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Four experiments investigated 4-year-olds' understanding of adjective-noun compositionality and their sensitivity to statistics when interpreting scalar adjectives. In Experiments 1 and 2, children selected tall and short items from 9 novel objects called pimwits (1-9 in. in height) or from this array plus 4 taller or shorter distractor objects of the same kind. Changing the height distributions of the sets shifted children's tall and short judgments. However, when distractors differed in name and surface features from targets, in Experiment 3, judgments did not shift. In Experiment 4, dissimilar distractors did affect judgments when they received the same name as targets. It is concluded that 4-year-olds deploy a compositional semantics that is sensitive to statistics and mediated by linguistic labels.

Objective: Variability describes speech differences within individual children, as well as differences between children. Variability within children has been used as an indicator of speech impairment, so knowledge of typical children's variability enhances clinicians' diagnostic and prognostic decisions. This study aimed to describe the extent of variability within children in the production of consonant clusters., Patients and Methods: Sixteen typically developing children aged between 2 and 3 years were studied monthly for 6 months. Spontaneous speech samples were used to construct variability profiles for repeated productions of words containing consonant clusters., Results: Variability between and within individuals featured prominently. Half (53.7%, range 42.4-77.6%) of all the words that were repeated were produced variably. As the children became older, they increased the accuracy of their productions overall; however, variability between and within individuals continued to occur., Conclusion: If the speech of typically developing children is highly variable, then the extent and nature of variability must be defined when it is used as a diagnostic marker of speech impairment., (Copyright 2008 S. Karger AG, Basel.)

The goal of this study consists in showing the positive effects of contact with nature, linked to some well structured activities, on some developmental aspects with 4 to 6 years old children. In a semi-structured setting children belonging to the experimental group had the opportunity to meet and explore spontaneously nature with all its aspects and to discover natural phenomena linked to evolution and life, mirroring some analogous principles of their own development. Nature functioned as a free space, offering multiple possibilities to play and explore freely, aside from any kind of evaluation and consideration based on priority. With regard to the complexity of the theme and the great amount of possible interconnections, a holistic approach was appropriate. With the help of a quasi-experimental design, we evaluated the data of two groups of children, analyzing not only their development, but also the relationships with their familiar environment and their involvement with nature. Thanks to three different procedural approaches, it was possible to show the differential progress of the experimental group in comparison with the control group, to select variables responsive to contact with nature and to bring out the positive link between good emotional contact with nature and general development.

Several researchers have proposed that developmental improvements in children's face recognition abilities might reflect an increasing reliance on configural information (i.e. spatial relations between features) in faces (Carey & Diamond, 1994; Mondloch, Le Grand & Maurer, 2002). We investigated 4- and 5-year-olds' use of configural information for upright and inverted faces using Tanaka and Sengco's (1997) configural change paradigm. Participants saw a photograph of a child's face (e.g. Luke). Memory for features (e.g. Luke's mouth) was then tested in a face with the same configuration as the study face (e.g. Luke's face), in a face with a novel spatial configuration (e.g. Luke's face with the eyes shifted further apart), and presented on their own (e.g. Luke's mouth alone). We found that preschoolers and adults recognized target features from upright faces better when tested in the context of a face with the same configuration as the study face, than when they were embedded in a face with a new spatial configuration or when they were presented in isolation. This effect was lost when faces were inverted. The results suggest that adult-like styles of face processing are present from 4 years of age.

This study was set up to investigate vocabulary development in a population of urban Indian socio-economically impoverished pre-schoolers. Since research has shown that a correlation exists with vocabulary and reading skills, hence better vocabulary would be indicative of fewer reading related problems. The introduction of an oracy programme in a nursery was evaluated and the results compared with those from a similar nursery not exposed to the programme. There was a significant difference in the growth of receptive vocabulary for the experimental group relative to the comparison group but no improvement in the expressive lexicon of either group. Results shed light on vocabulary development and its implications on later literacy progress, as well as changes to nursery practice in India.

