Developmental researchers often have research questions about cross-lag effects--the effect of one variable predicting a second variable at a subsequent time point. The cross-lag panel model (CLPM) is often fit to longitudinal panel data to examine cross-lag effects; however, its utility has recently been called into question because of its…

The impact of a major historical event on child and youth development has been of great interest in the study of the life course. This study is focused on assessing the causal effect of the Great Recession on youth disconnection from school and work. Building on the insights offered by the age-period-cohort research, econometric methods, and…

Research Findings: Although work across developmental and educational psychology reveals that trust impacts children's acceptance of claims and that teacher-student relationships impact learning outcomes, little work has integrated these literatures to better understand how students' trust in their teacher facilitates learning. In the present…

The purpose of the present study was to identify the core references in introductory textbooks in two sub-disciplines of psychology: social psychology and developmental psychology. One research question was the extent to which the common references in these textbooks present the trends in contemporary research in each sub-discipline. An analysis…

The articles in this special issue of the "Journal of Cognition and Development" examine the cognitive development of children who are following typical and atypical developmental pathways. The articles offer a mixture of theory-based considerations, reviews of the literature, and new empirical data addressing fundamental aspects of…

Parents and non-parental adults who interact with children influence child development. This study evaluates the knowledge of child development in two large and diverse samples of adults from Alberta in 2007 and 2013. Telephone interviews were completed by two random samples (1,443 in 2007; 1,451 in 2013). Participants were asked when specific…

Children with autism use hand taking and hand leading gestures to interact with others. This is traditionally considered to be an example of atypical behaviour illustrating the lack of intersubjective understanding in autism. However the assumption that these gestures are atypical is based upon scarce empirical evidence. In this paper I present…

This paper examines two research perspectives on learning--developmental psychology and the learning sciences. We compare and contrast works from two leading researchers--Deanna Kuhn and Ann Brown--as a way to illustrate how questions and research on learning, such as problem-solving, inquiry, metacognition, self-directed learning, are raised and…

Purpose: Potential biases in service provision for preschool children with specific language impairment (SLI) were explored. Method: In Study 1, children with SLI receiving treatment (SLI-T) and those with SLI not receiving treatment (SLI-NT) were compared on demographic characteristics and developmental abilities. Study 2 recruited children with…

This study examined the developmental profile of male infants with fragile X syndrome (FXS) and its divergence from typical development and development of infants at high risk for autism associated with familial recurrence (ASIBs). Participants included 174 boys ranging in age from 5 to 28 months. Cross-sectional profiles on the Mullen Scales of…

The objective of this study was to examine the different development characteristics of gifted children during the preschool period in comparison with normal developing children according to family observation. For this purpose, face-to-face interviews were carried out with the parents of 112 children identified as gifted and data regarding the…

Children's understanding of numbers is often assessed using a number-line task, where the child is shown a line labeled with 0 at one end and a higher number (e.g., 100) at the other end. The child is then asked where on the line some intermediate number (e.g., 70) should go. Performance on this task changes predictably during childhood, and this…

The teaching of research methods has been at the core of public administration education for almost 30 years. But since 1990, this journal has published only two articles on the teaching of research methods. Given the increasing emphasis on data driven decision-making, greater insight is needed into the best practices for teaching public…

This study examined the similarities and differences in the topics and references in selected chapters of eight introductory social psychology textbooks and six developmental psychology textbooks. We wanted to determine the extent to which there were core concepts and references presented in these chapters. We found a relatively small set of core…

Students' assessment, in general, observed through a socio-historical prism, has always been treated as an extremely sensitive, current, significant, indicative and continuously present phenomenon. In that respect, what is especially relevant is that for a very long time docimological procedures and their effects have been focused on following…