Numerous studies indicate that intrinsic motivation predicts academic achievement. However, relatively few have examined various subtypes of intrinsic motivation that predict overall achievement, such as motivation for exercise and physical activity. Based upon the 16 basic desires theory of personality, the current study examined the motives of…

Resource dilution model suggests that as the number of children increases, parental resources for each child decline. Assesses whether resource dilution could explain the effect of siblings on intellectual development tests. Identifies flaws in recent critiques of this position, discussing it as an explanation for why children with few siblings…

The article reviews some of the conditions that might counteract decline in the intellectual development of gifted children and adolescents. (DLS)

Discusses faith in the context of Catholic education as a way of knowing. Describes James Fowler's developmental theories showing the presence of a sequence in the way individuals experience intellectual growth. Presents six short theoretical characterizations showing a family in six stages of faith development. (DMM)

The family's values, attitudes, and ways of relating internally and externally determine its health-creating or destroying power. The family's overwhelming impact on human competence makes a strong case for premarital and parent education that prepares people for roles as spouses and parents. (SK)

Estimates confluence model of intellectual development for a within-family sample of 321 children from 101 transracial adoptive families. Mental ages of children and their parents and birth or adoption intervals were used in a nonlinear least-squares estimation procedure to obtain children's predicted mental ages. Results suggest efficiency of the…

Explains that from a prediction standpoint the confluence model is not very efficient. Very modest increments in accuracy are associated with family configuration variables once chronological age is covaried. Suggests that the major postulates of the theory be tested directly, within individuals and with longitudinal data. (Author/AS)

Discusses the controversy of the relationship between birth order and intellectual performance through a detailed evaluation of the confluence model which assumes that the rate of intellectual growth is a function of the intellectual environment within the family and associated with the special circumstances of last children. (CM)

The confluence model shows the influence of family on intellectual growth. The decline of SAT scores is related to changing family patterns. Intellectual growth is lower for children with many siblings. The increase in average family size for the cohorts taking SATs between 1963 and 1980 caused scores to decline. (Author/VM)

Support for the confluence model of intellectual development has come from analyses of family size-birth order means of large aggregate data sets. Analyses of individual scores do not substantiate the confluence model, as explained variance is markedly reduced. The study of family interaction variables utilizing longitudinal data is recommended.…

Studied the relationship of family background and child care quality to preschoolers' cognitive, language, and social development. Concluded that family background variables were significant predictors of children's cognitive and language development, and that child care quality variables significantly predicted social adjustment and were a…

Separate dimensions of infant cognition were compared with parental general- and specific-cognitive abilities for 182 adoptive and 164 nonadoptive families. More parent-offspring resemblance was present when 24- rather than 12-month Bayley factors were used. Bayley factors were more related to parental g than to specific abilities. (Author/RD)

Assessments of the home environments of 116 families whose twins were participants in a longitudinal study of early mental development were conducted. Predictions of offspring intelligence scores increased from ages six months to six years old. Although home/family variables were related to mental development, so were parental education and SES.…

The research described in this article addressed the question of why siblings commonly have different developmental outcomes despite their common beginnings. The studies analyzed behavioral development, especially through examination of deviant behaviors and intellectual development, by tracing siblings' different life histories. The work is based…