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A mixed-method approach was used to explore parent and child perspectives on death in Mexico. Parents' and children's death-related experiences and understanding of death were examined. While all children in this sample displayed a biological understanding of death, older children were less likely to endorse that all living things die. Children also displayed coexistence of beliefs related to death that can be attributed to both their biological and spiritual understanding of death. We also found that older children were more likely to report that a child should feel sad following the death of a loved one. These findings highlight how cultural practices shape the development of cognitive and affective processes related to death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a between-groups design and random assignment, this study examined 214 Turkish children's (M = 11.66 years) mindreading and general reasoning about in-group members (Turks), similar out-group members (Syrians within Turkey) and dissimilar out-group members (Northern Europeans). Children heard four mindreading and four general reasoning stories with in-group or out-group members as targets. Whereas children's general reasoning about three groups was equivalent, accuracy of mental state inferences differed by target with more accurate mindreading of in-group targets compared to both sets of out-group targets. In this Turkish sample, mindreading of Syrian targets was the least accurate. Prejudice and perceived realistic threat predicted lower mindreading. These findings have important implications for understanding how similarity and intergroup processes play a role in children's mindreading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two studies investigated 4- to 7-year-olds' knowledge about pretending. In Study 1, children (N = 66) defined pretending and described examples of own and others' pretending. In Study 2, children (N = 52) defined pretending and then completed a battery of measures that examined their understanding that pretending involved mental states. In Study 1, older children articulated more defining features of pretending than younger children. When describing how they or others pretended, children focused on action or appearance, regardless of whether they had included more defining features in their definitions of pretending. In Study 2, the more defining features children articulated, the better their performance on the battery. We discuss the implications of these data for the role of pretending in children's developing theory of mind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four- to 10-year-olds and adults (N = 205) responded to vignettes involving three individuals with different expectations (high, low, and no) for a future event. Participants judged characters' pre-outcome emotions, as well as predicted and explained their feelings following three events (positive, attenuated, and negative). Although adults rated high-expectation characters more negatively than low-expectation characters after all outcomes, children shared this intuition starting at 6-7 years for negative outcomes, 8-10 years for attenuated, and never for positive. Comparison to baseline (no expectation) indicated that understanding the costs of high expectations emerges first and remains more robust across age than recognition that low expectations carry benefits. Explanation analyses further clarified this developing awareness about the relation between thoughts and emotions over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although one might expect parents' mind-mindedness (MM; the propensity to view children as mental agents) to relate to everyday mental-state talk (MST) and theory-of-mind capacity, evidence to support this view is lacking. In addition, both the uniqueness and the specificity of relations between parental MM, parental MST, and children's false belief understanding (FBU) are open to question. To address these three gaps, this study tracked 117 preschoolers (60 boys) and their parents across a 13-month period (Mage  = 3.94 years, SD = 0.53, at Time 1). Parental MM, MST, and theory-of-mind capacity showed little overlap. Both MM and MST were weakly associated with children's concurrent FBU, but in line with social constructivist accounts, only MST predicted later FBU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adults create and update predictions about what speakers will say next. This study asks whether prediction can drive language acquisition, by testing whether 3- to 4-year-old children (n = 45) adapt to recent information when learning novel words. The study used a syntactic context which can precede both nouns and verbs to manipulate children's predictions about what syntactic category will follow. Children for whom the syntactic context predicted verbs were more likely to infer that a novel word appearing in this context referred to an action, than children for whom it predicted nouns. This suggests that children make rapid changes to their predictions, and use this information to learn novel information, supporting the role of prediction in language acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated whether children learn from exploration and act as effective informants by providing informative demonstrations tailored to observers' goals and competence. Children (4.0-6.9 years, N = 98) explored a causally ambiguous toy to discover its causal structure and then demonstrated the toy to a naive observer. Children provided more costly and informative evidence when the observer wanted to learn about the toy than observe its effects (Experiment 1) and when the observer was ordinary than exceptionally intelligent (Experiment 2). Relative to the evidence they generated during exploration, children produced fewer, less costly actions when the observer wanted or needed less evidence. Children understand the difference between acting-to-learn and acting-to-inform; after learning from exploration, they consider others' goals and competence to provide "uninstructed instruction". