Early-life exposures are critical for later child cognitive development. McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities (MSCA) were used to assess cognitive development of 700 preschoolers (M[subscript age] = 4.2 years), derived from the "Rhea" birth cohort, in Greece. Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied on prospectively collected…

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…

Surveyed 4,000 third and sixth graders and their parents and teachers, from 4 Chinese provinces. Found that, although only children scored higher on tests of verbal ability, were taller, and weighed more than firstborn and later born children, other measures of academic and personality development were similar between the groups. (MDM)

Two experiments investigated the relationship between family size and "theory of mind." Results from an experiment with three- and four-year olds showed that children from larger families were better able than children from smaller families to predict a story character's mistaken (false-belief based) action. (MDM)

Used longitudinal data from a sample of African-American children of teenaged mothers in the Baltimore, Maryland, area to examine determinants of functional literacy in adulthood. Found that preschool cognitive and behavioral functioning predicted literacy in young adulthood. Family environmental factors that predicted literacy in young adulthood…

The delivery to impoverished mothers of medical and social services, including day care for their children, had effects that were evident 10 years later. These effects included higher socioeconomic status and educational attainment and smaller families for the mothers, and better school attendance and fewer academic problems for their children.…