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There is increasing literature showing that the presentation of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) could be different according to the sex of the patient. Through the analysis of the Autism Diagnostic Interview Revised interview results of a study group consisting of 56 preschool children diagnosed with ASD potential differences in the presentation of ASD were searched. Variables investigated were verbal abilities, the presence/absence of unusual sensory interests, as well as of echolalia. The results showed significant differences between gender in restricted and repetitive behavior (p < 0.01), in particular for those children who have no unusual sensory interest (p < 0.05) and with minimal verbal ability (p < 0.05). The findings contribute providing evidences on phenotypical differences in preschool children with a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder., Author(s): Marco Tofani [sup.1] , Lucia Scarcella [sup.2] , Giovanni Galeoto [sup.2] , Federica Giovannone [sup.2] , Carla Sogos [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.414125.7, 0000 0001 0727 6809, Department of [...]

In this longitudinal study, 64 kindergartners (mean age at T1 = 4.69 ± 0.33 years; 34 girls) were tested on visual perception skills (T2 and T3) and mathematics performance (T1 to T3) with 6-month intervals between the three testing waves. Cross-lagged path analysis showed a bidirectional relationship between visual perception and mathematics performance from T2 to T3. Specifically, children's visual perception at T2 significantly predicted their mathematics performance at T3 (B = 0.30, SE = 0.14, p = 0.03, [beta] = 0.19). Children's mathematics performance at T1 accounted for unique variance in visual perception at T2 (B = 0.79, SE = 0.11, p < 0.001, [beta] = 0.68) and visual perception at T3 (B = 0.27, SE = 0.12, p = 0.02, [beta] = 0.32). Their mathematics performance at T2 also significantly predicted visual perception at T3 (B = 0.21, SE = 0.10, p = 0.04, [beta] = 0.28). Totally, they explained 61% of the variance in mathematics performance and 39% of the variance in visual perception at T3. The results highlight the developmental courses as well as the reciprocal facilitations between visual perception and mathematics performance in the kindergarten period., Author(s): Xiao Yu [sup.1] , Yinghe Chen [sup.2] , Weiyi Xie [sup.3] , Xiujie Yang [sup.4] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.66741.32, 0000 0001 1456 856X, Department of Psychology, School of Humanities [...]

Language plays a crucial role in developing emotions. Diverse investigations studied the relationship between different components of emotional understanding and language skills. Specifically, we want to find out if this modulation is uniform or if there are variations in the different components of emotional understanding. The goals of this study were to compare the responses to tasks with different cognitive demands and different emotional information processing modalities and to demonstrate any variations in function to the language performance. For it, this paper analysed the responses to tasks with an emotional and neutral valence of preschool children grouped by different language performances. The children performed three tasks related to different emotional understanding components (video and images emotional appraisal, and an emotional memory task) and a language test that evaluated different language skills in a single sample of participants. Language skills are associated with different emotional appraisal task performances but only for dynamic visual stimuli and emotional valences (positive and negative). According to the type of stimulus used, the differences in emotional processing tasks' performance align with the literature about using dynamic and ecological stimuli for studies with children. Language comprehension would play an essential role in assessing dynamic emotional stimuli, while other language skills would not affect the assessment of static or neutral dynamic stimuli during preschool., Author(s): Verónica Adriana Ramírez [sup.1] [sup.2] , Eliana Ruetti [sup.1] [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.441598.5, 0000 0004 0489 6350, Unidad de Neurobiología Aplicada (UNA, CEMIC-CONICET), , Av. Galván 4102 - [...]

This study aimed to measure tripartite group area using motion capture systems and investigated whether group area could be used as a measure of pre-school children's social interactions. In Experiment 1, two typically developing girls and an adult staff member engaged in free play. In Experiment 2, two typically developing boys and two adult staff members played balloon volleyball. Both experiments had three types of measures: subjective evaluation of whether participants played together, social behaviours (e.g. eye contact for Experiment 1 and balloon tosses for Experiment 2) and group area. Results showed that group area was significantly and negatively related to subjective evaluation in Experiment 2, whereas we observed no relationship between subjective evaluation and group area in Experiment 1. Overall, however, only a low correlation was observed between subjective evaluation and group area in Experiment 2. Furthermore, there were strong sequential associations between subjective evaluation and social behaviour, rather than between subjective evaluation and group area. Although group area as an index of social interactions is less accurate than behavioural data directly observed by humans, it may be worth using as a low-cost preliminary measure, since it can be automatically calculated using motion capture systems., Author(s): Masashi Tsukamoto [sup.1] [sup.2] , Airi Tsuji [sup.3] [sup.4] , Satoru Sekine [sup.5] [sup.6] , Takahide Omori [sup.7] , Kenji Suzuki [sup.3] , Junichi Yamamoto [sup.7] Author Affiliations: (1) [...]