The study is an ongoing longitudinal and qualitative psycho-social study of the communicative development in 19 preschool children with cochlear implants, using sign language. The children are video-recorded in natural interactional settings. Analysis of patterns of communication show that 16 of the children use sign language in communication with adults and peers. With regard to oral communication, 13 children were observed to utter single words or speech-like sounds upon an adult's request, but seldom used spoken words spontaneously. Six children used single spoken words in dialogues with adults if the content of the dialogue was about the here and now, and if the topic of reference was clear. None of the children in the study were able to take part in age-adequate play activities with peers when speech was used in communication. The results are discussed in reference to early mother-infant interaction, the development of communication and language, and the significance of early close relationships for children's social and emotional development.

In this study, the authors examine temperament (12-13 months) and mothering and fathering (15, 21, 27, 33 months) antecedents of inhibition of children at age 3 years prospectively in a sample of 125 firstborn boys and retrospectively in only the most and least inhibited children. High negativity coupled with low positivity in infancy predicted high inhibition, as did parenting that was supportive (e.g., high sensitivity, low intrusiveness). Parenting appeared more influential in the case of children who were highly negative as infants. The importance of distinguishing positive and negative emotionality in infancy and of studying mothering and fathering are discussed.

In experimental tasks in which subjects sort sets of objects with conflicting appearances and taxonomic relations, preschoolers often have been found to categorize according to appearance. The procedures used in past studies, however, may have biased preschoolers to attend to appearance instead of taxonomic relations. This possibility was examined in two experiments. In Experiment 1, children's preference for taxonomic- or appearance-based sorting was affected by both the training and the instructions they received. Adults in Experiment 1 were affected by instructions, but not by training. In Experiment 2 preschoolers sorted above chance according to the criterion for which they received training and instruction (taxonomic relations or appearance). Consistency data, children's justifications, and spontaneous labeling support the conclusions that training and instructions have a significant effect on children's preference to sort according to taxonomic relations or appearance, and that both criteria can be used systematically by children as young as four. Implications for task comprehension, flexibility, methodology, and education are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the developmental differences in pursuit eye movements among preschool children. The subjects were 28 children aged 3 to 6 years old and 5 adults aged 22 to 37 years. The target was moved sinusoidally on the horizontal plane at 0.3-, 0.5-, and 0.7-Hz stimulus frequency. The power ratio which represented the smoothness of eye movements and the phase difference between eye movements and target movement was calculated. The power ratio decreased with increased stimulus frequency for all subjects, indicating that eye movements became less smooth. At all stimulus frequencies, the power ratio was higher for adults than for children. Among the three age groups of children, there was no statistically significant difference on this parameter. The phase shifted from a small amount of lead for no lag to the lag with faster stimulus frequency in adults, but the gap was not statistically significant. For children, there was a statistically significant difference across age groups on change in the phase difference. These findings may suggest that the developmental differences in pursuit eye movements of children across ages 3 to 6 years were clear in what related to the phase difference.

Children undergo major transformations between birth and approximately 5 years of age. The most common examples are personality development and the potential explosiveness of the course of the disease caries. Each demands recognition, assessment of degree of difficulty, and an adaptation by the dentist. Starting dental care for children early is based on the anticipated time children can develop disease, the fact that most dental disease is preventable, and the desire to gain the trust of the child by first, minimizing the need for invasive procedures. Dental trends set in the preschool period tend to carry for many years. The dentist's assessment of the degree of difficulty is the first key in successful care for each child. The general dentist and pediatric dentist both play important and complementary roles in the care of children. There are differences in the practice habits between the two. Self assessment of skills for common situations leads to improved care. Because children don't vote, a responsibility falls on the health care provider to advocate for children in the political and professional arenas.

The aim of this research was the empirical study of the development of object representations among preschool and fourth-grade children. Psychometric properties and age differences on structural and qualitative dimensions of parental descriptions are reported. The relationships between the dimensions of object representations and children's self-perceptions and interpretations of situations depicting typical interferences of ongoing parent-child relations were explored. Our findings point to multidimensional representations, underlying the importance of the structural dimensions of the representation. More mature representations were related to more advanced conflict resolution strategies. More positive perceptions of self in middle childhood and less idealized self-concept among preschoolers were associated to higher conceptual levels of parental representations. The constraints, as well as the possibilities, inherent to research based on narrative models of object representations are discussed.

