The Social Competence of Children Born Prematurely: Effects of Medical Complications and Parent Behaviors

36-month-old, full-term children (n = 21) and low-birthweight (LBW) children of high (n = 25) and low (n = 23) medical risk status were observed in interactions with mothers in teaching and social context. Child compliance, self-directed behaviors, and problem behaviors were evaluated as well as associations among aspects of children's social competence, mothers' behaviors, and context factors. Degree of medical risk was associated with impairments in children's self-directed behavior and quality of response to maternal directives. Mothers of LBW children showed a smaller proportion of behaviors that provided choices compared to mothers of full-term children. Medical complications, children's cognitive status, and mothers' interactive behaviors were significantly associated with LBW children's social competence. Results of regression analyses suggested that mothers and LBW children influence each others' behavior in ways similar to mothers and full-term children in both teaching and social contexts.     

构建和谐师幼互动 促运动区游戏开展——以大班户外运动游戏“竹多宫格”为例

运动活动中积极和谐的师幼互动具有的意义是:可以促进教师转变教育观念,优化教师的教育行为,改善师幼关系,提高运动活动质量,培养幼儿勇敢、不怕困难、乐观、自信等品质,增进师幼关系的亲密度。教师要从营造环境、创设条件、发挥作用、提升质量四个方面入手,构建和谐师幼互动,促进幼儿运动区游戏开展。     

The role of parenting styles in children's problem behavior

This study investigated the combination of mothers' and fathers' parenting styles (affection, behavioral control, and psychological control) that would be most influential in predicting their children's internal and external problem behaviors. A total of 196 children (aged 5-6 years) were followed up six times from kindergarten to the second grade to measure their problem behaviors. Mothers and fathers filled in a questionnaire measuring their parenting styles once every year. The results showed that a high level of psychological control exercised by mothers combined with high affection predicted increases in the levels of both internal and external problem behaviors among children. Behavioral control exercised by mothers decreased children's external problem behavior but only when combined with a low level of psychological control.     

Parental predictions of their children's knowledge about dangerous situations

This study explored the extent to which parents can predict their 5-, 8-, and 12-year-old male and female children's responses to questions about safe and dangerous situations. A total of 68 children and 61 parents of these children were questioned about their children's knowledge of (1) home address/telephone number, (2) strangers, (3) what to do in various emergency situations, (4) trust in police, (5) compliance towards police, and (6) resistance towards strangers. Parents were most accurate in predicting their children's understanding of strangers and trust in police officers. Parents overestimated their 5-year-olds' knowledge of home address/telephone and appropriate behaviors when lost or in abduction situations. Parental overestimations of knowledge and the likelihood to behave safely were more frequent with boys than with girls. Parental underestimations of children's knowledge of certain types of avoidance actions also were found. The results were interpreted in terms of metacognition and sex differences in spatial freedom.     

Sharing Books and Learning Language: What do Latina Mothers and Their Young Children Do?

This study examined low-income, Spanish-speaking, immigrant Latina mothers' book sharing behaviors in relation to their children's vocabulary. Participants were 47 3-year-old children and their mothers. We addressed two research questions: (a) What interactive behaviors are evident when low-income immigrant Latina mothers and their 3-year-old children look at books together? (b) For these children and their mothers, which book-sharing behaviors are related to children's expressive language? Overall, our results indicated that mothers were involved in several kinds of interactions with the books. They enhanced their children's attention to the printed text, promoted interaction or conversation with their children about what was in the books, and somewhat less often, used more complex literacy strategies. Mothers who did these things most had children with the largest vocabularies even when mothers' vocabulary was taken into account. Implications for designing interventions for similar families are discussed.     

Maternal Literacy Beliefs and the Quality of Mother-Child Book-reading Interactions: Assoications with Children's Early Literacy Development

This study examined the relation among mothers' literacy-related beliefs, the home literacy environment, the quality of mother-child book-reading interactions, and children's development of early literacy skills. The participants of this study were 60 mothers and their 4-year-old children. After controlling for mothers' educational attainment, mothers' literacy beliefs were positively related to the quality of home literacy environments and the instructional and affective quality of joint book-reading interactions. The quality of children's home literacy environments and mother-child joint book-reading interactions was related to children's development of early literacy skills. Findings are discussed in relation to the importance of understanding the connection between parents' literacy beliefs and behaviors in designing effective literacy interventions and creating school and family literacy connections.     

