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This study examined unique associations of multiple distal context variables (family socioeconomic status [SES], maternal employment, and paternal parenting) and proximal maternal (personality, intelligence, and knowledge; behavior, self-perceptions, and attributions) and child (age, gender, representation, language, and sociability) characteristics with maternal sensitivity and child responsiveness in 254 European American mothers and their firstborn 20-month-olds. Specific unique relations emerged in hierarchical regression analyses. Mothers who worked fewer hours per week and reported less dissonance in their husbands' didactic parenting, whose children spoke using more vocabulary, and who reported less limit setting in their parenting and attributed their parenting failures to internal causes were observed to be more sensitive in their interactions with their children. Children in higher SES families, whose mothers worked fewer hours and attributed their parenting failures to internal causes, and who themselves used more vocabulary were observed to be more responsive in their interactions with their mothers. Although potential associations are many, when considered together, unique associations with maternal sensitivity and child responsiveness are few, and some are shared whereas others are unique. (Contains 9 tables and 2 figures.)

A total of 467 mothers of firstborn 20-month-old children from 7 countries (103 Argentine, 61 Belgian, 39 Israeli, 78 Italian, 57 Japanese, 69 Korean, and 60 US American) completed the "Jackson Personality Inventory" (JPI), measures of parenting cognitions (self-perceptions and knowledge), and a social desirability scale. Our first analysis showed that the Five-Factor structure of personality (Openness, Neuroticism, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness) could be extracted from the JPI scales when cross-cultural data from mothers in the 7 countries were analyzed; it was also replicable and generalizable in mothers from so-called individualist and collectivist cultures. Our second analysis showed that the five personality factors relate differently to diverse parenting cognitions in those individualist versus collectivist cultures. Maternal personality has significance in studies of normative parenting, child development, and family process across cultural contexts. (Contains 5 tables and 2 figures.)

A methodological study of 33 2-year-olds shows that child speech occurs at about the same level in different settings (the familiar home vs. the unfamiliar laboratory), but that children speak more and in more differentiated ways with different people (mother vs. stranger). (Author/VWL)

Investigated individual variation in child vocabulary competence, evaluating mothers' sociodemographics, personalities, and vocabulary and children's' gender, social competence, and vocabulary competence. Specific aspects of children and mothers accounted for variation in child vocabulary knowledge and use. Child's gender and social competence and mother's vocabulary and attitude toward parenting were among the factors that directly affected vocabulary competence. (SM)

Study 1 explored associations between multiple measures of language and symbolic gesture development across ages 3 and 4; Study 2 measured more finely which aspects of language relate to the symbolic representation of actions with objects, and explored associations between symbolic gesture and general intellectual ability. Results showed significant associations between the two domains. (EV)

Some producers in the inland Pacific Northwest (PNW) are interested in diversifying the traditional 2‐yr sequence of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) (WW)–summer fallow (SF) with oilseed crops to capture break crop effects. The objective of this study was to compare production costs and economic returns of 2‐yr sequences with those of intensified 3‐yr sequences at a low‐precipitation (<300 mm) site where the long‐term rotation has been WW‐SF. A 5‐year (2014–2018) cropping sequence study was conducted that included summer fallow with intensive tillage (SF) and reduced tillage (RTF) in 2‐yr rotations with WW; and RTF in 3‐yr rotations with WW, winter canola (WN; Brassica napus L.), or spring carinata (SC; Brassica carinata A. Braun) as a primary crop and spring wheat (SW), spring barley (SB; Hordeum vulgare L.), or SC as a secondary crop. Reduced tillage fallow increased WW yields by 14% compared with SF. Production of WN and SC in WN‐SW‐RTF and SC‐SW‐RTF, expressed by equivalent WW yield, was 42%, and 35% of WW in WW‐RTF vs. 67% needed to compensate for 1/3 less cropping with WW. Production of SC in WW‐SC‐RTF was 21% of WW in WW‐RTF vs. 33% needed to compensate. Mean net returns over total costs were negative with WW‐RTF least unprofitable at −US$162 ha−1 followed by WW‐SB‐RTF at −$167 ha−1, WW‐SF at −$180 ha−1, WW‐SC‐RTF at −$191 ha−1, SC‐SW‐RTF at −$205 ha−1, and WN‐SW‐RTF at −$229 ha−1. Including oilseeds in 3‐yr rotations with WW and fallow apparently may be less profitable than WW in 2‐yr rotations with fallow. Core Ideas: Traditional winter wheat monoculture lacks biological sustainability.Reduced tillage fallow increased winter wheat yields over that of summer fallow.Intensified rotations with oilseeds were less profitable than winter wheat‐fallow.Intensifying with spring barley improved economic returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotional availability (EA) is a prominent index of socioemotional adaptation in the parent–child dyad. Is EA affected by context? In this methodological study, 34 mothers and their 2-year-olds were observed in 2 different settings (home vs. laboratory) 1 week apart. Significant cross-context reliability and continuity in EA as measured with the Emotional Availability Scales emerged. Because EA is not affected by context, cross-context generalizations about EA status in the dyad may be warranted. This work further documents the adequate psychometric properties of emotional availability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. This study employed an ecological framework to examine the totes of multiple contributors to variations in key maternal perceptions of their own parenting. Design. Maternal socioeconomic status (SES), employment, and parenting support; child gender, language. social competence, and temperament; and maternal intelligence, personality, and parenting knowledge and style were explored in separate predictions of self-perceived competence, satisfaction, investment, and role balance in 234 European American mothers of firstborn, 20-month-old children. Results. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated highly differentiated patterns of unique predictive relations to each domain of self-perceived parenting. Nonetheless, some predictors consistently contributed to individual parenting self-perceptions, most prominently. parenting knowledge and dissonance between actual and ideal maternal and paternal parenting styles. SES, maternal employment, community support, and maternal personality also contributed to self-perceptions, as did child temperament. Conclusions. Although the potential contributors to parenting sell-perceptions may be many, prominent contributors to any one self-perception are few, and constellations of contributors differ for different parenting sell-perceptions, conclusions that articulate with the modular view of parenting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses naturalistic language sampling in typically developing children. Features of language whose naturalistic samples were considered for the study; Situation under which children produced more utterances and word roots.

