Gender Differences in Child Aggression: Relations With Gender‐Differentiated Parenting and Parents’ Gender‐Role Stereotypes

This longitudinal study examines the association between child gender and child aggression via parents’ physical control, moderated by parents’ gender‐role stereotypes in a sample of 299 two‐parent families with a 3‐year‐old child in the Netherlands. Fathers with strong stereotypical gender‐role attitudes and mothers were observed to use more physical control strategies with boys than with girls, whereas fathers with strong counterstereotypical attitudes toward gender roles used more physical control with girls than with boys. Moreover, when fathers had strong attitudes toward gender roles (stereotypical or counterstereotypical), their differential treatment of boys and girls completely accounted for the gender differences in children's aggressive behavior a year later. Mothers’ gender‐differentiated parenting practices were unrelated to gender differences in child aggression.     

Positive and negative successive contrast effects following multiple shifts in reward magnitude under high drive and immediate reinforcement

Multiple shifts in reward amount were given to rats in a straight runway. Both positive and negative contrast effects were observed. A positive contrast effect was observed, however, only if the shift from small to large reward occurred while the subject was evidencing a negative contrast effect. Implications for current conceptions of reinforcement contrast are discussed.     

Can Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders “Hear” a Speaking Face?

This study used eye-tracking methodology to assess audiovisual speech perception in 26 children ranging in age from 5 to 15 years, half with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and half with typical development. Given the characteristic reduction in gaze to the faces of others in children with ASD, it was hypothesized that they would show reduced influence of visual information on heard speech. Responses were compared on a set of auditory, visual, and audiovisual speech perception tasks. Even when fixated on the face of the speaker, children with ASD were less visually influenced than typical development controls. This indicates fundamental differences in the processing of audiovisual speech in children with ASD, which may contribute to their language and communication impairments.     

Maintaining at-risk children in regular education settings: initial effects of individual differences and classroom environments

This study described the course of school failure by classifying the characteristics of 103 first-grade children who were at risk for such an outcome and examining their classroom environments over a 1- to 4-year period. We describe the association between empirically validated clusters of children and specific instructional arrangements that served to increase the risk of special education placement. We found that individual seatwork while other children were in a reading group significantly increased the risk of placement; on the other hand, small-group work was associated with nonplacement for one cluster of children (those with possible learning disabilities). Other results were inconclusive, but suggestive of patterns that may eventually assist in the definition of the elusive link between individual differences and classroom environments.