MedWorm: Child Development

Relations of parenting and temperament to chinese children’s experience of negative life events, coping efficacy, and externalizing problems

Child Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:11:04 +0100

Child Development, Volume 79, Issue 3, Page 493-513, May/June 2008. The relations of parenting and temperament (effortful control and anger/frustration) to children’s externalizing problems were examined in a 3.8-year longitudinal study of 425 native Chinese children (6–9 years) from Beijing. Children’s experience of ... (Source: Child Development)

MedWorm Sponsored Message: Find out how you can get your message across here by sponsoring this MedWorm news feed.

Compositionality and statistics in adjective acquisition: 4-year-olds interpret tall and short based on the size distributions of novel noun referents

Child Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:26:50 +0100

Child Development, Volume 79, Issue 3, Page 594-608, May/June 2008. 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 ... (Source: Child Development)

To give or not to give: children’s and adolescents’ sharing and moral negotiations in economic decision situations

Child Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:26:36 +0100

Child Development, Volume 79, Issue 3, Page 562-576, May/June 2008. This study interconnects developmental psychology of fair and moral behavior with economic game theory. One hundred eighty-nine 9- to 17-year-old students shared a sum of money as individuals and groups with another anonymous group (dictator game). ... (Source: Child Development)

Muslim and non-muslim adolescents’ reasoning about freedom of speech and minority rights

Child Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:26:34 +0100

Child Development, Volume 79, Issue 3, Page 514-528, May/June 2008. An experimental questionnaire study, conducted in the Netherlands, examined adolescents’ reasoning about freedom of speech and minority rights. Muslim minority and non-Muslim majority adolescents (12–18 years) made judgments of different types of ... (Source: Child Development)

A randomized controlled trial of a home-visiting intervention aimed at preventing relationship problems in depressed mothers and their infants

Child Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:26:29 +0100

Child Development, Volume 79, Issue 3, Page 547-561, May/June 2008. This study examined the effect of a mother–baby intervention on the quality of mother–child interaction, infant–mother attachment security, and infant socioemotional functioning in a group of depressed mothers with infants aged 1–12 months. A randomized ... (Source: Child Development)

"they like me, they like me not": popularity and adolescents’ perceptions of acceptance predicting social functioning over time

Child Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:26:25 +0100

Child Development, Volume 79, Issue 3, Page 720-731, May/June 2008. This study examined the dual roles of adolescents’ perceptions of social acceptance and sociometric popularity in predicting relative changes over time in adolescents’ social functioning. Observational, self-report, and peer report data were obtained from ... (Source: Child Development)

MedWorm Sponsored Message: Find out how you can get your message across here by sponsoring this MedWorm news feed.

The trouble with transfer: insights from microgenetic changes in the representation of numerical magnitude

Child Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:26:22 +0100

Child Development, Volume 79, Issue 3, Page 788-804, May/June 2008. Spontaneous transfer of learning is often difficult to elicit. This finding may be widespread partly because pretests proactively interfere with transfer. To test this hypothesis, 7-year-olds’ transfer was examined across 2 numerical tasks (number line ... (Source: Child Development)

Manuscripts accepted for publication

Child Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:26:21 +0100

Child Development, Volume 79, Issue 3, Page 805-806, May/June 2008. (Source: Child Development)

Development of social category representations: early appreciation of roles and deontic relations

Child Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:26:18 +0100

Child Development, Volume 79, Issue 3, Page 577-593, May/June 2008. Three experiments explored the significance of deontic properties (involving rights and obligations) in representations of social categories. Preschool-aged children (M = 4.8), young school-aged children (M = 8.2), and adults judged the centrality of ... (Source: Child Development)

Limitations on reliability: regularity rules in the english plural and past tense

Child Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:26:16 +0100

Child Development, Volume 79, Issue 3, Page 750-760, May/June 2008. Two studies investigated 3- to 5-year-olds’ trust in a reliable informant when judging novel labels and novel plural and past tense forms. In Study 1, children (N = 24) endorsed the names of new objects given by an informant who had earlier labeled ... (Source: Child Development)

Values as protective factors against violent behavior in jewish and arab high schools in israel

Child Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:26:12 +0100

Child Development, Volume 79, Issue 3, Page 652-667, May/June 2008. This study tested the hypothesis that values, abstract goals serving as guiding life principles, become relatively important predictors of adolescents’ self-reported violent behavior in school environments in which violence is relatively common. The study ... (Source: Child Development)

MedWorm Sponsored Message: Find out how you can get your message across here by sponsoring this MedWorm news feed.