The stimulus equivalence paradigm is a behavioral model to study meaning. This study extends work that has used the equivalence paradigm to study the meaning of instructions. Our goal was to teach two sets of conditional discriminations to preschoolers, one including verbs and the other including nouns, and evaluate the formation of equivalence classes and instruction-following. Four preschool children participated. Initially, an instructional control pretest (simple instructions, verb-object type) was presented visually or orally (dictated or visual stimuli). Next, children learned AB and AC conditional relations between familiar objects (A), representative pictures (B), and abstract pictures (C). BC and CB equivalence tests checked for equivalence class formation. Finally, the children learned DE and DF conditional discriminations among verbs (D), action videos (E), and abstract pictures (F), and were tested in EF and FE relations. All children formed equivalence classes. In the instructional control pretest, all children followed most of the oral instructions, but not the visual instructions. In the posttest, two participants correctly followed all the visual instructions. After a remedial training, the other two participants also followed the visual instructions. This finding is a demonstration of the transfer of the instructional function exerted by the dictated words (verb-noun) to abstract pictures through the formation of the two independent equivalence classes. Keywords Instructional control * Stimulus equivalence * Symbolic function ? Preschoolers, The instructional function of verbal behavior is a topic that was gradually developed by Skinner throughout his work, and which was boosted with empirical research beginning in the late 1970s [...]

In early childhood, the development of children's self-regulation, language, vocabulary, and early academic skills is relatively fast. Identifying relationships in the development process is important for discovering various developmental processes. The study aimed to investigate the relationship between self-regulation, language, and early academic skills in children aged 60-72 months. In addition, the mediating role of self-regulation and the moderating role of gender in this context were also examined. The study was made with the participation of 363 children and 20 preschool teachers. A personal information form and children's self-regulation skills form based on the teachers' observations were used to collect data. In addition, the Kaufman Survey of Early Academic and Language Skills (K-SEALS) was administered to the children by the researchers. Validity and reliability tests of the data collection tools showed them to be valid and reliable. The study proposed models and hypotheses according to the theoretical framework and related research. The validity of the proposed model was examined according to fit index values. The significance of the model's hypotheses was determined by path analysis. At the end of the study, the hypotheses tested in line with the proposed model were discussed in light of the literature., Author(s): Ali Ibrahim Can Gözüm [sup.1] , Özgün Uyanik Aktulun [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.16487.3c, 0000 0000 9216 0511, Early Childhood Education Department, Dede Korkut Education Faculty, Kafkas University, , [...]

In typical development, listeners can use semantic content of verbs to facilitate incremental language processing-a skill that is associated with existing language skills. Studies of children with ASD have not identified an association between incremental language processing in semantically-constraining contexts and language skills, perhaps because participants were adolescents and/or children with strong language skills. This study examined incremental language processing and receptive language in young children with ASD with a range of language skills. Children showed a head start when presented with semantically-constraining verbs (e.g., Read the book) compared to neutral verbs (e.g., Find the book). Children with weaker receptive language showed a smaller head start than children with stronger receptive language skills, suggesting continuity between typical development and ASD., Author(s): Courtney E. Venker [sup.1] [sup.4] , Jan Edwards [sup.1] [sup.2] [sup.5] , Jenny R. Saffran [sup.1] [sup.3] , Susan Ellis Weismer [sup.1] [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (Aff1) 0000 0001 2167 [...]

Despite the importance of literacy in today's educational curriculum, learning to read is a challenge for many children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). One of the foundational skills of early literacy learning is the ability to recognize sight words. This study used a single-subject, multiple-probe, across-participants design, to investigate the effects of a new software feature, dynamic text and speech output, on the acquisition of sight words by three pre-literate preschoolers with ASD during shared digital book reading experiences. All participants demonstrated successful acquisition of the target sight words with minimal exposure to the words. Limitations and future research directions are discussed, including the importance of investigating how the new software feature can be integrated into a more comprehensive literacy curriculum., Author(s): Kelsey Mandak [sup.1] , Janice Light [sup.1] , David McNaughton [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (Aff1) 0000 0001 2097 4281, grid.29857.31, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, The Pennsylvania State University, [...]

Purpose: This study investigated attentional shifting in preschool children with specific language impairment (SLI) compared to their typically developing peers. Children's attentional shifting capacity was assessed by varying attentional demands. Method: Twenty-five preschool children with SLI and 25 age-matched, typically developing controls participated. A behavioral task measuring attentional shifting within and across multiple dimensions (auditory, linguistic, and visual) was employed. Demands on attentional shifting were increased based on input dimension (low load: staying within dimension; medium load: shifting between 2 dimensions; and high load: shifting among 3 dimensions). Results: Compared to controls, the group with SLI made more erroneous responses and exhibited longer response times. Although both groups' error rates were similarly affected by shifting compared to nonshifting trials, their response speed was not. The group with SLI exhibited a larger comparative decrement to their response speed in the high-attentional load condition. Discussion: When demands on attentional shifting increase, children with SLI struggle to shift their attention as efficiently to changing stimuli as their unimpaired peers. Potential implications for the assessment and treatment of this population are discussed., Specific language impairment (SLI) is the most common developmental disorder in early childhood, traditionally characterized as impaired language acquisition in the absence of primary sensory impairment, frank neurological damage, and [...]