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A crucial human cognitive goal is to understand and to be understood. But understanding often takes active management. Two studies investigated early developmental processes of understanding management by focusing on young children's comprehension monitoring. We ask: When and how do young children actively monitor their comprehension of social-communicative interchanges and so seek to clarify and correct their own potential miscomprehension? Study 1 examined the parent-child conversations of 13 children studied longitudinally in everyday situations from the time the children were approximately 2 years through 3 years. Study 2 used a seminaturalistic situation in the laboratory to address these questions with more precision and control with 36 children aged 2-3 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adults routinely use the context of utterances to infer a meaning beyond the literal semantics of their words (e.g., inferring from "She ate some of the cookies" that she ate some, but not all). Contrasting children's (N = 209) comprehension of scalar implicatures using quantifiers with contextually derived ad hoc implicatures revealed that 4- to 5-year-olds reliably computed ad hoc, but not scalar, implicatures (Experiment 1). Unexpectedly, performance with "some" and "none" was correlated (Experiments 1 and 2). An individual differences study revealed a correlation between quantifier knowledge and implicature success (Experiment 3); a control study ruled out other factors (Experiment 4). These findings suggest that some failures with scalar implicatures may be rooted in a lack of semantic knowledge rather than general pragmatic or processing demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A prevailing theory of mathematical problem solving predicts that children will be less accurate solving a + b = c + __ problems versus a + b = __ + c. However, this has never been tested directly. Because of low base rates, information combined from multiple studies can help improve estimation accuracy and precision. This study compared meta-analysis and individual person data (IPD) analysis using raw data from 14 studies (N = 1,414; ns = 30-232; Mage reported = 8;7). Substantive results challenge the prevailing theory. Methodological results demonstrate the advantages of using meta-analysis and IPD over single-study analysis. Moreover, IPD can be more powerful than meta-regression for detecting between-study moderation effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deliberate practice is essential for acquiring a wide range of skills that have been central to humans' adaptive success, yet little is known about when and how children develop this capability. The current study examined 4- to 7-year-olds' (N = 120) ability to selectively practice a skill that would be useful in the near future, as well as their broader understanding of the role of deliberate practice in skill acquisition. Six- and 7-year-olds demonstrated both an explicit understanding of deliberate practice and the capacity to practice without being prompted. Five-year-olds showed an understanding of deliberate practice and some capacity to practice, whereas 4-year-olds showed neither of these capabilities. Findings reveal important developments in children's future-directed behavior beyond the preschool years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although theory of mind (ToM) is argued to emerge between 3 and 5 years of age, data from non-Western, small-scale societies suggest diversity. Deeper investigations into these settings are warranted. In the current study, over 400 Melanesian children from Vanuatu (range = 3-14 years), growing up in either urban or rural remote environments, completed culturally tailored ToM batteries. Results show a marked delay in false belief (FB) performance, particularly among participants from rural villages. By further investigating a diverse range of concepts beyond FB, we illustrate two unique cultural sequences for a suite of mental state concepts among urban and rural ni-Vanuatu children. Implications for social and cultural influences on the development of ToM are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the etiology of longitudinal relations among kindergarten prereading skills, first-grade word level reading skills, and seventh-grade reading comprehension in 265 monozygotic and 459 dizygotic twin pairs (Mage  = 6.29 years in kindergarten) from the Florida Twin Project on Reading. Using a quadvariate Cholesky decomposition, results showed genetic, shared, and nonshared environmental overlap among prereading skills, word level reading skills, and reading comprehension. In addition, genetic and shared environmental overlap was indicated among word level reading skills and reading comprehension, outside the influence of prereading skills. After accounting for overlapping, there remained moderate genetic and nonshared environmental influence specific to reading comprehension. Implications for reading education are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers tested the impact of contextual mismatch, proactive interference, and working memory (WM) on toddlers' transfer across contexts. Forty-two toddlers (27-34 months) completed four object-retrieval trials, requiring memory updating on Trials 2-4. Participants watched hiding events on a tablet computer. Search performance was tested using another tablet (match) or a felt board (mismatch). WM was assessed. On earlier search trials, WM predicted transfer in both conditions, and toddlers in the match condition outperformed those in the mismatch condition; however, the benefit of contextual match and WM decreased over trials. Contextual match apparently increased proactive interference on later trials. Findings are interpreted within existing accounts of the transfer deficit, and a combined account