Ethnicity and image: correlates of crowd affiliation among ethnic minority youth

Child Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:26:11 +0100

Child Development, Volume 79, Issue 3, Page 529-546, May/June 2008. Because ethnicity is a basis for defining peer crowds in ethnically diverse American high schools, some may question whether crowds foster discrimination and stereotyping or affirm minority youths’ positive ties to their ethnic background. Through ... (Source: Child Development)

Mother–child planning and child compliance

Child Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:26:10 +0100

Child Development, Volume 79, Issue 3, Page 761-775, May/June 2008. This study investigated child compliance and maternal instruction during planning. Based on the Child Behavior Checklist and free-play observations, 40 mothers and their 4- to 5-year-old children were assigned to a group with children who behaved within ... (Source: Child Development)

Measures of classroom quality in prekindergarten and children’s development of academic, language, and social skills

Child Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:26:07 +0100

Child Development, Volume 79, Issue 3, Page 732-749, May/June 2008. This study examined development of academic, language, and social skills among 4-year-olds in publicly supported prekindergarten (pre-K) programs in relation to 3 methods of measuring pre-K quality, which are as follows: (a) adherence to 9 standards of ... (Source: Child Development)

Family and school spillover in adolescents’ daily lives

Child Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:26:02 +0100

Child Development, Volume 79, Issue 3, Page 776-787, May/June 2008. This study examined spillover between daily family stressors and school problems among 589 ninth-grade students (mean age = 14.9 years) from Mexican, Chinese, and European backgrounds. Spillover was examined using a daily diary methodology in which ... (Source: Child Development)

Rational tool use and tool choice in human infants and great apes

Child Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:26:00 +0100

Child Development, Volume 79, Issue 3, Page 609-626, May/June 2008. G. Gergely, H. Bekkering, and I. Király (2002) showed that 14-month-old infants imitate rationally, copying an adult’s unusual action more often when it was freely chosen than when it was forced by some constraint. This suggests that infants understand ... (Source: Child Development)

MedWorm Sponsored Message: Find out how you can get your message across here by sponsoring this MedWorm news feed.

Attentional learning and flexible induction: how mundane mechanisms give rise to smart behaviors

Child Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:25:57 +0100

Child Development, Volume 79, Issue 3, Page 639-651, May/June 2008. Young children often exhibit flexible behaviors relying on different kinds of information in different situations. This flexibility has been traditionally attributed to conceptual knowledge. Reported research demonstrates that flexibility can be acquired ... (Source: Child Development)

Interactions between child behavior patterns and parent supervision: implications for children’s risk of unintentional injury

Child Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:25:56 +0100

Child Development, Volume 79, Issue 3, Page 627-638, May/June 2008. Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death for children. Prior research has implicated both child behavioral attributes and parent supervisory patterns as risk factors. The present study assessed interactions between these two risk factors and ... (Source: Child Development)

The role of intentionality and iconicity in children’s developing comprehension and production of cartographic symbols

Child Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:25:50 +0100

Child Development, Volume 79, Issue 3, Page 668-684, May/June 2008. The contribution of intentionality understanding to symbolic development was examined. Actors added colored dots to a map, displaying either symbolic or aesthetic intentions. In Study 1, most children (5–6 years) understood actors’ intentions, but when ... (Source: Child Development)

Perceived experiences with sexism among adolescent girls

Child Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:25:43 +0100

Child Development, Volume 79, Issue 3, Page 685-704, May/June 2008. This study investigated predictors of adolescent girls’ experiences with sexism and feminism. Girls (N = 600; M = 15.1 years, range = 12–18), of varied socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, completed surveys of personal experiences with sexual harassment, ... (Source: Child Development)