The ability to perform an intended behavior in some future circumstance, known as prospective memory (PM), is an important cognitive ability for young children to develop. In this study, we examined PM in preschool children, with the addition of an output monitoring component, which is the ability to remember whether a previously intended action was completed. Participants were engaged in an ongoing task of sorting cards with a variety of images such as animals, tools, and foods by the size of pictures on the card. They were also instructed to sort any cards with animals into cardboard boxes marked as zoos. The first time any given animal was seen, it was to be placed in 'Zoo 1,' and if the same animal was noticed again, it was to be placed in 'Zoo 2.' Participants completed the task 3 times (each with different targets) on 3 separate days. Participants' PM accuracy improved with practice. There was a relationship between age and PM performance on the first trial, with older children detecting more PM targets. This relationship was not present on the second and third trials, and a significant relationship between ongoing task errors and PM performance emerged, such that making fewer errors on the sorting task was associated with better PM performance. Regarding output monitoring errors, children most frequently placed both occurrences of the same PM target in the first zoo. KEYWORDS: prospective memory, output monitoring, preschool children, Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember to execute a planned action at the appropriate time (i.e., time-based PM) or in the appropriate situation (i.e., event-based PM) in the [...]

Purpose: The purpose of this study was twofold: First, we replicated in a new sample our previous findings that a culturally and linguistically responsive (CLR) bilingual approach for English vocabulary instruction for preschool Latino dual language learners was effective. Subsequently, we investigated whether the positive effect of CLR instruction varies as a function of individual child characteristics, including baseline vocabulary levels and gender. Method: Using a randomized pretest-posttest follow-up group design, we first replicated our previous study (N = 42) with a new sample by randomly assigning 35 Spanish-speaking Latino preschoolers to a CLR bilingual group or an English-only group. The preschoolers received small-group evidence-informed shared readings targeting 30 English words 3 times a week for 5 weeks in their preschools. Vocabulary outcomes were measured using both standardized and researcher-developed measures. We subsequently conducted further studies with the combined sample size of 77 children to examine the variability in intervention effects related to child gender and baseline vocabulary levels. Results: The direct replication study confirmed findings of our earlier work suggesting that the CLR bilingual approach promoted greater gains in L1 and L2 vocabulary than in an English-only approach. The extension studies revealed that the effect of the CLR bilingual vocabulary approach on English and Spanish vocabulary outcomes was not impacted by gender or vocabulary status at baseline. Conclusion: This study provides additional evidence of the benefits of strategically combining L1 and L2 for vocabulary instruction over an English-only approach. Our findings also suggest that preschool Latino dual language learners can benefit from a bilingual vocabulary instructional approach regardless of gender or baseline vocabulary levels in L1., The number of Latino children enrolled in public schools in the United States is projected to increase by 33% between 2011 and 2022, compared to a decrease of 6% for [...]

Purpose: The aim of this study was to determine if polysyllable accuracy in preschoolers with speech sound disorders (SSD) was related to known predictors of later literacy development: phonological processing, receptive vocabulary, and print knowledge. Polysyllables--words of three or more syllables--are important to consider because unlike monosyllables, polysyllables have been associated with phonological processing and literacy difficulties in school-aged children. They therefore have the potential to help identify preschoolers most at risk of future literacy difficulties. Method: Participants were 93 preschool children with SSD from the Sound Start Study. Participants completed the Polysyllable Preschool Test (Baker, 2013) as well as phonological processing, receptive vocabulary, and print knowledge tasks. Results: Cluster analysis was completed, and 2 clusters were identified: low polysyllable accuracy and moderate polysyllable accuracy. The clusters were significantly different based on 2 measures of phonological awareness and measures of receptive vocabulary, rapid naming, and digit span. The clusters were not significantly different on sound matching accuracy or letter, sound, or print concept knowledge. Conclusions: The participants' poor performance on print knowledge tasks suggested that as a group, they were at risk of literacy difficulties but that there was a cluster of participants at greater risk--those with both low polysyllable accuracy and poor phonological processing., School-aged children with speech sound disorders (SSD) may have an increased risk of literacy difficulties (Bird, Bishop, & Freeman, 1995; Leitao & Fletcher, 2004). This risk is associated with phonological [...]

THIS PAPER HAS TWO AIMS. First, it examines how children's resilience is being defined and discussed in literature, and second, it presents findings from a small-scale study that investigated early childhood educator understandings of children's resilience across the curriculum. Considering resilience as a multifaceted construct, the authors question why children's resilience should be a focus for educator practice and how research literature is portraying the role of educators in supporting children to become resilient. The findings illustrate that educators in the study had varied understandings of the notion of resilience and how to support children's resilience. Spontaneous and unplanned teaching strategies were revealed as the educators' main approach of supporting children's resilience. There was also some uncertainty about how to identify resilience according to educators in the study. The study's findings raise critical implications and questions for the early childhood sector, one of these being: Is the fostering and supporting of children's resilience too important an educational issue to be left to the fate of spontaneous incidents to arise in practice?, Introduction In this article, resilience is viewed as a multifaceted construct affecting children's learning and development potential. Resilience is a 'dynamic process encompassing positive adaptation within the context of significant [...]

