Adaptive decision making in probabilistic environments requires individuals to use probabilities as weights in predecisional information searches and/or when making subsequent choices. Within a child-friendly computerized environment (Mousekids), we tracked 205 children's (105 children 5-6 years of age and 100 children 9-10 years of age) and 103…

Although children's early language skills have been found to predict literacy outcomes, little is known about the role of preschool oral narrative skills in the pathway between language and emergent literacy or how these associations differ by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. The current study uses the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study to…

We investigated the links between racial/ethnic marginalization (i.e., having few same-race/ethnic peers at school) and adolescents' socioemotional distress and subsequent initiation of substance use (alcohol and marijuana) and substance use levels. Data from 7,731 adolescents (52% female; 55% White, 21% African American, 16% Latino, 8% Asian…

Two experiments involving students from grades 1-2 and 5-6 found strong connections between development and forgetting rates when the influences of learning ability were eliminated. Findings eliminated a hypothesis based on age variability in overlearning. (RH)

Examined whether age-related change in naming time reflects automatic access of familiar names because of greater familiarity with the named objects or global change in speed of processing. The path analyses and structural-equation modeling of 8- to 13-year olds were consistent with the second explanation. Time and age were linked to reading…