Maternal responses to infant facial expressions were examined in two socioeconomically diverse samples of South African mothers (Study I, N = 111; and Study II, N = 214; age: 17-44 years) using pupil and gaze tracking. Study I showed increased pupil response to infant distress expressions in groups recruited from private as compared to public…

Research on classroom peer effects has focused nearly exclusively on high-income countries and on academic skills. Little is known about peer effects in low-income countries and whether effects differ under different educational environments (e.g., teacher-directed versus child-centered, conditions of concentrated advantage or disadvantage). Based…

Sperry, Sperry, and Miller (2018) aim to debunk what is called the 30-million-word gap by claiming that children from lower income households hear more speech than Hart and Risley ([Hart, B., 1995]) reported. We address why the 30-million-word gap should not be abandoned, and the importance of retaining focus on the vital ingredient to language…

Amid growing controversy about the oft-cited "30-million-word gap," this investigation uses language data from five American communities across the socioeconomic spectrum to test, for the first time, Hart and Risley's (1995) claim that poor children hear 30 million fewer words than their middle-class counterparts during the early years…

The federal child-care subsidy program represents one of the government's largest investments in early care and education, but little is known about whether it increases low-income children's access to higher quality child care. This study used newly available nationally representative data on 4-year-old children (N = 750) to investigate whether…

Vocabulary knowledge was tested in a native (Cantonese-Chinese) and foreign (English) language in 150 twins and 150 singletons aged 6-11 years, matched on age, gender, grade level, nonverbal intelligence, parents' education, family income, and number of siblings and household members. The singletons clearly outperformed the twins on the native…

Examined associations between income-to-needs change and child outcomes at 36 months for NICHD Study of Early Child Care participants. Found that for children in poverty, income-to-needs decreases related to worse outcomes and increases related to better outcomes. When income-to-needs increases were at least one standard deviation above mean…

Number sense development of 411 middle- and low-income kindergartners (mean age 5-8 years) was examined over 4 time points while controlling for gender, age, and reading skill. Although low-income children performed significantly worse than middle-income children at the end of kindergarten on all tasks, both groups progressed at about the same…

Assessed friendships among Head Start preschoolers. Found that older children were more likely than younger children to participate in a reciprocated friendship, and reciprocated dyads were more likely to be same-gender than were nonreciprocated dyads. Reciprocated friends interacted more frequently and looked at each other more than…

Interaction during feeding sessions between preterm infants (N=21) and their mothers and interaction between full-term infants (N=22) and their mothers were compared. Mothers and babies were from a low-income, inner-city population. (Author/MP)

Compared attitudes of gifted black early adolescents in fifth and sixth grades to those of potentially gifted and regular education black students. Found that gifted black students' attitudes and perceptions were significantly different from those of the other two groups. Of the three groups, gifted black students were the most achievement…

Examined National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data on four versions of HOME-Short Form for four major ethnic groups. Found differences for majority of items between poor and non-poor families. Magnitude of effect for poverty was greater than for ethnicity. For every item at every age, effects of poverty were proportional across European American,…

The present study investigated the extent to which maternal intrusiveness and warmth during play, observed in 579 European American, 412 African American, and 110 more and 131 less acculturated Mexican American low-income families when children were approximately 15 months old, predicted 3 dimensions of the mother-toddler relationship 10 months…

Examined longitudinally conceptions of parental authority and ratings of parental rules and decision-making among middle- class African American adolescents and their parents. Found that nearly all subjects affirmed parents' legitimate authority to regulate and children's obligation to comply regarding oral, conventional, prudential, friendship,…