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Children's understanding of the stability of gender over time has long been recognized as a hallmark of early childhood cognitive development. Prior research has argued that until roughly age 6, children do not understand that a person's gender identity remains consistent if the person undergoes a change in gendered behavior or appearance. However, this prior work has generally not given children any context as to why the behavior or appearance change is occurring. The present study showed U.S. three-to-five-year-olds a character (e.g. "Johnny") undergo such a change that occurred because of external factors (e.g. "Johnny is wearing his sister's dress because all his clothes are dirty"); we asked whether children would indicate that the character's gender was the same pre- and post-change. Children (N = 124, 52% girls, 66% non-Hispanic White) as young as 3 demonstrated an understanding of gender consistency and were significantly more likely to endorse gender consistency when they were, versus were not, given context for the change (p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.88). Results suggest that U.S. children take context into account when conceptualizing others' genders and believe that gender is generally consistent across transformations in behavior or appearance by age 3. We discuss the implications of these findings in light of a broader literature about children's understanding of gender constancy as well as contemporary understandings of gender that sometimes accommodate the idea that a person's gender can change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analogical reasoning is an important mechanism for social cognition in typically developing children, and recent evidence suggests that some forms of analogical reasoning may be preserved in autism spectrum disorder. An unanswered question is whether children with autism spectrum disorder can apply analogical reasoning to social information. In all, 92 children with autism spectrum disorder completed a social content analogical reasoning task presented via photographs of real-world social interactions. Autism spectrum disorder participants exhibited performance that was well above chance and was not significantly worse than age- and intelligence quotient-matched typically developing children. Investigating the relationship of social content analogical reasoning performance to age in this cross-sectional dataset indicated similar developmental trajectories in the autism spectrum disorder and typically developing children groups. These findings provide new support for intact analogical reasoning in autism spectrum disorder and have theoretical implications for analogy as a metacognitive skill that may be at least partially dissociable from general deficits in processing social content. As an initial study of social analogical reasoning in children with autism spectrum disorder, this study focused on a basic research question with limited ecological validity. Evidence that children with autism spectrum disorder can apply analogical reasoning ability to social content may have long-range applied implications for exploring how this capacity might be channeled to improve social cognition in daily life.

Purpose: This study aimed to shed light on the mental health of a unique group of medically transitioning transgender adolescents: those who had made a binary social transition during childhood and who, in general, had not experienced substantial gender-incongruent puberty., Methods: Study participants were part of a broader longitudinal study comprising 3 groups: transgender youth, their cisgender siblings, and unrelated cisgender peers. Using multilevel models, we compared self-reported and parent-reported levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms among transgender youth at 3 stages: before youth had begun puberty blockers; after they had begun blockers; and after they had begun hormone therapy. We also compared age-based mental health trajectories in transgender and cisgender youth., Results: In this sample of transgender youth who sought and received gender-affirming medical care, participants experienced stable and relatively low levels of psychological distress across stages of medical transition and across time. There was one exception: transgender girls showed increased, followed by decreased, parent-reported depressive symptoms over time. In contrast, cisgender girls showed increases in internalizing symptomatology (with the exception of parent-reported anxiety) as they got older, and cisgender boys showed decreased self-reported anxiety and increased, followed by decreased, parent-reported depressive symptoms. By mid-adolescence, levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms among transgender girls and transgender boys generally fell between those of cisgender girls and cisgender boys., Discussion: Results demonstrate that transgender youth who are socially and medically supported in their gender identity can experience stable and positive mental health throughout the notoriously challenging developmental period of adolescence., (Copyright © 2024 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Importance: There is a need to improve the evidence base for gender-affirming medical care provided to adolescents, including the experiences of those who have received this care., Objective: To examine rates of satisfaction, regret, and continuity of care in adolescents who received puberty blockers and/or gender-affirming hormones as part of gender-affirming medical care., Design, Setting, and Participants: This survey study used the 2023 online survey wave of an ongoing longitudinal study, the Trans Youth Project, among a community-based sample of transgender youth and their parents initially recruited throughout the US and Canada between 2013 and 2017. The satisfaction and regret data include responses from a youth or their parent representing 87% of the youth aged 12 years or older in the cohort who have received gender-affirming medical care (235 of 269 youths). Of these, 220 completed the 2023 survey (main sample); information about continuity of care was available for all youth. Data analysis was performed from April to August 2024., Exposure: Satisfaction, regret, and continuity of care following puberty blockers or suppression and/or gender-affirming hormones., Main Outcomes and Measures: Self- or parent-reported satisfaction or regret with gender-affirming care and continuation of care., Results: Among the 220 youths in the main sample (mean [SD] age, 16.07 [2.40] years; 30 [14%] multiracial, non-Hispanic; 18 [8%] White, Hispanic; 155 [70%] White, non-Hispanic; 17 [8%] other race and ethnicity, including Asian, Black [Hispanic and non-Hispanic], Hispanic with unknown race, multiracial Hispanic, or Native American; gender at last interaction: 68 [31%] boys, 132 [60%] girls, 20 [9%] gender diverse, eg, nonbinary) and their parents, very high levels of satisfaction and low levels of regret with puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones as well as high levels of continuation of care were reported. Of these 220 respondents in the main sample, 9 were regretful of having received blockers (n = 8) and/or hormones (n = 3; 2 of these individuals reported regret with both), of whom 4 have stopped all gender-affirming medical care and 1 has continued to receive blockers but plans to stop. The 4 others have continued care, suggesting that regret is not synonymous with stopping care., Conclusions and Relevance: The findings suggest that youth accessing puberty blockers and hormones as part of gender-affirming care tend to be satisfied with and not regretful of that care several years later. While regret was rare, these experiences need to be better understood.