STUDIES HAVE SHOWN THAT academic self-concept and academic achievement are closely related and that academic self-concept is multidimensional. Most studies on academic self-concept have been conducted with school age children and little is known about developing academic self-concept in younger children. In this study, we investigated the evolving academic self-concept of a sample of 97 four-year-old children attending four different early childhood settings across Melbourne, Australia, during the year prior to school commencement. Analysis indicated that at this age, academic self-concept remains a global construct rather than distinguishable into literacy and numeracy self-concepts, and has little connection with children's actual performance on a range of assessment measures. In addition, children overestimated their academic self-concept to a lesser degree at the end of the year than at the start of the year. Implications for early childhood education pedagogy are discussed., Introduction Early childhood is a period of significant and rapid development across all developmental domains and establishes the foundation for lifelong learning, as well as physical and mental health (NSCDC, [...]

This study examines children's abilities to identify a color-specific object by associating it with a given color. During the experimental sessions in preschool classrooms, 156 children aged 3-5 years were engaged in a drawing and coloring task. The experiment investigated whether the color of the object drawn by the child was congruent to the color that he/she had previously chosen. The results showed that children older than four years of age used object color knowledge to associate the given color with an object, suggesting that children acquire this ability at the same age that they learn to choose a typical color from a color-specific object. The developmental model of object representations is discussed on the basis of these results., Author(s): Hiroyuki Sasaki[sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) Department of Child Education, Niigata Chuoh Junior College, 16-18 Gakko-cho, 959-1322, Kamo-city, Niigata-pref.Japan Children learn to name colors later than objects. Even at four [...]

Although domestic and community violence exposure has been associated with poor child functioning, protective factors, such as daily routines, may shield children from these negative outcomes. This study investigated whether daily, child-oriented routines moderated the association between exposure to violence and school readiness in preschool-aged children. Eighty-three preschool children completed a test of school readiness, and a primary caregiver completed measures of violence exposure and adherence to daily routines. Results indicated that discipline and daily living routines moderated the association between domestic violence exposure and school readiness. Findings suggest that routines in the home may serve a protective role for young children exposed to violence, but the protective impact was lessened when domestic violence exposure was high., Author(s): Kimberly B. David [sup.1] [sup.4] , Monique M. LeBlanc [sup.2] , Shannon Self-Brown [sup.3] Author Affiliations: (1) Department of Education, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA (2) Department of [...]

Purpose: The effects of animation on naming and identification of graphic symbols for verbs and prepositions were studied in 2 graphic symbol sets in preschoolers. Method: Using a 2 x 2 x 2 x 3 completely randomized block design, preschoolers across three age groups were randomly assigned to combinations of symbol set (Autism Language Program [ALP] Animated Graphics or Picture Communication Symbols [PCS]), symbol format (animated or static), and word class (verbs or prepositions). Children were asked to name symbols and to identify a target symbol from an array given the spoken label. Results: Animated symbols were more readily named than static symbols, although this was more pronounced for verbs than for prepositions. ALP symbols were named more accurately than PCs in particular with prepositions. Animation did not facilitate identification. ALP symbols for prepositions were identified better than PCS, but there was no difference for verbs. Finally, older children guessed and identified symbols more effectively than younger children. Conclusions: Animation improves the naming of graphic symbols for verbs. For prepositions, ALP symbols are named more accurately and are more readily identifiable than PCS. Naming and identifying symbols are learned skills that develop over time. Limitations and future research directions are discussed. Key Words: animation, augmentative and alternative, children, communication, forced choice, graphic symbols, identification, naming, Graphic symbols are part of most aided augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems, including nonelectronic or electronic systems (Beukelman & Mirenda, 2013). Children who use graphic symbol-based AAC systems rely [...]

There is a paucity of studies that have looked at factors associated with responsiveness to interventions in preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We investigated learning profiles associated with response to the Early Start Denver Model delivered in a group setting. Our preliminary results from 21 preschool children with an ASD aged 2- to 5-years suggest that the children with more advanced skills in functional use of objects, goal understanding and imitation made the best developmental gains after 1 year of treatment. Cognitive abilities, social attention, intensity of the treatment and chronological age were not associated with treatment gains. Keywords Autism * Intervention * Early Start Denver Model * Predictors of outcomes * Social learning, Recent research indicates that a number of Early Intensive Behavioural Intervention models (EIBI) are efficacious in improving cognitive and social-communicative outcomes in toddlers and young children with an autism spectrum [...]