Maternal reports of child vocabulary, utterance length, morpheme usage, and sentence complexity and experimenter-assessed receptive and expressive language were obtained at the end of the 2nd year for European American middle-class toddlers (N = 27). Maternal verbal intelligence and socioeconomic status were also measured. At 48 months of age, children's false-belief understanding and verbal intelligence were evaluated. Individual differences in child language at 24 months and child verbal IQ at 48 months predicted unique variance in performance on the false-belief tasks at 48 months, although only the early language factor findings were statistically significant. These findings demonstrate previously unobserved relations between early language and later acquisition of complex concepts related to mind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central to a concept of culture is the expectation that different peoples possess different ideas and behave in different ways with respect to child rearing. In this study, we investigated ideas that A rgentine, French, and US American mothers hold about their own and their husbands' actual child rearing, as well as what they consider to be ideal child rearing, in three parenting domains: social, didactic, and limit setting. For each domain, we analysed mothers' reports of their actual behaviours and of their husbands' actual behaviours; mothers' ideal expectations of their own and their husbands' behaviours; and mothers' dissonance with respect to parenting (i.e. the extent to which mothers' actual and their husbands' actual behaviours each agrees with mothers' ideal expectations for themselves and for their husbands). The results showed consistent parent, country, as well as parent-bycountry effects, interpretable in terms of overarching cultural beliefs. The study of parents' ideas contributes to understanding why and how parents behave the way they do toward children, and provides insights into the broader social context of child development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Grazed legume forages increased subsequent wheat yields with reduced nitrogen inputs. • Organic perennial alfalfa and grass-based systems improved biological soil quality. • Organic perennial alfalfa and grass-based systems were the most profitable. • Integrating perennial crops into organic farming systems can build soil and profits. The global trends of shortening crop rotations, simplifying cropping systems, and segregating livestock from cropping enterprises have generated high yields while creating high environmental costs. Diversification, including integrated crop/livestock systems and the use of cover, forage, and perennial crops, can be used to improve soil health, reduce financial risk, increase yields, and reduce many negative environmental externalities. With such diversification in mind, we conducted a 5-year study examining four contrasting farming systems in dryland eastern Washington State in terms of their impacts on total productivity, economic performance, and soil quality. The four systems were a conventional (CONV) winter wheat/spring wheat/spring pea rotation, typical for the area; a mixed crop-livestock (MIX) winter wheat/spring wheat/grazed winter pea forage rotation; an organic mixed crop-livestock (ORGcrop) rotation of 3 yr perennial alfalfa and grass/grazed pea forage/winter wheat; and an organic hay (ORGhay) continuous perennial alfalfa and grass system. Soft white winter wheat (SWWW) yields were higher following grazed pea forage in MIX (6.2 Mg ha−1) than following harvested pea crop in CONV (5.9 Mg ha−1) despite lower N fertilizer rates in MIX. Following 3 yr of alfalfa and grass hay and no N fertilizer, SWWW yields in ORGcrop (6.2 Mg ha−1) were similar to CONV and MIX yields but averaged 15.5% lower protein concentration. Over the 5-yr rotation, average net returns were ORGhay ($616 yr−1) > ORGcrop (216 yr−1) > MIX (−1 yr−1) = CONV (−13 yr−1), in part due to high hay prices and average grain prices during this period compared to long-term averages. Over the course of the study, total soil profile SOC showed significant negative trends in CONV (−3.1 Mg C ha−1 yr−1) and MIX (−4.1 Mg C ha−1 yr−1) but not in ORGcrop and ORGhay. In surface (0–15 cm) soil, microbial biomass carbon and nitrogen and beta-glucosidase activity were greater in ORGcrop and ORGhay than in CONV and MIX. The landscape position of this study site is of relatively poorer soil quality and results may differ across the heterogeneity of a whole farm field. Overall, ORGhay, ORGcrop, MIX, and CONV in this order produced a gradation of forage production relative to cereal production from greatest to least, and also a gradation of economic and soil sustainability metrics from greatest to least. This study found that integrating perennial crops, such as alfalfa and forage grasses, into organic farming systems can build soil quality, be profitable, and supply nitrogen to succeeding grain crops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]