is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence suggests that oral narrative skills are a linguistic strength for African American children, yet few studies have examined how these skills are associated with reading for African American boys and girls. The current study uses longitudinal data of a sample of 72 African American 4-year-olds to examine how preschool oral narrative skills predict reading from first through sixth grades and explores differences by gender. Findings indicate that although girls demonstrated stronger narrative skills, their narrative skills did not moderate change in reading. For boys, narrative skills moderated change in reading over time such that as preschool narrative skills increased, their reading scores showed greater change over time. Educational implications and directions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examined links between 4- and 6-year-olds' (n = 101; Mage  = 5.12 years, SD = 0.67; 53% male) ability to distinguish moral and conventional transgressions along different criteria and teacher ratings of proactive and reactive aggression. Latent difference score modeling revealed that moral transgressions were judged more unacceptable and wrong independent of rules and authority than conventional violations, but significant variability in moral-conventional distinctions was also observed. Proactive aggression was associated with less-and reactive aggression was associated with greater-differentiation in moral and conventional concepts. Proactive aggression was not associated with deficits in moral knowledge when other common assessments of early moral understanding were employed, highlighting the importance of using theoretically informed measures of moral judgments and aggression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gestures, hand movements that accompany speech, affect children's learning, memory, and thinking (e.g., Goldin-Meadow, 2003). However, it remains unknown how children distinguish gestures from other kinds of actions. In this study, 4- to 9-year-olds (n = 339) and adults (n = 50) described one of three scenes: (a) an actor moving objects, (b) an actor moving her hands in the presence of objects (but not touching them), or (c) an actor moving her hands in the absence of objects. Participants across all ages were equally able to identify actions on objects as goal directed, but the ability to identify empty-handed movements as representational actions (i.e., as gestures) increased with age and was influenced by the presence of objects, especially in older children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely believed that exploration is a mechanism for young children's learning. The present investigation examines preschoolers' beliefs about how learning occurs. We asked 3- to 5-year-olds to articulate how characters in a set of stories learned about a new toy. Younger preschoolers were more likely to overemphasize the role of characters' actions in learning than older children were (Experiment 1, N = 53). Overall performance improved when the stories explicitly stated that characters were originally ignorant and clarified the characters' actions, but general developmental trends remained (Experiment 2, N = 48). These data suggest that explicit metacognitive understanding of the relation between actions and learning is developing during the preschool years, which might have implications for how children learn from exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Age-related changes in flexibility and automaticity of reasoning about social situations were investigated. Children (N = 101; age range = 7;8-17;7) were presented with the flexibility and automaticity of social cognition (FASC), a new measure of social cognition in which cartoon vignettes of social situations are presented and participants explain what is happening and why. Scenarios vary on whether the scenario is socially ambiguous and whether or not language is used. Flexibility is determined by the number of unique, plausible explanations, and automaticity is indicated by speed of response. Overall, both flexibility and automaticity increased significantly with age. Language and social ambiguity influenced performance. Future work should investigate differences in FASC in older populations and clinical groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This meta-analysis seeks to integrate findings from 25 years of research on family correlates of young children's false belief understanding (FBU). Using data from 93 studies of 3- to 7-year-old children, we examined the correlations between FBU and four of the most widely studied family factors: parental socioeconomic status, number of siblings, parental mental-state talk, and mind-mindedness. FBU exhibited modest associations with each family variable and these associations held even when individual differences in verbal ability were taken into account. Moderator analyses revealed key child-related factors (e.g., age, gender) as well as methodological factors that amplified or attenuated the relations between FBU and each family variable. Crucially, available longitudinal data highlight the importance of family factors in the development of FBU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the nature of infants' difficulty understanding references to hidden inaccessible objects. Twelve-month-old infants (N = 32) responded to the mention of objects by looking at, pointing at, or approaching them when the referents were visible or accessible, but not when they were hidden and inaccessible (Experiment I). Twelve-month-olds (N = 16) responded robustly when a container with the hidden referent was moved from a previously inaccessible position to an accessible position before the request, but failed to respond when the reverse occurred (Experiment II). This suggests that infants might be able to track the hidden object's dislocations and update its accessibility as it changes. Knowing the hidden object is currently inaccessible inhibits their responding. Older, 