Browsing by Subject "Child development"

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Análisis de la implementación del Programa de Apoyo a Grupos Comunitarios
(2003-06) Bonaldi, Pablo
Análisis de la implementación del Programa de Apoyo a Grupos Comunitarios
(2006-07) Bonaldi, Pablo
The child guidance clinic with special reference to a local situation
(1929) Knight, James, M.A.; Not available
Cultural continuity and variation in the development of folk ecological reasoning
(2015-05) Busch, Justin Thomas Albert; Legare, Cristine H.; Markman, Art B
The objective of two studies was to investigate cultural variation and continuity in how children understand ecological relationships. We examined children's beliefs about their local ecology and humans' place within that system in a Western (urban American city) and a Non-Western community (Tanna, Vanuatu). Study 1 used a species relation task to examine children’s cultural concepts of the natural world (N = 97, 5-13-year-olds). Results indicate that children in the U.S. provide a greater number of taxonomic responses than children in Vanuatu. Children in Vanuatu provide a greater number of ecological and utility responses than children in the U.S. Older children also provided a greater number of ecological responses than younger children across both cultural contexts. Study 2 used a nature categorization task (N = 106, 6-11-year-olds), in which children sorted 12 pictures of natural kinds into groups. Results revealed cross-cultural similarities in how natural kinds were organized and also show that children in the U.S. were more likely than children in Vanuatu to categorize the human into a group with another animal. Data from both Studies 1 and 2 are consistent with the proposal that how children understand the ecology of their local environment is heavily influenced by how they interact with it, and the kinds of ecological relationships that are emphasized within diverse cultural contexts.
Effects of parental divorce on children in relation to development and attachment style
(2010-05) Cox, Sarah Elizabeth, 1982-; Rochlen, Aaron B.; Moore, Leslie A.
Extensive research on the impact of divorce on children has been conducted. Much of this research emphasizes negative findings. Debate over the factors that exacerbate or alleviate these negative findings exists, and prompted investigation in this literature review. Two factors that may determine how children will react to parental divorce are the child's developmental acuity and attachment style at the time of the divorce event. This review explains developmental tasks from a psychosocial and cognitive perspective for developing children from birth to age 18. An understanding of these models can be used to examine how children may be vulnerable to the stresses in a divorcing family, as well as identifying how to help children of all ages become resilient. Research included in this review suggests that a secure attachment and consistent parenting are the best buffers from negative effects. This literature review is intended to be a guide to aid parents, counselors, and other professionals who seek the best outcome for children of divorce.
Exploring the fundamentals of early causal reasoning
(2018-05) Bauer, Jessie-Raye; Woolley, Jacqueline D.; Booth, Amy; Legare, Cristine H; Tucker-Drob, Elliot
The goal of this dissertation was to identify potential cognitive components of causal reasoning and to investigate their developmental trajectory in early childhood. We specifically focused on executive function (EF) as a potentially fundamental predictor of causal reasoning. While previous research has demonstrated that EF is related to achievement in other academic domains such as reading and math, relatively little attention has been paid to its relationship to scientific processes like causal reasoning, particularly in early childhood. To examine how EF potentially relates to the development of causal reasoning, we recruited 140 3-year-olds and 81 5-year-olds to complete three causal reasoning tasks, a battery of EF tasks, and additional cognitive measures. Results from a series of multiple regressions revealed that EF predicted contemporaneous causal reasoning, even after controlling for the influence of age, processing speed, and vocabulary knowledge. However, less variance than expected was accounted for by EF and additional covariates. We also found that a version of the traditional “blicket detector” task did not correlate with our other two measures of causal reasoning, and was not predicted by EF. Although additional research will be required to further clarify these relationships, the current results suggest that EF has the potential to support causal reasoning. Results are discussed in the broader context of scientific literacy.
Francelia Butler's contribution to peace education: peace games a curriculum for teaching peace through play
(2005) LaSeur, Michelle; Reifel, Robert Stuart
The purpose of this study was to examine the contribution of Francelia Butler, professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut, and her Peace Games Program to the field of peace education. Butler's Peace Games program not only uses play as a means for teaching children to think about peaceful resolution of conflict, it also starts at the early childhood level and continues from kindergarten through the eighth grade. My data sources were two major collections of documents relating to Peace Games from Butler’s collection of papers at the University of Connecticut and the Peace Games offices. I interviewed participants who worked with Dr. Butler in developing and implementing her idea for peace education. I analyzed the data according to issues in conflict resolution common to both the rhetorics of play theory (Sutton-Smith, 1997) and the micromacro theory (Turpin & Kurtz, 1997) of the causes of violence.