The present study evaluated the effectiveness of a simple successive (go/no-go) discrimination procedure in producing functional class formation as a systematic replication of a previous study with simple simultaneous discrimination. Five preschool children learned 3 simple discriminations and were given repeated reversal training with all 6 stimuli simultaneously. Four of these children learned a fourth discrimination and a new series of reversals with 8 stimuli. Rapid reversals (learning set) occurred with 6 stimuli in 3 children and 8 stimuli in 4 children. Two children presented performance compatible with functional class formation. The results were similar to those reported in the previous study. Similar to the simultaneous procedure, the successive procedure effectively generated functional class formation with some, but not all, of the participants. The occurrence of errors inherent to the reversal procedure may be a source of variability. Future research should investigate other strategies to promote stimulus class formation on the basis of shared discriminative functions. Key words: simple discrimination, successive discrimination, functional classes, go/no-go procedure, preschool children, Responding under the control of arbitrarily related stimulus classes has been widely studied from the perspective of the stimulus equivalence descriptive model (Sidman, 1994). Equivalence relations can be established by [...]

Young children who listen to music regularly demonstrate better development than those who do not. As children grow, their social, cognitive and physical skills can be enhanced by their relationship with music. The music of Mozart was introduced into the children's environment as a sensory background for the standard curriculum. The purpose of this experimental study was to investigate the effect of 'The Mozart Effect: Music for Children' collection on the social, cognitive, and physical development of five and six-year-olds. Forty-two children participated. Twenty-one of them were in an experimental group exposed to music, composed by Mozart, accompanying their daily school programme for eight months. The control group, in the same kindergarten, following an identical curriculum, did not experience any accompanying music. To evaluate the children's development, a measurement called 'The preschool and kindergarten children's performance scale', established and developed by Al-Batsh (2001) in Jordan, having the psychometric properties necessary for the study, was used. The results showed significant statistical differences in social, cognitive, and physical development favouring the children in the experimental group. Music can become an important part of any educational setting. It provides a positive atmosphere, which helps children to experience reduced stress and enhanced development., Introduction Young children begin to show a preference for the music of their own culture by the age of two (Levitin, 2006). The early childhood years are crucial to musical [...]

This study utilized a qualitative, interpretative, analytic technique based on image-based research. This descriptive study was designed to investigate children's perceptions of 'good readers' as portrayed in their representational drawings. [...]

The objective of the current study was to examine the effect of early computer experience, using quasi-experimental design, on creative thinking among Jordanian kindergarten children. It intended to answer two [...]

Four experiments were conducted with Japanese children and adult participants to assess their awareness of the effectiveness of biological and psychological treatments for psychogenic bodily reactions. Study 1 had 116 participants, composed of 4-year-olds (17), 5-year-olds (20), 7-year-olds (24), 10-year-olds (20), and college students (35). The preschoolers tended to respond that only biological cures were effective in treating psychogenic bodily reactions, whereas adults typically responded that only psychological cures were effective. In Studies 2-4, by modifying the wording of the questions, adults' and young children's awareness was reexamined. As a result, in Studies 2 and 3, Japanese adults frequently acknowledged the effectiveness of biological treatments, and, in Study 4 (32 five-year-olds and 34 seven-year-olds), about 70% of the 5-year-old preschoolers who were aware of psychogenic bodily reactions tended to respond that psychological cures were effective in treating these psychogenic reactions. The results were discussed in terms of the developmental course in cross-domain awareness (i.e., reasoning about phenomena that cross ontological domains) and cultural differences in biological understanding., Since the 1980s, numerous studies have examined young children's naive theories. Naive biology--the understanding of human bodily processes and the life processes of nonhuman animals and plants--has been viewed by [...]

This study was designed to examine the relationship between resilience and within-child characteristics of children under the age of 6. Participants included preschool and kindergarten students (N = 29) and their parents and teachers from two urban communities in New Jersey. Data were obtained through the Joseph Picture Self-Concept Scale (Joseph, 2004), the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (LeBuffe & Naglieri, 1999), and a risk factors survey that was created for this study. The authors hypothesized that a significant relationship exists among resilience, self-concept, and behavioral concerns. Correlational analyses were conducted to determine the extent of each relationship. Results suggest a significant negative correlation between resilience and behavioral concerns., Over the past several decades, researchers have sought to determine the effects of risk factors on child development. Studies of childhood risk and resilience have the potential to identify the [...]

When we evaluated variables that influence the effectiveness of the high-probability (high-p) instruction sequence, the sequence was associated with a precipitous decrease in compliance with high-p instructions for 1 participant, thereby precluding continued use of the sequence. We investigated the reasons for this decrease. Stimuli associated with the low-p, instruction were systematically added and removed in the context of the high-p instructions, and results suggest that the stimuli associated with the low-p instruction influenced compliance with the high-p instructions. Key words: compliance, high-probability sequence, noncompliance, preschool children doi: 10.1901/jaba.2010.43-735

The fit of a seven-syndrome model is tested to ratings of preschoolers' problems using confirmatory factor analyses. The data set was obtained from parents of 19,106 children 18 to 71 months of age from 23 societies in Asia, Australasia, Europe, the Middle East, and South America. They completed the Child Behavior Checklist for Ages 1.5-5.