16-month-old (N = 17) infants' performance was not affected by object accessibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study investigated if 2.5-year-olds are susceptible to suspense and express tension when others' false expectations are about to be disappointed. In two experiments (N = 32 each), children showed more tension when a protagonist approached a box with a false belief about its content than when she was ignorant. In Experiment 2, children also expressed more tension when the protagonist's belief was false than when it was true. The findings reveal that toddlers affectively anticipate the "rude awakening" of an agent who is about to discover unexpected reality. They thus not only understand false beliefs per se but also grasp the affective implications of being mistaken. The results are discussed with recourse to current theories about early understanding of false beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many assume that cognitive and linguistic processes, such as semantic knowledge (SK) and self-regulation (SR), subserve learned skills like reading. However, complex models of interacting and bootstrapping effects of SK, SR, instruction, and reading hypothesize reciprocal effects. Testing this "lattice" model with children (n = 852) followed from first to second grade (5.9-10.4 years of age) revealed reciprocal effects for reading and SR, and reading and SK, but not SR and SK. More effective literacy instruction reduced reading stability over time. Findings elucidate the synergistic and reciprocal effects of learning to read on other important linguistic, self-regulatory, and cognitive processes; the value of using complex models of development to inform intervention design; and how learned skills may influence development during middle childhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developmental continuity between infants' understanding of intentional agency (goals, beliefs, and desires) and young children's attributions of moral intentions were studied in a 4-year longitudinal study (N = 77 children). First, goal encoding at the age of 7 months and implicit false belief understanding at 18 months were predictive of children's understanding of an accidental transgressor's moral intentions at the age of 5 years. Second, 24-month-olds' understanding of subjective desires was predictive of children's ability to understand an accidental transgressor's false belief at 5 years. These correlations remained significant when controlling for gender and verbal IQ. These findings support the theory that an early understanding of intentional agency is foundational for moral cognition in childhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cultural specificity of action prediction was assessed in 8-month-old Chinese and Swedish infants. Infants were presented with an actor eating with a spoon or chopsticks. Predictive goal-directed gaze shifts were examined using eye tracking. The results demonstrate that Chinese infants only predict the goal of eating actions performed with chopsticks, whereas Swedish infants exclusively predict the goal of eating actions performed with a spoon. Infants in neither culture predicted the goal of object manipulation actions (e.g., picking up food) performed with a spoon or chopsticks. The results support the view that multiple processes (both visual/cultural learning and motor-based direct matching processes) facilitate goal prediction during observation of other peoples' actions early in infancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its recognized importance for cultural transmission, little is known about the role imitation plays in language learning. Three experiments examine how rates of imitation vary as a function of qualitative differences in the way language is used in a small indigenous community in Oaxaca, Mexico and three Western comparison groups. Data from one hundred thirty-eight 3- to 10-year-olds suggests that children selectively imitate when they understand the function of a given linguistic element because their culture makes frequent use of that function. When function is opaque, however, children imitate faithfully. This has implications for how children manage the imitation-innovation trade-off, and offers insight into why children imitate in language learning across development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human cultural groups value conformity to arbitrary norms (e.g., rituals, games) that are the result of collective "agreement." Ninety-six 3-year-olds had the opportunity to agree upon arbitrary norms with puppets. Results revealed that children normatively enforced these novel norms only on a deviator who had actually entered into the agreement (not on dissenting or ignorant individuals). Interestingly, any dissent during the norm-setting process (even if a majority of 90% preferred one course of action) prevented children from seeing a norm as established for anyone at all. These findings suggest that even young children understand something of the role of agreement in establishing mutually binding social norms, but that their notion of norm formation may be confined to conditions of unanimity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two experiments with one hundred and fourteen 3- to 5-year-old children examined whether children understand that a printed word represents a specific spoken word and that it differs in this way from a drawing. When an experimenter read a word to children and then a puppet used a different but related label for it, such as "dog" for the word ‹puppy›, children often stated the puppet's label was incorrect. In an analogous task with drawings, children were more likely to state that the puppet was correct in using an alternative label. The results suggest that even young children who cannot yet read have some understanding that a written word stands for a specific linguistic unit in a way that a drawing does not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Variability in