How children create and use social capital : a test of an ecological-transactional model
(2011-08) Walker, Jessica Wolf Thornton; Huston, Aletha C.; Gershoff, Elizabeth; Anderson, Edward; Crosnoe, Robert; Osborne, Cynthia; Kirk, David
The aims of this study were to examine the relations among social capital, human capital, economic capital, and children’s socioemotional well-being during the transition from late childhood to early adolescence and to test an ecological-transactional model of children’s social capital. This work was informed by sociological and economic theory on social capital, human capital, and economic capital (e.g., Becker, 1993; Bourdieu, 1986; Coleman, 1988; Foster, 2002) and two principal frameworks in developmental psychology: ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998) and the transactional model of child development (Sameroff, 2009). Social capital was conceptualized as both a family-level and a community-level phenomenon, distinguishing between family social capital and community social capital. A major hypothesis was that family social capital and community social capital, alongside family-level human capital and economic capital, are associated with low levels of socioemotional problems. Family-level variables were considered to be nested within the more distal ecological context of community social capital, and the indirect relation of community social capital to socioemotional well-being through family social capital was also considered. Another postulation was that children’s socioemotional well-being and the social capital that inheres in family relationships (i.e., family social capital) are mutually influential, changing over time in a transactional manner. In this vein, children were regarded as agents of social capital, both “creating” and utilizing it to their developmental benefit (or detriment as the case may be). These family-level transactional processes were nested within the context of community social capital. Results indicated that community social capital had little association with family social capital and children’s socioemotional well-being as indexed by internalizing and externalizing problems. However, caregivers’ human capital and economic capital were significant predictors of family social capital. In turn, family social capital was strongly related to socioemotional problems. Notably, harsh parenting behavior, a measure indicative of the health of the caregiver-child relation and thus the potential for social capital to be realized in their interactions, was the strongest predictor of socioemotional well-being.
Impact of values on parents' willingness to collect and share children's mobile-sensing data
(2018-12-06) Levin, Hannah Irene; Fleischmann, Kenneth R.; de Barbaro, Kaya
Mobile sensors provide a new opportunity to measure and intervene in child development. The present study seeks to determine the conditions for parental participation in mobile sensor studies and applications. A survey was administered to parents (n=210) of a child under the age of five. Results indicate that parents are significantly more willing to collect information on physical activity/vitals and location type (82 and 78% respectively indicated they were at least somewhat willing; ≥SW) compared to home presence and social media data (61 and 73% ≥SW). Parents are least willing to collect continuous audio and video data (49% and 54% ≥SW). They are slightly but significantly more willing to collect audio snippets or features (59 and 61% ≥SW). They are most willing to collect highly-sensitive data if it stays within their household (78% ≥SW), however, they are significantly more willing to share with researchers (71% ≥SW) than with tech companies (62% ≥SW). Parents are more willing to share their children's data if it could provide feedback on their parenting style or allergens (88 and 86% were at least somewhat more willing). Parents who have strong values of hedonism, benevolence, tradition, self-direction and power will be more willing and likely to participate in a mobile-sensing study than parents who have strong values of stimulation, achievement, conformity, security, and universalism. A recruitment message that is derived from the security value type will be most effective. These results advise designers and developers of mobile-sensing applications to be more mindful of the types of data that are most sensitive. The results also provide guidelines to researchers on how to effectively market their research and increase participation.
Links between school-based extracurricular activity participation and adolescent development
(2003) Feldman, Amy Florence; Matjasko, Jennifer
Utilizing the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, three separate studies were conducting regarding the relationship of school-based extracurricular activity participation (EAP) and adolescent development. Chapter 1 examined the profiles of individual activity participants, determined whether profiles changed dependent upon activity grouping style, and identified portfolios of adolescent schoolbased EAP. The most common activities are basketball, baseball, track, and football. Non-participation is also common. Academic club participation is actually not as common. Non-participants are older, come from families with lower incomes, have lower grades, and are from larger schools having implications for educational and social policy in terms of availability of activities in schools and exclusion from participation. Generally, style of activity grouping did little in varying the overall descriptions of participants from each other and from the individual activity analysis. However, subtle details were affected by activity conceptualization and some of the unique patterns indicated in the individual analysis were better preserved by certain groupings. The most common participation portfolios are multiple activity types and sports only participation. The four most common portfolios in the multiple activity type group were sports/performance, sports/academic, sports/academic/performance/school, and sports/school. Chapter 2 utilized individual, family, peer, and school contexts to differentiate school-based EAP and non-participation. Adolescentsí GPA (individual), parental involvement (family), friendís GPA (peer), and school attachment and school size (school) were associated with each type of activity participation over nonparticipation. The individual and peer factors had the strongest links to activity participation in general, and in differentiating the types of participation. The findings lend support to suggestions of the strong role of social norms in adolescent activity participation. Participation was more likely in schools with less than 2/3 percent White students and Asians participated at almost the same rate as Whites. Chapter 3 investigated the influence of adolescent school-based EAP on well-being, delinquency, and substance use over time. Sports and multiple activity type participation were related to alcohol use and delinquency but did not increase the variance explained over background variables. Relationships between EAP and these outcomes over time were moderated by school attachment, school size, and parental involvement.