This study examined the conversational interactions of mothers and their 4.5-year-old children, who had been born preterm, during a social problem-solving task asking each dyad to agree on the choice of a snack. Relative to comparison mothers, mothers of preterm children seemed to approach the task as a vocabulary lesson; they produced less complex sentences and were more likely to name the snacks and to test their children's knowledge of snack names. Comparison mothers were more likely to focus on the social negotiation aspect of the task, by offering more opinions and reasons. Discussed is whether the conversational strategies of mothers of preterm children reflect appropriate "fine-tuning" or a lag in adjusting to their children's emerging language skills because of a lingering "prematurity stereotype."

The feasibility of mothers estimating their own children's development is explored in this paper. Construction, reliability and validity of a mothers' developmental inventory for children from 4 months to 41 months is described. The inventory consists of six subtests: Gross Motor, Fine Motor, Language Expression, Language Comprehension, Personal-Social Competence and Self Help. A preliminary version of the inventory was item analyzed on a sample of 105 mothers of 4 to 37 months old children. This reduced the inventory to 164 items with satisfactory reliability and age discrimination on half-year intervals. The list was cross-validated on a sample of 275 mothers, for which medians of alpha coefficients for the six subtests ranged from 0.69 to 0.96, with most (26 out of 36) coefficients being 0.77 or higher. Again, the age discrimination was satisfactory, although floor effects appeared on four subtests for children younger than 12 months and ceiling effects on two subtests for children older than 24 months.

Methods: Data from a large longitudinal study of boys who were between kindergarten and age 13 years were used to (1) test whether Gray's and Cloninger's personality dimensions measured in kindergarten predicted the early onset of stable, highly delinquent behavior; (2) test whether 1, 2, or 3 dimensions were needed; and (3) test the predictive value of a categorical approach., Results: The impulsivity dimension was the best predictor of the early onset of stable, highly delinquent behavior. Anxiety and reward dependence made significant but weaker contributions. The categorical approach corroborated Cloninger's suggestion that boys who are high in impulsivity, low in anxiety, and low in reward dependence would be more at risk for delinquent involvement. Boys who were high in impulsivity and low in anxiety but high in reward dependence were much less at risk for delinquency. Differences in antisocial behavior among extreme kindergarten personality groups were stable from ages 11 to 13 years., Conclusions: The behavioral activating system appears to be the major dimension underlying the propensity toward early onset of antisocial behavior, but both the behavioral inhibition system and the need for social rewards play important roles. The behavioral style (personality) that results from the interplay of these systems is clearly in place by the kindergarten year. Preventive efforts should target preschool children with at-risk behavior profiles. However, longitudinal-experimental studies with at least yearly assessments between birth and school-entry age are needed to understand the extent to which the behavioral styles are antecedent to preschool disruptive behavior disorders.

Three normal preschool children were presented with a sorting task ordinarily insoluble by 4-year-olds, based on the visual discrimination of what features two sample stimuli had in common. Failing to sort correctly according to that criterion, they were then presented with task-analytic conditions in which they learned to name correctly the common features of pairs of such stimuli and to sort correctly according to experimenter-named common attributes. This proved insufficient in producing correct sorting, even when the children were asked to name what the stimuli had in common and did so correctly just before they were asked to sort. The children were then asked to self-instruct: The experimenter said, "So, what are you looking for?" just before the children began to sort in response to the experimenter's presentation of two sample stimuli. This condition typically yielded correct answers to the question and correct sorting, which proved reversible if the experimenter discontinued the question or asked the child to not ask or answer what the two stimuli had in common, just before sorting. The self-instructional effect was found to generalize to new sets of visual stimuli and to a novel experimenter.

The relationships among age, motor age, and perceived competence of 31 preschool children were explored. The Peabody Motor Developmental Scales and the Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance assessed children's motor age and perceived competence, respectively. Stepwise regression analyses indicated that age followed by perceived competence contributed significantly to children's motor age. However, neither age nor motor age contributed significantly to perceived competence.

