The current study investigated early temperament in 54 infants at familial high-risk of ASD and 50 controls. Parental report of temperament was assessed around 7, 14 and 24 months of age and diagnostic assessment was conducted at 3 years. The high-risk group showed reduced "Surgency" at 7 and 14 months and reduced "Effortful Control" at 14 and 24…

Comparison of 384 male and 91 female autistic children (three through eight years old) revealed that females as a group scored less well on intelligence tests. Boys also performed better than girls on eye-hand integration and perceptual tasks. Predictions of female superiority in affect and receptive vocabulary were not supported. (CL)

A total of 416 elementary school children described in writing what their grandparents meant to them. Girls were more likely than boys to mention love. Younger children reported obtaining more affective provisions (e.g., attachment and nurturance) from grandparents while older children reported more cognitive provisions (e.g., guidance and pride…

This study considered two questions about infants' perception of affective expressions: (1) Can infants distinguish between happiness and anger on the basis of facial motion information alone? (2) Can infants detect a correspondence between happy and angry facial and vocal expressions by different people? A total of 40 infants of 7 months of age…

Investigates kindergarten children's ability to comprehend and appreciate cognitively-oriented humor. Conceptual development was measured by assessing children's responses to a liquid conservation task modeled after Piaget. Results fail to support previous theories and indicate that a majority of the children fully comprehended and were able to…

Explores children's perceptions of four aspects of marriage: expression of affection, companionship, tension, and marital power. (HOD)

The purpose of these companion studies was to assess immediate and delayed effects of social modeling, cognitive structuring, and two self-management strategies for increasing affective self-disclosure in undergraduate males. Subjects were randomly assigned to: (a) social modeling, (b) cognitive structuring, (c) attention-placebo, or (d)…

Recent research using theory-of-mind tasks has rekindled interest in the possibility that social interaction makes a significant contribution to cognitive development. It is proposed here that this contribution may be most pronounced with phenomena that, like belief or affective states, are internal and abstract. A more modest contribution is…

This research deals with the development and relative importance of both the conceptual-cognitive and the aesthetic-affective aspect of the perceptual process at various age levels of children. Three tasks were chosen: (1) sorting drawings of human figures--a task that represents a more conceptual function; (2) expressing preferences for those…

These three papers are from a symposium on individual learning issues. "A Quantitative Examination of the Feelings and Cognitive Processes of a Group of Adults Undertaking a Tertiary HRD [Human Resource Development] Program" (Bryan W. Smith) examines mental and emotional states of adults in a tertiary HRD learning situation by using stimulated…

This paper examines the images middle school students have of science and technology, the workplaces, and the relevant professions. It also describes the effect on these images caused by an instructional initiative, "Investigation into Science and Technology" (IST), designed to introduce students to science and technology in the "real life."…