along with sensitivity to the child's level (mediating on a higher level to the higher achieving twin), mothers of twins possessed a consistent mediation style. Sensitivity to the differences in literacy between the twins was salient in the task-specific mediation measures, whereas the presence of a style appeared in all the mediation measures. The results of this study support the stance that mothers' mediation style deserves to be acknowledged as an influencing factor in children's literacy development.     

Sensitivity and Consistency of Maternal Writing Mediation to Twin Kindergartners

This study investigated whether mothers are responsive to their children's literacy level, thus employing different writing mediation styles with each twin according to the child's level, or whether they possess a consistent style employed with both twins. The sample included 28 sets of twin kindergartners (56 children, M age = 68.89 months) and their mothers. Children's literacy underwent individual assessment in their kindergartens. During home visits, mother-child writing interactions with each twin were videotaped. Interactions underwent analysis for task-specific measures (grapho-phonemic mediation, printing mediation, demand for precision, reference to orthography) and for general measures (atmosphere, mutuality, reinforcements, task perception). Findings demonstrated that along with sensitivity to the child's level (mediating on a higher level to the higher achieving twin), mothers of twins possessed a consistent mediation style. Sensitivity to the differences in literacy between the twins was salient in the task-specific mediation measures, whereas the presence of a style appeared in all the mediation measures. The results of this study support the stance that mothers' mediation style deserves to be acknowledged as an influencing factor in children's literacy development.     

古史传说人物容成氏考——兼述容成氏与陕西安康的关系

古史传说人物中有大容氏,为华胥氏后裔,约与伏羲氏同期。容成氏出自大容氏,又写作庸成氏等。其后裔传到黄帝之“臣”容成这一代时,事迹才略有记载。其后裔部落又形成古国,商晚期迁国于西城(今陕西安康),春秋被楚灭亡,容(庸)姓分迁于各地。他们是中华民族的一员,为社会发展做出了积极贡献。     

Children''s Interpretation of Messages from a Speaker with a False Belief

In 5 investigations we examined a new procedure for assessing children's understanding that messages arise from speakers' internal representations. 3- and 4-year-olds watched the enactment of a message-desire discrepant story in which a speaker doll, who believed wrongly that bag A was in location 1 and that bag B was in location 2, gave a message referring to the bag in location 1. In a message-desire consistent control condition, the speaker had a correct belief about the bags' locations. Children frequently judged correctly in the discrepant story that the speaker (who specified location 1) wanted the bag in location 2, and judged correctly in the consistent story that the speaker wanted the bag in location 1. That is, young children attended to the speaker's internal representations, and not just the real-world referent of the message, when judging what the speaker wanted. In one of the investigations, children performed better on the message-desire discrepant task than on a false belief task. We discuss why they might find it particularly easy to take into account false belief when inferring desire on the basis of behavior.     

A longitudinal twin study of stability of components from Bayley's Infant Behavior Record

Factor scores from Bayley's Infant Behavior Record, obtained from about 300-400 infant twins at 6, 12, 18, and 24 months, were selected to represent 3 aspects of infant behavior: task orientation, test affect-extraversion, and activity. Age-to-age correlations for the scores yielded a simplex pattern of low to moderate order. Further age-to-age analyses by twin pairs generally showed that the identical twins, as compared with same-sex fraternal twins, generated more within-pair similarities for profiles of the factor scores across 2 overlapping age ranges: 6-18 months, and 12-24 months. Overall, the findings indicated that there is reordering of individual differences for aspects of infant behavior from one age to the next, but the sequence of reordering is somewhat structured in accord with genotypic similarity. The longitudinal findings are also discussed within the context of change and continuity of the individuality of infant temperament.     

Differential genetic etiology of reading disability as a function of IQ

To test the hypothesis that the genetic etiology of reading disability differs as a function of IQ, composite reading performance data from 223 pairs of identical twins and 169 pairs of same-gender fraternal twins in which at least one member of each pair was classified with reading disability were subjected to multiple regression analysis (DeFries & Fulker, 1985, 1988). In the total sample, heritability of the group deficit in reading performance (h(g)2) was .58 (+/- .08). However, when the basic regression model was fitted separately to data from twin pairs with average Wechsler (1974, 1981) full scale IQ scores below 100 or 100 and above, resulting estimates of h(g)2 were .43 and .72, respectively, a significant difference (p < or = .03, one-tailed). The results of fitting extended regression models to reading performance and continuous IQ data provide evidence that the genetic etiology of reading disability differs as a linear function of IQ (p < or = .007, one-tailed). These results suggest that IQ is relevant for the diagnosis of reading disability and that environmental influences may be more salient as a cause of reading difficulties in children with lower IQ scores.     

Genetic and environmental etiologies of reading difficulties: DeFries-Fulker analysis of reading performance data from twin pairs and their nontwin siblings

Reading performance data from 254 pairs of identical (MZ) and 420 pairs of fraternal (DZ) twins, 8.0 to 20.0 years of age, were subjected to multiple regression analyses. An extension of the DeFries-Fulker (DF) analysis (DeFries & Fulker, 1985, 1988) that facilitated inclusion of data from 303 of their nontwin siblings was employed. In addition to providing estimates of heritability, this analysis yields a test of the difference between shared environmental influences for twins versus siblings (Astrom et al., 2011). Results suggest that proband reading deficits are due substantially to genetic factors (.67 ± .07, p < .001), and that shared environmental influences are significantly higher for members of twin pairs than for those of twins and their nontwin siblings (viz., .25 versus .17, p = .02).     

Student/teacher relations and attitudes toward mathematics before and after the transition to junior high school

In a longitudinal study of 1,301 students and the teachers they had for mathematics before and after the transition to junior high school, we assessed whether changes across the transition in students' perceptions of their teachers' supportiveness were related to changes in their valuing of mathematics. Using repeated-measures multivariate analysis of variance, we found that when students moved from elementary teachers they perceived to be low in support to junior high teachers they perceived to be high in support, the intrinsic value of math was enhanced, while students who moved from teachers they perceived to be high in support to teachers they perceived to be low in support experienced a sharp decline in both the intrinsic value and perceived usefulness and importance of math. For students' perceptions of the usefulness and importance of math there was an interaction with achievement level. Math values decreased more sharply during the first year of junior high for low-achieving students who moved from more supportive to less supportive teachers than for high-achieving students who experienced the same change.     

Maternal questions while reading to deaf and hearing twins: a case study

This study examined the frequency and types of questions that a mother used during storybook reading sessions with her 3-year-old twin daughters. One had normal hearing and one was deaf. Results indicated that the mother asked almost twice as many questions of the hearing twin as she did of the deaf twin. The types of questions asked also varied. With the hearing twin, the mother primarily asked conventional test questions. While questions asked the deaf twin appeared to serve the same function as conventional test questions, they were asked in a form not examined in previous research. Differential changes in questions asked the twins across three reading sessions also were noted. Implications for the quality of language during book reading with young deaf children are discussed.