The Relationship Between Maternal Beliefs and Behavior During Shared Reading

The goal of the present study was to increase understanding of the connection between maternal beliefs and behavior during shared reading and to examine the relation of these maternal beliefs to children's reading engagement. The study included survey and observational data from an ethnically diverse sample of 50 mothers and their 5- to 6-year-old children. As predicted, mothers who believed that shared reading should involve learning showed more learning-focused behaviors. Similarly, the belief that reading should be fun predicted more positive interactions. Some relationships between beliefs and behavior were moderated by gender. For girls, higher maternal expectations for children's future reading grades were associated with better scaffolding, but this pattern was not found for boys. There was a positive relationship between mothers' belief that reading should be fun and their sons' engagement. No gender differences were found in maternal expectations and beliefs or in observed maternal learning-focused behaviors or positive support. However, girls were observed to be significantly more engaged during the reading interaction. These results point to the connections between maternal beliefs and behaviors during shared reading, as well as the need to consider child gender in understanding these connections.     

母亲的文化程度与母亲对幼儿的关注程度的调查研究

本研究采用个别访谈方法对北京海淀区六所幼儿园的60名大班幼儿的母亲进行了访谈，访谈的内容有：（1）母亲对孩子目前在幼儿园的表现满意程度；（2）母亲对幼儿上小学的潜力估计；（3）母亲对幼儿六种 能力的估计；（4）母亲对幼儿的两种个性品质－－毅力和动机的评价；（5）母亲给孩子购买学习资料的情况；（6）母亲对幼儿知识来源的评估。我们按照被访谈母亲的化程度差异，将被调查的母亲分为三类。结果发现：（1）化程度不同的三类母亲对幼儿目前在幼儿园的表现满意程度没有差异。（2）三类母亲对孩子的能力评估差异显。（3）三类母亲给孩子购买学习资料方面差异显。（4）三类母亲对幼儿坚持做一件事的毅力评估得分差异显。     

The Relationship Between Security of Attachment and the Development of a Personal Premise System of Relationships and Expectations for Peer Interaction

Block (1984) postulated that children develop a personal premise system concerning the nature of relationships from the kind of responsiveness, balance, and control they experience when interacting with the caregiver and the caregiver's degree of accessibility during caregiver-child interactions. Block's theory was used in this review to discuss how children's personal premise systems or models of relationships develop through the process of attachment to the caregiver, and how, as children establish more extensive social relationships, this premise system becomes a more generalized model of self and others which shapes all interactions with others including peer relationships during early and middle childhood. The review also suggests continuity in the organization of behavior, for just as the nature of the early personal premise system is shaped by caregiver responsiveness, control, consistency, and availability, so the quality of ties youngsters form with their peers seems also to be shaped by the tone of children's responsiveness to peers, the degree and kind of control youngsters exert in peer interactions, the consistency of behaviors with peers, and children's emotional and physical availability to peers.     

Children''s Housework and Psychosocial Functioning: The Mediating Effects of Parents'' Sex-Role Behaviors and Attitudes

We examined sex-typed housework of children from dual- and single-earner families and its implications for children's adjustment as a function of congruencies between children's work and parents' sex-role behaviors and attitudes. Participants were 152 firstborn 9-12-year-olds (85 girls, 67 boys) and their parents. All fathers and 50% of mothers were employed. In home interviews parents rated their sex-role attitudes, and children rated their competence, stress, and parent-child relationships. In 7 nightly telephone interviews, children and parents described their household tasks for that day. Analyses revealed sex and earner-status differences in children's and parents' involvement in traditionally feminine and masculine tasks. Correlations between levels of parents' and children's task involvement were significant only in the case of fathers and sons in single-earner families. Regarding the connections between task performance and child adjustment, we found that incongruency between boys' sex-typed tasks and their fathers' sex-role behaviors and attitudes was linked to poorer psychosocial functioning, a pattern that did not hold for girls.     

学前儿童在家在园亲社会行为的比较观察研究

随机抽取中班、小班儿童各100名,由教师和家长分别对其进行2周的自然观察,并结合平常表现,对幼儿亲社会行为进行评定。统计分析表明:(1)无论小班还是中班,在家还是在园,女孩的亲社会行为大都要多于男孩,女孩在帮助、他尊指标上显著优于男孩。(2)各种类型亲社会行为之间均存在显著差异,幼儿合作、自尊行为发生率最高,其次是友谊、他尊、自控、分享,最少发生的是帮助、关心。(3)小班儿童在园的帮助、他尊行为显著多于中班儿童;中班儿童在家的分享行为明显多于小班儿童。     

Children's sexual play and behavior in pre-school settings: staff's perceptions, reports, and responses