The developing views of the purposes of school learning (PSLs) and related achievement among immigrant Chinese preschoolers and their European American (EA) age-mates were examined. Both culture and socioeconomic status (SES) were considered simultaneously, an often neglected research approach to studying Asian children. One hundred and fifty 4-year-olds--50 each of middle-class Chinese (CHM), low-income Chinese (CHL), and EA children--completed 2 story beginnings about school and were also tested for their language and math achievement. Results showed that 4-year-olds held sophisticated PSLs, ranging from intellectual to social and affect benefits. Large cultural and SES differences also emerged. CHM children mentioned more adult expectation and seriousness of learning than EA children who expressed more positive affect for self and compliance with adults. CHL children mentioned fewest PSLs. Achievement scores for oral expression of both immigrant groups were significantly lower than those of EA children despite similar reading and math achievement. Controlling for culture and SES, the authors found that children's articulated intellectual, but not other purposes, uniquely predicted their achievement in all tested domains. Cultural and SES influences on immigrant children are discussed. Keywords: immigrant children, learning purpose, academic achievement, culture, SES DOI: 10.1037/a0019926

We developed a gift-giving task requiring children to identify their mother's desire, when her desire differed from theirs. We found a developmental change: 3--and 4-year-olds performed more poorly than 5-year-olds (Experiment 1). A modified version of this task (Experiment 2) revealed that 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds whose desires had been fulfilled chose an appropriate gift for their mothers significantly more often than children whose desires were unfulfilled. Children who merely anticipated desire fulfillment also outperformed children whose desires were unfulfilled. Analysis of children's verbal explanations provides converging evidence that desire fulfillment enhanced children's tendency to adopt the perspective of their mother and justify their choices by referencing her desires. Discussion focuses on why desire fulfillment enhances children's ability to consider the desires of others. Keywords: perspective taking, theory of mind, desire, future, explanations DOI: 10.1037/a0020374

Preschoolers' knowledge of the appearance of proper names was tested in three experiments with 25 boys and 22 girls from low-income families. Children from a Head Start program, whose parents signed a permission letter, participated. Their ages ranged from 3 yr. 6 mo. to 5 yr. 6 mo. (M=52.2 mo., SD=4.9). When shown consonant-vowel-consonant trigrams such as Rit or baF or dEg with various capitalization patterns, the children showed a tendency to recognize that CVC trigrams with the first letter capitalized or all letters capitalized were the ones most likely to representa person's name. When their own names were substituted, which typically contained more than three letters, their performance was markedly better. Children also had a strong tendency to consider trigrams of Latin letters as more likely to be a person's name than trigrams of non-Latin characters (e.g., Sanskrit). DOI 10.2466/10.11.28.PMS.111.5.447-457

Prior studies indicate that children vary widely in their mathematical knowledge by the time they enter preschool and that this variation predicts levels of achievement in elementary school. In a longitudinal study of a diverse sample of 44 preschool children, we examined the extent to which their understanding of the cardinal meanings of the number words (e.g., knowing that the word 'four' refers to sets with 4 items) is predicted by the 'number talk' they hear from their primary caregiver in the early home environment. Results from 5 visits showed substantial variation in parents' number talk to children between the ages of 14 and 30 months. Moreover, this variation predicted children's knowledge of the cardinal meanings of number words at 46 months, even when socioeconomic status and other measures of parent and child talk were controlled. These findings suggest that encouraging parents to talk about number with their toddlers, and providing them with effective ways to do so, may positively impact children's school achievement. Keywords: parent input, number, cardinal number, mathematical skill, parent--child interaction DOI: 10.1037/a0019671

Recent research has suggested that young children have relatively well-developed trait concepts. However, this literature overlooks potential age-related differences in children's appreciation of the fundamentally dimensional nature of traits. In Study 1, we presented 4-, 5-, and 7-year-old children and adults with sets of characters and asked them to indicate the preferences of a target character who shared appearance attributes with one character (appearance match) and shared a common trait with the other character (trait match). Traits were presented in a way that emphasized either their categorical or their dimensional nature. When the dimensional nature of trait terms was emphasized, the youngest children made fewer trait-based inferences, and the use of traits increased with age. In Study 2, we gave 4-year-old children and adults the same task except that the extent to which appearance cues could serve as a meaningful basis of judgment was varied. Results were consistent with the findings of Study 1, although children were more likely to rely on dimensional presentations of traits in the absence of strong appearance cues. Keywords: traits, categories, inference, preschoolers DOI: 10.1037/a0020207