Memory, maternal representations, and internalizing symptomatology among abused, neglected, and nonmaltreated children

Child Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:25:39 +0100

Child Development, Volume 79, Issue 3, Page 705-719, May/June 2008. A depth-of-processing incidental recall task for maternal-referent stimuli was utilized to assess basic memory processes and the affective valence of maternal representations among abused (N = 63), neglected (N = 33), and nonmaltreated (N = 128) school-... (Source: Child Development)

MedWorm Sponsored Message: Find out how you can get your message across here by sponsoring this MedWorm news feed.

Prosocial and antisocial behavior in preadolescence: teachers' and parents' perceptions of the behavior of girls and boys

International Journal of Behavioral Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 04:00:00 +0100

There has been recent emphasis on the importance of investigating prosocial and antisocial behavior simultaneously owing to doubts about whether examining one automatically gives information about the other. However, there has been little empirical research into this question. The present study (based on a large population sample of preadolescents, N = 2,230) simultaneously examines prosocial and antisocial behavior, explicitly including the possibility that children might show prosocial behavior according to one informant and antisocial behavior according to another. When parents and teachers agreed in their judgments, children were distinctly profiled and differed clearly in effortful control, intelligence, academic performance, and several peer nominations and family characteristics. The correlates were more rater-specific for children that were prosocial according to one informant and antisocial according to the other informant. Teachers and parents used different context-dependent criteria for judging children to be prosocial or antisocial. Academic performance and peer relations were related to the teacher's judgment of prosocial and antisocial behavior. By contrast, children's being problematic at home (and thus causing stress for the parents) was related to the parents' judgment. (Source: International Journal of Behavioral Development)

Replication and extension of little et al.'s (2003) forms and functions of aggression measure

International Journal of Behavioral Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 04:00:00 +0100

The goal of the current study was to replicate the confirmatory factor analysis of Little et al.'s (2003) aggression measure in an American sample of 69 children (mean age = 12.93 years; SD = 1.27). Although an exact replication of the original model could not be estimated given the small sample, a modified model representing a conceptual replication provided a good fit to the data. Findings suggest that this child self-reported aggression measure can be used with American samples to distinguish four domains of aggressive behavior (relational, overt, instrumental, and reactive). (Source: International Journal of Behavioral Development)

Poverty and maternal responsiveness: the role of maternal stress and social resources

International Journal of Behavioral Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 04:00:00 +0100

One of the main reasons poverty is bad for children's development is because it reduces maternal responsiveness. This study addresses a heretofore unanswered question: why do low-income children experience diminished maternal responsiveness compared with their more affluent counterparts? In addition, we examine this question among a largely neglected population, young adolescent (M = 13.1 years), rural low- and middle-income, white children. These families all reside in small towns and rural areas in North America. The negative association between poverty and maternal responsiveness is mediated by the combination of heightened maternal stress and diminished social networks. (Source: International Journal of Behavioral Development)

Affection, virtue, pleasure, and profit: developing an understanding of friendship closeness and intimacy in western and asian societies

International Journal of Behavioral Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 04:00:00 +0100

The development of friendship understanding has rarely been explored from a cross-cultural perspective. In this study, children and adolescents from Iceland, China, Russia, and the former East Germany were investigated in one longitudinal and three cross-sectional samples. Children from three different Chinese ecologies were interviewed to account for within-culture variation. Participants were interviewed about friendship closeness and intimacy at ages 7, 9, 12, and 15 years. Their statements were scored according to (a) structural—developmental stages and (b) content aspects of friendship reasoning. Results reveal that the development of friendship reasoning of participants from all societies could be captured by the cognitive—structural stages and content categories developed in western cultures. At the same time, distinct cultural differences emerged, especially between the Russian and Chinese participants, on the one hand, and the Icelandic and East German participants, on the other hand. The within-China analyses reveal little differences for the content aspects of friendship understanding between the three ecologies, but differences in the cognitive—structural aspects of friendship reasoning were found. (Source: International Journal of Behavioral Development)