OBJECTIVES: The aims of this study were to learn about the nature, frequency, and patterns of young children's observed sexual play and behavior in pre-school settings, and staff responses to them. METHOD: Fifty eight staff in 11 pre-school settings were interviewed and data obtained about their recall of observed sexualized play and behaviors of children in their care. Responses were sought both to an open question and to 20 different hypothetical scenarios describing children's behaviors with a genital or sexual content. They were asked about the proportion of children observed and the frequency of the behaviors. They were also asked for their predicted responses to encountering each of these scenarios. RESULTS: Children's curiosity about genitalia, looking and limited touching were more commonly observed, and drawing or modeling of genitalia and simulating sexual intercourse were also reported. Children inserting anything into another child and oral-genital contact had only rarely been observed. Rare behaviors always caused concern and led to some intervention. Concern about the more common behaviors was related to additional factors such as frequency, manner and talk accompanying the behavior and to other information known about the child. CONCLUSIONS: The results confirm findings from studies in other countries about the reported prevalence of more and less commonly observed sexual and genitally orientated behaviors in young children. They lend justification for concerns about children showing rarely observed behaviors or showing preoccupation with genitalia and indicate the need for a search for an explanation of these behaviors when observed.     

Children's Understanding of Parental Differential Treatment

This study examined whether established associations between perceptions of parental differential treatment and sibling relationship quality are moderated by children's perceptions and attributions about parental behavior. Sixty-one children, aged 11–13 years, and their siblings were interviewed separately about parental differential treatment. Children did not perceive PDT in two-thirds of the instances they reported about, and 75% of the children who acknowledged that differential treatment was occurring in their homes did not find this to be " unfair." Children justified differential parental behaviors by identifying ways that they and their sibling differ from one another, that is, in terms of differences in their age, personal attributes, needs, relationship with parents, or strategic behaviors. Children who perceived their parents' differential behavior to be justified generally experienced more positive appraisals about their sibling relationship. Results reinforce the importance of examining how children construct their experiences in their families.     

Mother-child interactional patterns in high-and low-risk mothers

Objective: The aim of the present study was to determine the extent to which mother-child interactional patterns in high-and low-risk (for child physical abuse) mothers were similar to patterns observed in physically abusive parents.Method: Ten high-risk and 10 demographically similar low-risk mother-child dyads were studied. Trained observers coded maternal-child interaction patterns in the home during five 1-hour periods using the Standardized Observation Codes system.Results: As expected, high-risk mothers made fewer neutral approaches to their children, displayed more negative behaviors toward their children, and made more indiscriminant responses to their children's prosocial behavior. Expected risk group differences were not found in the number of neutral instructions or positive responses, albeit the proportion of positive responses out of the total number of positive and negative responses was higher for low-risk mothers. After control for educational differences, risk group differences remained in the rates of neutral approaches and the number of indiscriminant behaviors made in response to children's prosocial behaviors.Conclusions: The observational data indicated that high-risk mothers display some behaviors similar to those observed in physically abusive mothers. The finding that high-risk mothers made more indiscriminate or noncontingent responses when reacting to their children's prosocial behavior is consistent with a coercive model of child physical abuse.     

Peer status and behaviors of maltreated children and their classmates in the early years of school

OBJECTIVE: The aims of the present study were to investigate (1) whether young children with a known history of maltreatment by caregivers have more problematic peer relationships and classroom behaviors than other children, and (2) if children's behaviors with peers mediated associations between maltreatment and children's problem peer relations. METHOD: Participants included 400 young children (ages 4-8, M age=6.6), and 24 teachers in 22 schools. Six percent of children had a known history of maltreatment. Multiple methods (ratings and nominations) and reporters (children and teachers) were utilized to obtain information on peer relationships. Teachers reported children's physical/verbal aggression, and withdrawn and prosocial behaviors. RESULTS: Young children were able to nominate and rate whom they liked versus disliked in their classes, and their reports were modestly correlated with teacher reports. Regardless of the reporter, maltreated children were significantly more disliked, physically/verbally aggressive, withdrawn, and less prosocial, compared with their classmates. Among all children, physical/verbal aggression, withdrawal, and prosocial behavior were associated independently with some aspect of peer status. Maltreatment had indirect associations with peer likeability and peer rejection via maltreated children's relatively higher levels of physical/verbal aggression and, in some cases, withdrawal and relatively lower prosocial behavior. Maltreatment had an indirect association with teacher-reported peer acceptance via children's withdrawal. CONCLUSIONS: Findings indirectly associate early family experiences with problems in peer relationships, especially lower peer likeability and more rejection, via children's behaviors with peers. The finding that linkages exist even in the very earliest years of school highlights the need for very early home- or school-based efforts focused on improving behavior and relationships of maltreated children and others children with similar profiles.     