Two experiments examined the possible link between magical thinking and creativity in preschool children. In Exp. 1, 4-and 6-yr.-old children were shown a film with either a magical or nonmagical theme. Results indicated that the mean scores of children shown the magical film was significantly higher than that of children watching the nonmagical film on the majority of subsequent creativity tests for both age groups. This trend was also found for 6-yr.-olds' drawings of impossible items. In Exp. 2, Exp. 1 was replicated successfully with 6- and 8-yr.-old children. Exposing children to a film with a magical theme did not affect their beliefs about magic. The results were interpreted to accentuate the role of magical thinking in children's cognitive development. Classroom implications of the results were also discussed. DOI 10.2466/04.09.11.PMS.111.4.261-277

The relations between effortful control, emotionality (anger, sadness, and shyness), and academic achievement were examined in a short-term longitudinal study of 291 kindergartners. Teachers and parents reported on students' effortful control and emotionality. Students completed the Continuous Performance Task and the Letter-Word, Passage Comprehension, and Applied Problems subtests of the Woodcock-Johnson tests of achievement. Effortful control was positively related to achievement. Parent- and teacher-reported anger and teacher-reported sadness and shyness were negatively related to achievement, but many of the main effects were qualified by interactions with effortful control. At low levels of anger or sadness, students high in effortful control performed best, but at high levels of these emotions, all children performed similarly. Keywords: academic achievement, emotion, effortful control DOI: 10.1037/a0018992

Developing normed treatment outcome measures is important to research addressing treatment effectiveness and to improved clinical care. The Preschool Outcome Questionnaire (POQ) is a new measure designed for use with preschool children aged two to six. Designed in collaboration with parents and clinicians, the POQ is brief, easy to administer, score and interpret. This study reports on the instrument's psychometric evaluation, contains preliminary normative data, and provides a clinical cut-off and a reliable change index to facilitate clinical use of the instrument. Results show that the POQ has acceptable test-retest and internal reliability, concurrent validity and criterion validity. Importantly, results also show that the instrument is sensitive to clinically relevant change. Clinical implications are discussed as well as suggestions for further research. Keywords Pre-school children * Treatment outcome * Assessment * Standardization DOI 10.1007/s10826-009-9322-6

This study investigated the visual information that children and adults consider while switching or maintaining object-matching rules. Eye movements of 5- and 6-year-old children and adults were collected with two versions of the Advanced Dimensional Change Card Sort, which requires switching between shape-and color-matching rules. In addition to a traditional integrated version with bidimensional objects (e.g., a blue bear), participants were tested on a dissociated version with pairs of unidimensional objects as stimuli (e.g., a noncolored bear beside a blue patch) so that fixations on the relevant and irrelevant dimensions of the stimuli could be distinguished. The fixation times were differentially distributed depending on whether children had to switch or maintain matching rules. Trial type differences in fixation times were primarily observed for the cues and the relevant and irrelevant dimensions of the stimuli, whereas responses options were seldom fixated even by the youngest children. In addition, the shape modality of the stimulus was more fixated than the color modality whether or not shape was relevant. Finally, the fixation patterns were modulated by age. These results suggest that switch costs are more related to selection of the relevant dimension on the stimulus than to response selection and point to age-related differences in strategies underlying flexible behavior. Keywords: cognitive flexibility, executive control, eye tracking, task switching, preschool children DOI: 10.1037/a0019674

Applying a preschooler version of an instrument measuring implicit motives (Operant Multimotive Test), the authors investigated the interrelations of autobiographical memory, theory of mind, and implicit motives in the preschool years. Four- to 6-year-old children from Bamenda (Cameroon, N = 30) and Osnabruck (Germany, N = 52) were tested using a location false belief task, and a second order task as measures for theory of mind and a version of Wang and Leichtman's task on children's narratives as a measure of autobiographical memory coded with the Cognitive Complexity Scoring Manual. Regression analyses for mediator effects while controlling for moderating effects of culture show that cognitive complexity of autobiographical memory mediates the relationship of mentalistic abilities and sociocultural orientation of implicit motivation. Results are discussed within the framework of the independent-interdependent construal of the self.

We know that social competence contributes to young children's adaptation to, and cognitive learning within, classroom settings. Yet initial evidence is mixed on the social competencies that Latino children bring to kindergarten and the extent to which these skills advance cognitive growth. Building from ecocultural and developmental-risk theory, this paper shows children's social competence to be adaptive to the normative expectations and cognitive requirements of culturally bounded settings in both the home and classroom. Latino socialization in the home may yield social competencies that teachers value rather than reflect 'risk factors' that constrain children's school readiness. We draw on the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, kindergarten cohort (N = 19,590) to detail 5 social competencies at entry to school--self-control, interpersonal skills, approaches to learning, internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors--and to examine variability among Latino subgroups. We then test the extent to which baseline variation in social competence accounts for children's cognitive growth during the kindergarten year. We find that Latino children from poor, but not middle-class, families display weaker social competencies vis-a-vis White children (all relationships p [less than or equal to] .05). Social competence levels contribute to Latino children's cognitive growth, which is shaped most strongly by positive approaches to learning. The disparities in competencies observed for Latino children from poor families, relative to White children, are significant yet much smaller than gaps in baseline levels of mathematical understanding. We discuss how the consonance or mismatch between competencies acquired at home and those valued by teachers must consider cultural differences, social-class position, and variation among diverse Latino subgroups. Keywords: Latino child development, social competence, cognitive growth DOI: 10.1037/a0017821