Modalities of anger expression and the psychosocial adjustment of early adolescents in eastern cuba

International Journal of Behavioral Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 04:00:00 +0100

Culture influences the acceptability of the overt expression of anger. In many cultures, overt expression of anger is considered legitimate for males but not for females. We explored the implications of anger expression among early adolescents in Cuba, expecting that overt, explosive expression of anger would be particularly maladaptive in a society that is collectivistic by virtue of both its cultural heritage and ideology. Given the sharp gender-role distinctions in traditional Latin American society, we expected to find more overt expression of anger by males. However, the analyses revealed no significant gender differences in anger expression. Overt expression of anger was significantly associated with multiple measures of maladjustment. Evidence that the inhibition of anger is associated with maladjustment was not as consistent, but holding anger in was linked with internalizing difficulties. Sociometric data indicated that early adolescents who demonstrate control of their anger are highly accepted and considered as leaders. (Source: International Journal of Behavioral Development)

MedWorm Sponsored Message: Find out how you can get your message across here by sponsoring this MedWorm news feed.

Behaviour difficulties and cognitive function in children born very prematurely

International Journal of Behavioral Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 04:00:00 +0100

Children born very prematurely are at risk of low average IQ and behaviour difficulties throughout childhood and adolescence. Associations among preterm birth, IQ and behaviour have been reported; however, the nature of the relationship among these outcomes is not fully understood. Some studies have proposed that the consequences of preterm birth, such as low average IQ, mediate the association between preterm birth and later behaviour difficulties. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship among preterm birth, IQ and childhood behaviour problems, by testing mediation and moderation models. We assessed a UK sample of 69 very preterm (< 32 weeks gestational age) and 70 term born children aged between 6 and 12 years on an abbreviated IQ test. Parental behaviour ratings were obtained using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Mediation and moderation models were tested using hierarchical regression analyses. The findings indicate that IQ mediates the relationship between birth status and emotional behaviour problems. Furthermore, the results indicate that birth status moderates the relationship between IQ and behavioural difficulties, i.e., that the relationship between low IQ and behaviour problems is most pronounced for the preterm children. The findings highlight the importance of considering indirect effects in the study of outcome after very preterm birth. (Source: International Journal of Behavioral Development)

An analysis of self-concept among ethiopian immigrant and israeli-born children and adolescents

International Journal of Behavioral Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 04:00:00 +0100

This article reports a study comparing self-concept among 114 immigrant children and adolescents of Ethiopian origin in Israel and among 164 native-born Israelis, including an exploration of how age, gender, and first-language proficiency affect various dimensions of this construct. For the younger children (aged 8—9 years), self-concept was found to be higher among the native-born than among children of Ethiopian origin, while for junior high school children (aged 14—15 years), results were reversed. Findings are interpreted and discussed in light of the complex immigration history and the ongoing integration difficulties faced by members of the Ethiopian community, and related to different coping mechanisms adopted by participants at different ages. Ethiopian adolescents appear to cling more to their peer group, compared with younger children who seem to be more affected by the immediate family circle. Gender differences were found mainly regarding physical self-concept, in favor of boys. Self-rates of language proficiency appeared to be associated with several aspects of self-concept. Finally, and given the unique circumstances of the interaction between Ethiopian immigrants and Israeli society, findings emerge as relevant to the context of refugees, for whom the gap with the host culture is often wider than that encountered by voluntary migrants. Several recommendations related to language, family, and intergroup relations are included. (Source: International Journal of Behavioral Development)

Contextualized emotional images in children's dreams: psychological adjustment in conditions of military trauma

International Journal of Behavioral Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 04:00:00 +0100