A description of the establishment, operation, and programmatic foci of the Center for Early Education and Development (CEED) is provided. CEED offers a model for creating links between the research resources of a University and professionals who work directly with young children and families. CEED's role in demystifying research and making it accessible for community practitioners is an important one in bridging the gap between the trenches and the ivory tower.

32 preschool children were matched by age, sex, and pretest scores on spatial concept knowledge. Four groups were (a) instruction (see and hear) only, (b) verbal repetition, (c) fine motor treatment (hand manipulation), and (d) gross motor treatment (body movement). The 11 spatial concepts studied were in front of, behind, beside, on top of, under, around, through, right, left, forward, and backward. There was no difference in performance between groups given instruction only and verbal repetition. The motoric groups learned more than the non-motoric groups. Older children knew more concepts initially but did not learn more new concepts than younger children.

The developmental status of 1,180 children representing a cross section of Denver's ethnic and parental occupational groups was compared with that of 1,055 children (349 Anglo, 354 Spanish surname, and 352 Black) whose parents were unskilled workers. The children varied in age from 2 weeks to 6.4 years and were evaluated with the Denver developmental screening test. Comparisons were made in developmental achievements as reflected by individual item differences for Anglo children from unskilled families with Anglos from cross-sectional families. A second comparison of Anglo, Spanish, and Black children of the unskilled sample was also made. The first analysis comparing 910 Anglo children from the cross-sectional sample with 349 Anglo children from the unskilled families demonstrated significant differences (p smaller than 0.05) for 39 of the 105 items. Below 20 months of age, children of the unskilled sample were more advanced, whereas after 20 months of age, the children of the cross-sectional sample were advanced in all test sectors except for items in the personal-social sector. Comparisons of Anglo, Black, and Spanish surname children from the unskilled families showed fewer differences in rates of development.

An epidemiological study of disease in a geographically identified population of 250 children is reported. 22% had not seen their general practitioner (GP) at all in the past year, while 20% had seen him four times or more. The vast majority of these visits were because of an infective illness; and developmental and behavioural problems were rarely presented to GPs. 53% of children had not been to hospital since birth, but 11% had been at least four times. Respiratory infections and middle ear disease were the commonest illness reported, and nearly 3% had an infected or discharging ear at the time of examination. 15% of 3 year olds had speech and language problems. 18% of children over 2 years were thought by the examiners to have a behavioural problem, half being assessed as mild, the remainder as moderate or severe.

The preschool years are a remarkable period of dramatic growth in the areas of physical, affective, and cognitive development. Physical development is characterized by a slow but steady rate of somatic growth and the mastery of motor skills that facilitate the child's achievement of autonomy and independence. Major themes in affective development include the achievement of autonomy and independence from family, a lessening of attachment to parents and the alleviation of separation anxiety, and the acquisition of impulse control and socialization skills. Cognitive development during the so-called preoperational period is best characterized by the mastery of language. The remarkable developmental gains achieved during this dynamic period culminate in a child who can function independently and competently and begin the major occupation of childhood--attending school. Health maintenance issues during the preschool years directly reflect the child's developmental stage. For example, nutritional issues reflect not only physical growth and motor skills, but also negativism and the child's struggle to achieve autonomy. Similarly, safety and injury prevention related to the "motor-minded" behavior so characteristic of children at this age, as well as the illogical, egocentric thought that predominates during this period of cognitive development. Examples of other stage-related issues addressed during health maintenance visits include discipline and behavior problems, sleep problems and night awakening, and toilet training. The unique aspects of development during the preschool years also have implications for other components of child health maintenance, including developmental screening, procedures and immunizations, and physical assessment. A number of clinical issues are of special significance during the preschool years. For example, the most common causes of children's short stature, constitutional delay in growth and familial short stature, may result in major parental concerns at this time. Recurrent otitis media is an important problem during this period of language acquisition. Among preschool children with urinary tract infections, the risk of an underlying structural anomaly of the urinary tract and the danger of irreversible renal damage is greater than for older children.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

In an attempt to directly investigate later consequences of the early mother-infant relationship, several measures of social-emotional and cognitive-motivational development at 12 months of age were correlated with two measures of preschool adjustment for 26 children. Results indicated that both of our measures of early social functioning were related to more optimal adjustment in a peer-setting at three-and-a-half years of age. Taken together, the results of the study provide empirical support for the widely held, but seldom tested, hypothesis that the quality of the early mother-infant tie has important consequences for the child's subsequent development in most areas.