Maternal depression and children's adjustment problems : the role of mothers' affective reactivity
(2013-12) Moed, Anat; Dix, Theodore H.; Anderson, Edward R; Gershoff, Elizabeth T
Mothers with depressive symptoms often express more negative emotions than other mothers, react more punitively, and express more frustration (e.g., Belsky, 1984). Paradoxically, mothers with depressive symptoms are also often found to be less, not more, reactive and to express flat rather than negative affect. These mothers are often described as emotionally "flat", unresponsive, and withdrawn (Kochanska, Kuczynski, Radke-Yarrow, & Welsh, 1987). Mothers' depressive symptoms are also associated with problematic parenting, interfering with children's social development (e.g., Goodman et al., 2011). This study investigated the possibility that mothers with depressive symptoms regulate their affect as a coping strategy to minimize distress when facing aversive child behaviors. Using observational and reported longitudinal data from 319 mother-child dyads, we examined how mothers' affective reactivity changes as a function of (a) changes in mothers' depressive symptoms, and (b) changes in children’s aversiveness during the course of the mother-child interaction. Depressive symptoms were associated with mothers' under-reactivity to low aversive child behaviors. Depressive symptoms also predicted rapid increases in mothers' negative reactivity as children's aversiveness increased, and negative over-reactivity to highly aversive child behaviors. Mothers' affective under-reactivity, over-reactivity, and depressive symptoms were all associated with children's adjustment problems over a two-year period. Results suggest that when aversive child behaviors are minimally disturbing, mothers with depressive symptoms minimize child rearing strain by not reacting; when aversive child behaviors are highly disturbing, they do so by resisting and controlling the child. Findings may enable us to understand adaptations that undermine parenting and place children at risk.
Maternal depressive symptoms and children's behavior problems : peer relations and parenting as mediators
(2012-08) Baeva, Sofia; Dix, Theodore H.; Hazen-Swann, Nancy; Anderson, Edward
Mothers suffering from depression are likely to engage in poor parenting practices, have children with poorer peer relations and more behavior problems. It is likely that maternal depression follows different trajectories in different mothers. These trajectories may lead to differing child outcomes over time. The current study examined a large sample of mothers and children. Latent class growth analysis (LCGA) was used to demonstrate a four-class depressive symptom model, which included high stable, high decreasing, moderate increasing, and low stable trajectories of depressive symptoms measured using the CES-D instrument. Demographic risk was found to differ across classes, with high stable and high decreasing mothers being classified as more at-risk. Mothers in the high stable depression class were found to be less sensitive, and had children with worse outcomes including negative behaviors with peers, social support from peers, and behavior problems. High decreasing mothers were also less sensitive and had children with equally poor outcomes, even though the mothers recovered from their depressive symptoms by the time their children were 54 months of age. In conclusion, early clinical depressive symptoms were likely to predict poorer child outcomes, and more demographic risk was linked to high early depression scores.
Mothers' emotions as predictors of toddlers' autonomous behaviors
(2010-12) Bryan, Amy E.; Dix, Theodore H.; Anderson, Edward; Bigler, Rebecca; Hazen-Swann, Nancy; Jacobvitz, Deborah
Autonomy is a critical component of early childhood with important implications for children’s competence and well-being (e.g., Erikson, 1963; Mahler, Pine & Bergman, 1975; Sroufe & Rutter, 1984). Although parental autonomy support is associated with the development of early autonomy (e.g., Endsley, Hutcherson, Garner & Martin, 1979; Frodi, Bridges & Grolnick, 1985; Landry, Smith, Swank & Miller-Loncar, 2000), the mechanisms underlying these associations are largely unexplored. Mothers’ emotions and the affective climate of parent-child interactions may be critical factors by which parenting influences early autonomy. This study (a) examined the degree to which discrete, naturally occurring maternal emotions regulate four indicators of autonomy during toddlerhood: co-regulated goal-directed behavior, low aimlessness, self-assertion, and positive initiative, (b) explored mechanisms through which maternal emotion exerts an influence on children’s autonomous behaviors, and (c) isolated the contribution of mothers’ emotions to children’s autonomous behaviors over that of mothers’ autonomy-supportive behavior. Several important findings emerged. First, maternal emotions, both felt and expressed, were related to children’s autonomous behaviors--mostly in ways predicted by emotion and relationship theories. In general, mothers’ frequent joy and infrequent anger, sadness, and fear predicted high autonomy. Second, the affective climate of mothers’ interactions with their toddlers predicted children’s autonomous behaviors over and above mothers’ autonomy-supportive behavior, suggesting that parental emotion is a unique aspect of autonomy support. Finally, different forms of early autonomy were predicted by different emotions in mothers, emphasizing the complexity of autonomy and the need to better define and measure this construct.
