Early mathematics knowledge is a strong predictor of later academic achievement, but children from low-income families enter school with weak mathematics knowledge. An early math trajectories model is proposed and evaluated within a longitudinal study of 517 low-income American children from ages 4 to 11. This model includes a broad range of math…

Eighteen second-grade boys and girls identified as being high or low role-takers were videotaped teaching two same-sex kindergartners to make construction-paper caterpillars. High and low role-takers differed on eight dimensions of the 16 categories of prosocial behavior coded during videotaped observations. (Author/MP)

Data collected from 128 third through sixth graders over a 1-year period demonstrated that individuals with withdrawn social behavior, low peer acceptance, few or no friendships, and an internal-stable attributional style were more likely to have higher levels of concurrent and future loneliness than individuals not exhibiting these…

Examined relationships among mothers' hostile attribution tendencies regarding their children's ambiguous problem behaviors, mothers' harsh discipline, and children's externalizing behavior problems. Assessments over four years demonstrated that mothers' hostile attributions predicted children's externalizing school behavior problems. The…

Videorecorded stimuli were used to assess social information processing patterns in 3 domains (peer group entry, response to provocation, and response to authority directive) in 259 first, second, and third graders. Teacher and peer ratings of behavior competence supported the hypothesis that children's behavioral competence is a function of…

Assessed the relationship between social adjustment and perceptions of both family acceptance and family control in two samples of young adolescents. One group completed, among other measures, self-reports of psychosocial competence and self-regulation, whereas the second group completed peer ratings of likability. In both samples, family…

Mothers provided personality assessments of 350 ethnically diverse 12- and 13-year-old boys using the California Child Q-set procedure to allow the development of scales to measure 5 personality dimensions: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. The resulting nomological network related these…

Examined predictive properties of early language-learning experiences, parent socioeconomic status, and parenting skills on later academic performance in 29 toddlers from varying socioeconomic backgrounds. Variables predicted language and academic performance up to 10 years later in elementary school. Children whose early experiences led to…

Examined the relative role of parent-child relationships, family stress, and disease factors in predicting behavior problems in children with epilepsy. Found that children's self-reliance correlated with parent-reported behavior problems, whereas expression of affect related to teacher-reported problems. Overall, parent-child relationship factors…

Investigated the development of inattentiveness and hyperactivity in middle childhood through a prospective study that followed 191 children from birth through age 11. In early childhood, quality of caregiving better predicted distractibility, an early precursor of hyperactivity, than did early biological or temperament factors. Caregiving and…

Assessed 8-year-olds' perceptions of emotional support from mother and best friend. Found that preschool attachment security predicted age-8 maternal-support perceptions better than did mother's behavior. Identification of best friends as part of the support network related positively to social competence. The more insecurely attached children…