children's language acquisition is likely due to a number of cognitive and social variables. The current study investigated whether individual differences in statistical learning (SL), which has been implicated in language acquisition, independently predicted 6- to 8-year-old's comprehension of syntax. Sixty-eight (N = 68) English-speaking children completed a test of comprehension of four syntactic structures, a test of SL utilizing nonlinguistic visual stimuli, and several additional control measures. The results revealed that SL independently predicted comprehension of two syntactic structures that show considerable variability in this age range: passives and object relative clauses. These data suggest that individual differences in children's capacity for SL are associated with the acquisition of the syntax of natural languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigated 3- to 7-year-olds' (N = 91) comprehension of two-clause sentences containing the temporal connectives before or after. The youngest children used an order of mention strategy to interpret the relation between clauses: They were more accurate when the presentation order matched the chronological order of events: "He ate his lunch, before he played in the garden" (chronological) versus "Before he played in the garden, he ate his lunch" (reverse). Between 4 and 6 years, performance was influenced by a combination of factors that influenced processing load: connective type and presentation order. An independent measure of working memory was predictive of performance. The study concludes that the memory demands of some sentence structures limits young children's comprehension of sentences containing temporal connectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two experiments examined whether 18-month-olds learn from emotions directed to a third party. Infants watched an adult perform actions on objects, and an Emoter expressed Anger or Neutral affect toward the adult in response to her actions. The Emoter then became neutral and infants were given access to the objects. Infants' actions were influenced by their memory of the Emoter's affect. Moreover, infants' actions varied as a function of whether they were currently in the Emoter's visual field. If the previously angry Emoter was absent (Experiment 1) or turned her back (Experiment 2), infants did not use the prior emotion to regulate their behavior. Infants learn from emotional eavesdropping, and their subsequent behavior depends on the Emoter's orientation toward them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about the underlying causes and developmental patterns of stability and change in early reading abilities. In a longitudinal study of twins (n=4,291 pairs), individual differences in reading achievement assessed by teachers using U.K. National Curriculum (NC) criteria showed substantial heritabilities at ages 7, 9, and 10 years (.57-.67) and modest shared environmental influences (.10-.17). Stability in NC scores was primarily mediated genetically. There was also evidence for age-specific genetic influences at each age. Genetic influences on reading are substantial and stable during the elementary school years despite the shift from "learning to read" to "reading to learn." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perner (1991) has claimed that the linguistic structures and reasoning tasks mastered by 4-year-olds share a requirement to handle metarepresentation. In contrast, de Villiers (2000) has argued that they share a requirement to handle misrepresentation. In the current study, a correlation is observed between success on false belief tasks and the acquisition of relative clause sentences. This correlation is not predicted by de Villiers's account because such sentences do not require the handling of misrepresentation, but it is consistent with Perner's account because such sentences do require the handling of metarepresentation. It is proposed that only an account that integrates the accounts of both de Villiers and Perner can explain extant data on language and cognition in 4-year-olds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigated whether yes-no questions would lead to a yes bias in young children. Four experiments were conducted in which 2- to 5-year-olds were asked comprehensible and incomprehensible yes-no questions concerning familiar and unfamiliar objects. Consistent findings were obtained: (a) 2-year-olds displayed a consistent yes bias; (b) 4- and 5-year-olds exhibited no response bias toward comprehensible questions and a nay-saying bias toward incomprehensible questions; and (c) 3-year-olds' results were mixed, suggesting that the age of 3 years is a period of developmental transition in response tendency toward yes-no questions. The findings suggest that yes-no questions are suitable for older children, providing they are comprehensible, but may result in biased results when used with younger children and when incomprehensible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive complexity and control theory and relational complexity theory attribute developmental changes in theory of mind (TOM) to complexity. In 3 studies, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds performed TOM tasks (false belief, appearance-reality), less complex connections (Level 1 perspective-taking) tasks, and transformations tasks (understanding the effects of location changes and colored filters) with content similar to TOM. There were also predictor tasks at binary-relational and ternary-relational complexity levels, with different content. Consistent with complexity theories: (a) connections and transformations were easier and mastered earlier than TOM; (b) predictor tasks accounted for more than 80% of age-related variance in TOM; and (c) ternary-relational items accounted for TOM variance, before and after controlling for age and binary-relational items. Prediction did not require hierarchically structured predictor tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]