Discusses potential beneficial effects of children's illnesses on their behavioral development. It is argued, on the basis of clinical experience and related research, that minor illnesses give children many opportunities to increase knowledge of self, other, prosocial behavior, and empathy and to realistically understand the sick role. (Author/RH)

This paper is in memory of Esther Thelen, who passed away while President of the Society for Research in Child Development. A survey of Esther Thelen's career reveals a trajectory from early work on simple movements like stepping, to the study of goal-directed reaching, to work on the embodiment of cognition, and, ultimately, to a grand theory of…

Children's Type A behaviors remained moderately stable over time. The magnitude of the stability did not differ as a function of two versus five years of follow-up, or because of the sex, grade, or community in which the child lived. (PCB)

Provides an introduction to a special section on developmental behavioral genetics (the study of genetic and environmental influences on individual differences in behavioral development), discussing the potentialities of the interdiscipline and presenting an overview of the following articles. (Author/RH)

Studies of children who initially display high rates of antisocial behavior indicate such children are more likely to persist in this behavior than those who initially show lower rates. (Author/MP)

Examined associations between tympanic membrane (TM) temperature asymmetries and biobehavioral attributes of 4- to 8- year-old children. Found shared patterns of associations that linked TM temperature lateralities to individual differences in behavior and socioaffective difficulties. Found that warmer left TMs were associated with affectively…

Conducted a meta-analytic review of 41 studies to explore the relation between children's aggressive behavior and hostile attribution of intent to peers. Found a significant association between hostile attribution of intent and aggressive behavior, with larger effects associated with more severe aggressive behavior, rejection by peers as a…

Verbal and behavioral measures of children's knowledge are frequently dissociated. These situations represent a largely untapped but important resource for furthering an understanding of human cognition. In this paper, verbal-behavioral dissociations in children are discussed and analyzed, drawing from a wide range of domains. The article explores…

Provides an overview of a longitudinal, prospective, multivariate adoption study of behavioral development and discusses the results of analyses of cognitive measures and environmental assessments as examples of the types of information that can emerge from a design of this sort. (Author/RH)

Proposes and tests an attributional model of parent social cognition and examines parents'inferences about why everyday child behaviors occur and what consequences these inferences may have for socialization. (HOD)

Decribes age trends in television viewing time and visual attention of children and adults videotaped in their homes for 10-day periods. Shows that the increase in visual attention to television during the preschool years is consistent with the theory that television program comprehensibility is a major determinant of attention in young children.…

This study examined whether item overlap, or measurement confounding, accounts for the correlation between temperament and behavior problem symptoms in children. Experts rated items on Children's Behavior Questionnaire and Preschool Behavior Questionnaire for their fit to both constructs, and then these items were factor analyzed with longitudinal…

Reports on a longitudinal study that provides a prospective view of children's personality functioning prior to their subsequent experiencing of divorce. Shows the behavior of boys as early as 11 years prior to parental separation or formal dissolution of marriage to be consistently affected by predivorce familial stress. (HOD)

Examined the concordance between mother-infant attachment behavior and patterns of mother-child reunion responses when the children were age six. Found that concordance between four types of attachment status was 82%. Also found a correlation between children's observed social competence at age five and their reunion patterns at age six. (MDM)

Investigates the manifestations and socialization processes of only and sibling children for improved implementing of the Chinese one-child family program planning. (HOD)