This study examined why some preschool-age children exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV) showed deleterious outcomes and others appeared more resilient. Resilience, conceptualized as strengths in emotion regulation and prosocial skills, was evaluated using the Social Competence Scale developed by the Conduct Problem Prevention Research Group. The sample consisted of 56 mothers and their 4- to 6-year-old children exposed to IPV within the past 2 years. After controlling for relevant demographic factors, hierarchical regression analyses indicated that better parenting performance, fewer maternal mental health problems, and less severe violence exposure predicted better emotion regulation and prosocial skill scores, which in turn were negatively correlated with maladaptive child behaviors. These findings can be used to inform and enhance clinical services for children exposed to IPV. Keywords: protective factors; domestic violence; child adjustment; competence; emotion regulation DOI: 10.1891/0886-6708.25.2.150

Three- and 4-year-old children were asked to judge which of a set of 3 lines was the longest, both independently and in the face of an inaccurate consensus among adult informants. Children were invariably accurate when making independent judgments but sometimes deferred to the inaccurate consensus. Nevertheless, the deference displayed by both age groups proved to be circumscribed. When asked to solve a practical problem--selecting the longest strip to build an adequate bridge--both groups relied on their own perceptual judgment, regardless of whether they had deferred to the inaccurate consensus. Confirming earlier meta-analytic findings with adults, the rate of deference was greater among Asian American children as compared with Caucasian American children. Keywords: preschoolers, consensus, testimony, deference DOI: 10.1037/a0017553

The way that parents discuss the past with their preschool children plays a significant role in the development of children's store of personal memories, that is, their autobiographical memory. In this study we investigated two questions: first, whether parents who engage their children in high-relative to low-elaborative conversations about the past using 'wh' questions and descriptive information also include more emotion references, and second, whether emotion content was associated with children's emotion knowledge. Twenty-five European Australian preschoolers discussed four emotion-oriented events with a parent. Controlling for age and language, parents' elaborative utterances and their explanations of emotion causes (but not other emotion references) were each significantly associated with children's emotion knowledge. Follow-up regression analyses revealed high-elaborative utterances to be the stronger predictor. These findings extend those of past research in highlighting the multiple associations between reminiscing and children's developing understanding of emotion., Conversations between parents and their children are a key process by which children come to internalise important socio-cognitive skills. In particular, a strong body of research shows that individual differences [...]

This study reports the results of a bifactorial analysis of the criteria of the Human Figure Drawing Test, based on the original Goodenough system. This analysis was designed to assess the loading of the general factor of intelligence for that test. 541 children (52.9% boys, 47.1% girls; ages 5-10 years) attending preschool through Grade 4 in public and private schools were studied. Principal component analysis with oblimin rotation identified four components which were not highly correlated, making it possible to conduct a bifactorial analysis. The results were interpreted as showing the predominance of a single general factor, so the existence of a latent variable capable of explaining most of the variance (56.84%) between the items seems likely. DOI 10.2466/PR0.106.1.95-104

This study described the relations among the amount of child-directed versus adult-directed television exposure at ages 1 and 4 with cognitive outcomes at age 4. Sixty parents completed 24-hour television diaries when their children were 1 and 4 years of age. At age 4, their children also completed a series of cognitive measures and parents completed an assessment of their children's executive functioning skills. High levels of exposure to programs designed for adults during both infancy and at age 4, and high levels of household television use at age 4, were all associated with poorer executive functioning at age 4. High exposure to television programs designed for adults during the preschool years was also associated with poorer cognitive outcomes at age 4. In contrast, exposure to television programs designed for young children at either time point was not associated with any outcome measure at age 4. These results suggest that exposure to child-directed versus adult-directed television content is an important factor in understanding the relation between media exposure and developmental outcomes., In 1997, the Baby Einstein series marked the entry of the first baby videos into the marketplace (Garrison & Christakis, 2005). A decade later, only a handful of studies have [...]

In this study, the author aimed at measuring how much limited working memory capacity constrains early numerical development before any formal mathematics instruction. To that end, 4-and 5-year-old children were tested for their memory skills in the phonological loop (PL), visuo-spatial sketchpad (VSSP), and central executive (CE); they also completed a series of tasks tapping their addition and counting skills. A general vocabulary test was given to examine the difference between the children's numerical and general vocabulary. The results indicated that measures of the PL and the CE, but not those of the VSSP, were correlated with children's performance in counting, addition and general vocabulary. However, the predictive power of the CE capacity was significantly stronger than that of the PL capacity. Poor CE capacity should thus be taken into consideration when identifying children at risk of experiencing learning disabilities. Keywords: vocabulary, counting, addition, working memory, mathematics DOI: 10.1037/a0016224