This study examines the impact of military trauma on contextualized emotional images in children's dreams, and the function of the intensity and valence of the emotional images in protecting mental health from negative trauma impact. Participants were 345 Palestinian children and adolescents (aged 5—16 years) belonging to high trauma (Gaza) and non-trauma (Galilee) groups. They reported nocturnal dreams using a seven-night dream diary. The results show, as hypothesized, that the dreams of children exposed to severe military trauma incorporated more intense and more negative emotional images. High intensity and low negative, and high positive emotional images in dreams may protect children's mental health. Children in the trauma group showed relatively fewer post-traumatic symptoms if their dreams incorporated intensive and positive emotional images. Similarly, personal exposure to military trauma was not associated with anxiety and aggressiveness among children whose dreams had low negative valence, or with lower anxiety when dreams had intensive emotional images. The emotional qualities of dreams are discussed as possible indicators of children processing their traumatic experiences. (Source: International Journal of Behavioral Development)

Children from low-income families have less access to sports facilities, but are no less physically active: cross-sectional study (earlybird 35)

Child: Care, Health and Development — Thu, 15 May 2008 18:11:27 +0100

Child: Care, Health and Development, Volume 0, Issue 0, Page ???, OnlineEarly Articles. Abstract Background Rising levels of childhood obesity have led to an increasing number of Government sponsored initiatives attempting to stem the problem. Much of the focus to date has been on physical activity and out-of-school activity in particular. ... (Source: Child: Care, Health and Development)

An expanded transactional stress and coping model for siblings of children with sickle cell disease: family functioning and sibling coping, self-efficacy and perceived social support

Child: Care, Health and Development — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:52:04 +0100

Child: Care, Health and Development, Volume 0, Issue 0, Page ???, OnlineEarly Articles. Abstract Aim To investigate the application of an expanded Transactional Stress and Coping Model for the psychological adjustment of non-chronically ill, African-American siblings of children with sickle cell disease (SCD). Methods Ninety-seven ... (Source: Child: Care, Health and Development)

MedWorm Sponsored Message: Find out how you can get your message across here by sponsoring this MedWorm news feed.

Transition pathways for young people with complex disabilities: exploring the economic consequences

Child: Care, Health and Development — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:52:03 +0100

Child: Care, Health and Development, Volume 0, Issue 0, Page ???, OnlineEarly Articles. Abstract Background Disabled young people with complex needs face particular challenges when they reach adulthood and seek to move from school to employment or further education. There are potentially substantial personal and social costs arising from ... (Source: Child: Care, Health and Development)

Toilet training in turkey: the factors that affect timing and duration in different sociocultural groups

Child: Care, Health and Development — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:52:02 +0100

Child: Care, Health and Development, Volume 0, Issue 0, Page ???, OnlineEarly Articles. Abstract Background The aim of the present study was to determine the patterns of toilet training and the factors that may be related to its timing and duration and the approaches of different sociocultural groups within a developing country. Methods ... (Source: Child: Care, Health and Development)

Factors associated with bed sharing and sleep position in thai neonates

Child: Care, Health and Development — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:52:01 +0100

Child: Care, Health and Development, Volume 0, Issue 0, Page ???, OnlineEarly Articles. Abstract Background Sleep in a supine position and in a bed separate from but proximate to adults is recommended, in several Western countries, to prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Cultural differences and a lower rate of SIDS in Asian ... (Source: Child: Care, Health and Development)

An informal school-based peer-led intervention for smoking...

Children's NSF Newsfeed — Tue, 13 May 2008 22:48:04 +0100

Schools in many countries undertake programmes for smoking... (Source: Children's NSF Newsfeed)

Sure start: voices of the ‘hard-to-reach’

Child: Care, Health and Development — Wed, 07 May 2008 18:11:41 +0100

Child: Care, Health and Development, Volume 0, Issue 0, Page ???, OnlineEarly Articles. Abstract Objectives This research aimed to look in depth at the factors affecting the ability of four Sure Start local programmes, based in a multicultural Midlands city, to engage with ‘hard-to-reach’ populations. Methods A variety of research ... (Source: Child: Care, Health and Development)

MedWorm Sponsored Message: Find out how you can get your message across here by sponsoring this MedWorm news feed.