Prenatal predictors of family rituals : examining the contributions of parents' attachment representations and marital communication
(2001-08) Thalhuber, Kimberly Kay; Jacobvitz, Deborah
Research has demonstrated the importance of meaningful family rituals for children’s social and emotional development. No studies, however, have investigated predictors of family ritual quality. The identification of predictors of family ritual quality is important for understanding why some families create and enact meaningful family rituals while others do not. The purpose of this study was to examine relationships among adult attachment representations, marital communication, and the quality of family routines and traditions, or family rituals, using a prospective, longitudinal design. Prior to the birth of their first child, 125 couples participated in the Adult Attachment Interview, and a marital communication task. A subsample of 76 mothers and 67 fathers completed the Family Rituals Questionnaire when their first child was 7 years old. Different patterns of relationships between attachment representations and family rituals were found for mothers and fathers. Maternal insecure attachment was associated with higher routinization of family rituals, and insecure mothers married to insecure men also reported greater routinization. Fathers in couples in which spouses’ attachment classifications differed reported lower meaning in family rituals than did fathers in couples in which partners’ attachment v classifications were similar. Insecure men married to secure women had the least meaningful family rituals. No relationships between marital communication and family ritual quality were found. This study shed light on prenatal predictors of the quality of later family rituals and illustrated patterns of gender differences in perceptions of family rituals. The implications of the findings for parent education and intervention programs are discussed.
Selective learning from others : children’s motive-based inferences about an individual’s credibility
(2015-08) Reyes Jaquez, Bolivar; Echols, Catharine H.; Church-Lang, Jessica; Markman, Arthur; McGlone, Matthew; Woolley, Jacqueline
People are highly attentive to others’ motivations when assessing credibility. For instance, political candidates who appear to act against self-interests (e.g., praise an opponent) are considered more trustworthy than those who act in self-serving ways (e.g., attack an opponent or praise themselves). How early in life does self-interest based trust/skepticism develop? A main goal of the dissertation was to test whether children’s trust behaviors are influenced by self-interest cues. In two studies, adult and child participants (N = 136) played a finding game with another player. The other player served as the informant for the location of hidden prizes. Participants, seated in another room, had to guess (from two potential locations) where they thought the prize actually was. Informants were incentivized via reward rules to be truthful (informants only benefitted if participants guessed correctly) or deceitful (informants only benefitted if participants guessed incorrectly). If participants can infer the informants’ credibility solely from reward rules associated with self-interest, they should trust the other player less often if interests conflict. A second goal was to identify socio-cognitive skills that may be associated with people’s ability to (mis)trust selectively. Some of the skills that were investigated include: participants’ ability to remember and manipulate information, awareness that people can infer others’ intentions, understanding that people may arrive at different conclusions when reasoning about the same stimuli, and general intuitions about whether others are likely to keep their word. Like adults, children playing the finding game sometimes adjusted their behavior flexibly and strategically to match self-interests—without having prior expectations about another individual’s predisposition to cooperate. Specifically, children and adults trusted their partner more often when the game incentivized cooperation versus competition. However, our results also suggest that children’s ability to benefit from cooperation incentives has not fully developed in the elementary school years: even 9-year-olds seemed more suspicious of partners with common interests than did adults. Children’s working memory skills predicted whether they would perform similarly to adults. Taken together, these findings significantly advance our understanding of children’s trust judgments as guided by their self-interest based inferences.
The Seriously Disturbed Youngster
(Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, 1970) Gotts, Ernest A.
Talking about development : a parent and caregiver's guide to the world of development and early intervention
(2011-05) Litts, Juliana Kay; Davis, Barbara L. (Barbara Lockett); Bedore, Lisa M.
Parents and caregivers spend the most time interacting with young children during their first years of life when development in many areas is happening at an incredible rate. It is important for all these adults to understand what typical development looks like, to know some strategies for supporting children’s development, and to know where and when to get help if the child’s development needs to be supported. This report serves as an all-inclusive guide for parents and caregivers to help in understanding typical development and in identifying when young children need additional help to achieve important developmental milestones.
Turning Caring Into Action
(Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, 1989) Rogers, Fred M.