Compulsive-like behavior in individuals with Down syndrome: its relation to mental age level, adaptive and maladaptive behavior

This study examined the nature of repetitive, ritualistic, and compulsive-like behaviors in 50 typically developing children and 50 individuals with Down syndrome (DS), matched on mental age (MA; M = 59.72 months). Parents reported on their children's compulsive-like behaviors-including ritualistic habits-and perfectionistic behaviors, as well as their children's adaptive and maladaptive behaviors. Results indicated that children with DS show similar MA-related changes in compulsive-like behaviors compared to the MA-matched comparison group. Younger children (both typical and DS) exhibited significantly more compulsive-like behaviors than older children. In general, children with and without DS did not differ from each other in terms of the number of compulsive-like behaviors they engaged in, although participants with DS engaged in more frequent, more intense repetitive behaviors. Compulsive-like behaviors were differentially related to adaptive and maladaptive behaviors across the MA and mental retardation groups. The results extend the "similar sequence" model of development to the construct of compulsive-like behaviors, and also suggest that some repetitive behaviors may be among the behavioral phenotype of individuals with DS.     

Maternal regulation of sibling interactions in the preschool years: observational study in Japanese families

Characteristics of three maternal regulating behaviors--(1) reference to one sibling's actions or emotional states toward the other sibling, (2) encouragement of sibling interactions, (3) distraction of one sibling's attention away from the other sibling-and their associations with children's positive and negative behaviors toward their siblings were investigated through semistructured home observations for 40 sibling pairs (1-4 years, 2-8 years) and their mothers in Japanese families. Maternal regulating behaviors were observed more frequently when the younger sibling was still in an early developmental stage in the preschool years, although the findings were modest. The older sibling's negative behaviors toward the younger sibling positively correlated with maternal distraction toward the younger; alternatively, the younger sibling's negative behaviors do not correlate with maternal distraction but do correlate with maternal encouragement directed toward the older sibling. Reliable associations were found between maternal regulating behaviors and prosocial exchanges between siblings; maternal reference to the younger sibling's actions or emotional states directed toward the older sibling was associated with the older sibling's positive behavior toward the younger sibling. Maternal regulating behaviors during mother-sibling triadic interactions were associated with the quality of sibling relationships.     

儿童赌博行为研究述评

儿童赌博行为属于一种反社会行为,对儿童身心发展起着严重的消极作用。儿童赌博的现象已逐渐引起了社会的日益关注。研究者从不同的角度出发,探讨了儿童赌博行为的模仿与强化、情感与决策等心理机制,以及前额叶皮质等认知神经机制,并分析了家庭、同伴和社会文化等社会环境机制对儿童习得赌博行为的影响。未来的研究应该进一步探讨这些影响因素的深层作用机制,以及儿童在病理性赌博活动中所涉及的认知、情感、神经加工机制等的活动特点与规律。     

Play and social skills in maltreated and non-maltreated preschoolers during peer interactions

OBJECTIVE: The goal of the study was to investigate whether maltreated children differ from nonmaltreated children with regard to their social skills and play behaviors. METHOD: The social skills and free-play behaviors of 30 3- to 5-year-old maltreated and nonmaltreated children were compared. Fifteen children with a range of maltreatment experiences drawn from a hospital-based therapeutic nursery treatment program and 15 demographically similar children drawn from a home-based Head Start program participated in the study. All children were of low socioeconomic status. Children's free-play peer interactions were videotaped during the first 3 months of attendance in either program and analyzed along social and cognitive dimensions. Teachers and therapists rated children's social skills in peer interactions. RESULTS: Maltreated children were found to have significantly poorer skill in initiating interactions with peers and maintaining self-control, as well as a greater number of problem behaviors. Significant differences were not found between groups with regard to social participation or cognitive level of play. Significant correlations of moderate strength were found between social participation in play and social skills for the sample as a whole: total social skills score was positively related to interactive play, and negatively related to solitary play. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that the experience of maltreatment has a negative impact on children's developing interpersonal skills above and beyond the influence of factors associated with low socioeconomic status and other environmental stressors.     

Children's Interventions into Family Conflict: Links With the Quality of Sibling Relationships

The goals of the present research were: a) to characterize children's interventions into disputes involving mothers and siblings, b) to examine symmetry between siblings' intervention behaviors, and c) to investigate how children's conflict interventions were linked to the quality of sibling relationships. During home observations of 50 families observers audiotaped family conversations, including conflicts that simultaneously involved 33-month-old younger siblings, their elder siblings and their mothers. Siblings' interventions most often concerned rules of the house, and were most likely to occur when mothers were not upset. Opposition was the most common strategy for both siblings, however alliances were asymmetrical, eldest siblings offered greater support to younger siblings. Alliances between siblings were linked to more harmonious sibling relationships. Results were discussed with regard to children's responses to anger and conflict in the home. The development of mediation skills within the family and their implication for family relationships was also considered.