Hemodynamic response to featural changes in the occipital and inferior temporal cortex in infants: a preliminary methodological exploration

Developmental Science — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:30:13 +0100

Developmental Science, Volume 11, Issue 3, Page 361-370, May 2008. Abstract Over the past 30 years researchers have learned a great deal about the development of object processing in infancy. In contrast, little is understood about the neural mechanisms that underlie this capacity, in large part because there are few ... (Source: Developmental Science)

Cohesion as a constraint on object persistence in infancy

Developmental Science — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:29:59 +0100

Developmental Science, Volume 11, Issue 3, Page 427-432, May 2008. Abstract A critical challenge for visual perception is to represent objects as the same persisting individuals over time and motion. Across several areas of cognitive science, researchers have identified cohesion as among the most important theoretical ... (Source: Developmental Science)

The effect of functional morphemes on word segmentation in preverbal infants

Developmental Science — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:29:58 +0100

Developmental Science, Volume 11, Issue 3, Page 407-413, May 2008. Abstract This study examines the role of functional morphemes in the earliest stage of lexical development. Recent research showed that prelinguistic infants can perceive functional morphemes. We inquire whether infants use frequent functors to segment ... (Source: Developmental Science)

The metric matters: determining the extent of children's knowledge of morphological spelling regularities

Developmental Science — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:29:57 +0100

Developmental Science, Volume 11, Issue 3, Page 396-406, May 2008. Abstract All developmental research needs to carefully consider how children's knowledge is measured. The study of children's knowledge of spelling conventions, or the ways in which the English orthography encodes the roots and affixes and the sounds in ... (Source: Developmental Science)

Intergenerational transmission of theory-of-mind

Developmental Science — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:29:29 +0100

Developmental Science, Volume 11, Issue 3, Page 354-360, May 2008. Abstract We examined whether individual differences in children's performance on a scaled battery of theory-of-mind tasks was predicted by parents’ performance on an adult theory-of-mind task. Forty-six 3-year-old children and their parents participated ... (Source: Developmental Science)

MedWorm Sponsored Message: Find out how you can get your message across here by sponsoring this MedWorm news feed.

Speed of word recognition and vocabulary knowledge in infancy predict cognitive and language outcomes in later childhood

Developmental Science — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:28:55 +0100

Developmental Science, Volume 11, Issue 3, Page F9-F16, May 2008. Abstract The nature of predictive relations between early language and later cognitive function is a fundamental question in research on human cognition. In a longitudinal study assessing speed of language processing in infancy, Fernald, Perfors and ... (Source: Developmental Science)

Cognitive flexibility in preschoolers: the role of representation activation and maintenance

Developmental Science — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:27:55 +0100

Developmental Science, Volume 11, Issue 3, Page 339-353, May 2008. Abstract Preschoolers’ lack of cognitive flexibility has often been attributed to perseverative processing. This study investigates alternative potential sources of difficulty such as deficits in activating previously ignored information and in ... (Source: Developmental Science)

Critical periods and catastrophic interference effects in the development of self-organizing feature maps

Developmental Science — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:27:54 +0100

Developmental Science, Volume 11, Issue 3, Page 371-389, May 2008. Abstract The use of self-organizing feature maps (SOFM) in models of cognitive development has frequently been associated with explanations of critical or sensitive periods. By contrast, error-driven connectionist models of development have been linked ... (Source: Developmental Science)

Preschool children's ability to visually represent relations

Developmental Science — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:27:37 +0100

Developmental Science, Volume 11, Issue 3, Page 390-395, May 2008. Abstract The developmental origins of mapping temporal relations onto space was investigated in N = 122 3- to 5-year-old children and adults. Spontaneous production and comprehension were investigated. Production was investigated in two conditions: an ... (Source: Developmental Science)

Why size counts: children's spatial reorientation in large and small enclosures

Developmental Science — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:27:35 +0100

Developmental Science, Volume 11, Issue 3, Page 414-426, May 2008. Abstract When mobile organisms are spatially disoriented, for instance by rapid repetitive movement, they must re-establish orientation. Past research has shown that the geometry of enclosing spaces is consistently used for reorientation by a wide ... (Source: Developmental Science)

MedWorm Sponsored Message: Find out how you can get your message across here by sponsoring this MedWorm news feed.

