This essay traces the history of an activity designed to promote the intellectual and social development of elementary-age schoolchildren during the afterschool hours. Following in the footsteps of Urie Bronfenbrenner, I highlight his argument that just as all human development occurs in contexts of varying levels of inclusiveness and mutual…

We examine (a) the normative course of eudaimonic well-being in emerging adulthood and (b) whether people's narratives of major life goals might prospectively predict eudaimonic growth 3 years later. We define eudaimonic growth as longitudinal increases in eudaimonic well-being, which we define as the combination of psychosocial maturity and…

A recognition memory experiment with 8-, 11- and 20-year-olds investigated the hypothesis that, with age, semantic encoding becomes increasingly important relative to acoustic encoding. (CM)

Investigates the development sequence of children's comprehension of riddles. In Study I riddles and jokes were collected and classified from children of grades 1 through 10. In Study II, students of grades 1, 3, 6, 10, and college were given selected riddles from three categories determined in Study I to test the predicted comprehension sequence.…

Studies the development of children's understanding of the multiple determination underlying human behavior. Subjects were kindergarten children, fourth, eighth, and twelfth graders. (CM)

Defines life-span developmental psychology as the study of constancy and change in behavior throughout the life course. Advances metatheoretical view regarding development. Stresses focus on the dynamic and continuous interplay between growth (gain) and decline (loss). Examines structural contextual factors and study of range of plasticity in…

Examined the relation of control beliefs to individual differences in 63 elderly adults in 1981 and 1986. Over the 5 years, generalized control and intellectual performance did not change, but intellectual control beliefs did. (RJC)

Assessed the intellectual development and academic achievement of 87 diabetic children during the first 6 years of their illness. At the initial diagnosis, intellectual performance and school grades were in the average range. Over time, verbal intellectual performance and school grades declined, whereas nonverbal intellectual performance improved…

Childrens' understanding of motives for behavior was investigated by showing interpersonal situations on silent films to 6- to 14-year-old children from middle- and working-class backgrounds. (CM)

The relationship between higher order reasoning and sex bias was investigated among children 7, 9 and 11 years old. Children read arguments enhancing their own or other gender, then rated argument intelligence, judged other children based on observations, and justified their arguments. Findings showed that own-gender reasoning biases declined with…

This study examines developmental differences in third and sixth graders' and college students' use of distinctiveness, consensus, and consistency information for making causal attributions. (CM)

Examined 114 pairs of same-sex infant twins and their parents to investigate infant predictors of adult IQ. Found that some measures of infants' information processing, language ability, and temperament predicted the average IQ of infants' parents. Results support the view that some stability in certain types of intellectual functioning from…

Attention patterns of 93 preterm infants were observed and measured at term, at four months of age, and at eight years. Suggests that preterm infants who continued to fixate an unchanging stimulus for protracted periods of time were less intellectually able in childhood. (Author/DR)

Study looks at pigtailed macaque in the context of visual recognition problems adapted from a standardized test developed for use with human infants. Results demonstrate that the low-risk group easily differentiated novel from previously seen targets; the high-risk group gave no evidence of recognition. (Author/RWB)

Observes 75 first- and third-grade children in their classroom mathematics seatwork to test assumptions drawn from Vygotsky's theory about the development of private speech and its relationship to task performance, attention, and motor behaviors accompanying task orientation. (HOD)