Developmental screening tests are only rarely used in pediatric practice, reportedly because of lack of available time. This study evaluated a shortened form of the Denver Developmental Screening Test (DDST-S) consisting of only those items immediately to the left of the child's individual are line, three in each sector or a total of 12. This DDST-S was administered to four cohorts of preschool children (aged 52 to 64 months), 1,819 children in all. Subsamples of these children returned within three months for one of several developmental (criterion) tests (McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities, the complete DDST, or the Stanford-Binet). The DDST-S was scored by selecting the profile of passes and failures most predictive of McCarthy test results, using indices of copositivity, connegativity, underreferral, and overreferral as the basis for the decision. Utilizing this scoring system, use of the DDST-S was able to identify low scorers (those scoring less than 70) on the Stanford-Binet (sensitivity = .67, specificity = .95, predictive value = .54, underreferral = 2.5%, overreferral = 4%) as well as the complete DDST. Low scoring children could thus be identified in less than half the time required by the complete DDST. A two-stage DDST-S and DDST procedure was found to have even greater predictive value (76%; 100% if borderline cases [score of 70 to 80] are considered positive) than either form alone.

Four follow-up studies carried out from the newborn period in three different laboratories have shown that a slow, low-magnitude reaction of the newborn to interruption of sucking is associated in later infancy and the preschool period with the expression of pleasurable emotional response. The basic test of the newborn's response varied slightly in the four studies, but essentially it consisted of establishing a baseline of infant behaviour during 30 to 120 seconds of sucking on a pacifier, then recording amount of (a) bodily activity, (b) crying, (c) the latency to either or both, in the 30- to 135-second period after removal of the nipple. The three aspects of the reaction are consistently intercorrelated, even when allowances are made for artifactual interdependence. Newborns who respond quickly to interruption of sucking also continue to cry and move a lot. Up to the first month a slow, low-magnitude reaction of the newborn is associated with a later low rate of smiling, but beyond the third month there is an inversion and the association is consistently with various manifestations of postive emotional expression.

The early identification of children not yet ready to begin the formal task of classroom learning has been increasingly emphasized by educators, psychologists, pediatricians and parents. The pediatrician, as the professional concerned with monitoring children's growth and development, is uniquely suited to participate in the identification of such children. Effective participation requires recognition of the various factors influencing educational readiness, as well as the manner in which they fit together into a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Possible pediatric roles include screening children for educational readiness, as well as clinical problem-solving when issues or concerns arise.

It is proposed that a conceptual framework should be used as a basis for the provision of movement experiences for young children. Developmental levels and classifications of movement are considered in order to structure environments that provide suitable opportunities for self-initiated movement for pre-school children.

Recent reports from countries with a highly developed economic status point out the association of well-being of children with socio-economic factors. The aim of the present investigation was to examine the extent to which health problems, i.e. functional impairments, diseases and handicaps, in 4-year-old children are related to socio-economic factors. The analysis was based on data from 7 173 children who had undergone the routine general health screening of 4-year-olds in the county of Uppsala. In the statistical analysis the main emphasis was laid on an explanation of the variance on the individual plane. The results showed that the correlations between health problems and socio-economic factors in general were weak or non-existent. An explanation of the lack of correlation in our sample might be that Sweden had succeeded in largely eliminating the health problems associated with external living conditions of the family. If differences between population groups do exist--and in the light of findings from other investigations it seems highly probable that they do--then these differences are probably to be sought in families' way of functioning, in the internal and external pattern of communication, in the general emotional climate and in the degree of social integration in the society.