Are we following the european charter? children, parents and staff perceptions

Child: Care, Health and Development — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:27:17 +0100

Child: Care, Health and Development, Volume 0, Issue 0, Page ???, OnlineEarly Articles. Abstract Background In 1988, the European Association for Children in Hospital (EACH) established a charter of rights setting out the guiding principles for the treatment of children in hospital. Our aim was to ascertain whether children, parents and ... (Source: Child: Care, Health and Development)

Prevalence of overweight and obesity in urban and semi-urban jordanian children aged 3–6 years

Child: Care, Health and Development — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:27:16 +0100

Child: Care, Health and Development, Volume 0, Issue 0, Page ???, OnlineEarly Articles. Abstract Objectives To show the prevalence of overweight and obesity among the Jordanian urban and semi-urban children; to compare their body mass index (BMI) with the international standards of BMI. Methods We measured 1695 healthy children (842 boys ... (Source: Child: Care, Health and Development)

Does diagnostic classification of early-onset psychosis change over follow-up?

Child Psychiatry and Human Development — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:37:58 +0100

Does diagnostic classification of early-onset psychosis change over follow-up?

Child Psychiatry Hum Dev. 2008 Jun;39(2):137-45

Authors: Fraguas D, de Castro MJ, Medina O, Parellada M, Moreno D, Graell M, Merchán-Naranjo J, Arango C

OBJECTIVE: To examine the diagnostic stability and the functional outcome of patients with early-onset psychosis (EOP) over a 2-year follow-up period. METHODS: A total of 24 patients (18 males (75%) and 6 females (25%), mean age +/- SD: 15.7 +/- 1.6 years) with a first episode of EOP formed the sample. Psychotic symptoms were assessed using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Social disability was measured with the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) disability scale. Diagnosis was assessed using the Kiddie-Sads-Present and Lifetime Version (K-SADS-PL), according to DSM-IV criteria. All diagnoses were re-assessed after 1 year and 2 years. RESULTS: Schizophrenia had the highest prospective consistency (100% predictive value), while diagnostic stability was moderate for bipolar disorder (71.4%), and low for schizoaffective disorder (50%), schizophreniform and brief psychosis (50%), and psychosis not otherwise specified (NOS) (16.7%). The agreement between the baseline diagnoses and the 1-year follow-up diagnoses was 54.2%, whereas between the 1-year follow-up and the 2-year follow-up, it rose to 95.7%. Regardless of diagnosis, baseline negative symptoms were the only significant predictor of level of functioning at the 2-year follow-up (p = 0.010). CONCLUSION: Our results highlight the primacy of the first-year follow-up diagnosis in predicting diagnostic stability of EOP.

PMID: 17665305 [PubMed - in process]

(Source: Child Psychiatry and Human Development)

Disciplinary style and child abuse potential: association with indicators of positive functioning in children with behavior problems.

Child Psychiatry and Human Development — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:37:55 +0100

Disciplinary style and child abuse potential: association with indicators of positive functioning in children with behavior problems.

Child Psychiatry Hum Dev. 2008 Jun;39(2):123-36

Authors: Rodriguez CM, Eden AM

Reduction of ineffective parenting is promoted in parent training components of mental health treatment for children with externalizing behavior disorders, but minimal research has considered whether disciplinary style and lower abuse risk could also be associated with positive functioning in such children. The present study examined whether lower dysfunctional disciplinary style and child abuse risk was associated with children's positive self-concept, adaptive attributional style, and hopefulness. Recruited from children undergoing treatment for disruptive behavior disorders, 69 mother-child dyads participated, with maternal caregivers reporting on their disciplinary style and abuse potential and children reporting independently on their positive functioning (adaptive attributional style, overall self-concept, and hopelessness). Findings supported the hypothesized association, with lower scores on mothers' dysfunctional discipline style and abuse potential significantly predicting children's reported positive functioning. Future research directions pertaining to more adaptive functioning in children with behavior problems are discussed.

PMID: 17701341 [PubMed - in process]

(Source: Child Psychiatry and Human Development)