Guided by evolutionary-developmental models, this study tested the hypothesis that children's exposure to parental relationship instability, defined by initiation and dissolution of caregiver intimate relationships, has both costs in cognitive impairments and benefits in enhanced learning skills. Participants included 243 mothers and their…

Differentiation hypotheses concern changes in the structural organization of cognitive abilities that depend on the level of general intelligence (ability differentiation) or age (developmental differentiation). Part 1 of this article presents a review of the literature on ability and developmental differentiation effects in children, revealing…

The ability to recognize and label emotions serves as a building block by which children make sense of the world and learn how to interact with social partners. However, the timing and salience of influences on emotion recognition development are not fully understood. Path analyses evaluated the contributions of parenting and child narrative…

At the beginning of preschool (M = 46 months of age), 197 (94 boys) children were administered tasks that assessed a suite of nonsymbolic and symbolic quantitative competencies as well as their executive functions, verbal and nonverbal intelligence, preliteracy skills, and their parents' education level. The children's mathematics achievement was…

This research examines whether there are continuities between infant social attention and later theory of mind. Forty-five children were studied as infants and then again as 4-year-olds. Measures of infant social attention (decrement of attention during habituation to displays of intentional action) significantly predicted later theory of mind…

The present findings suggest that never" as a response and very often" as a response are mediated by different underlying processes, at least between the ages of 8 and 17. (Author/WY)

Discusses the respective roles of rate of learning and level of cognitive development in determining intellectual performance in 156 normal and retarded children matched for mental age. (Author/LLK)

Examined the relation of infant attention and memory to later cognition in 45 full-term and 46 high-risk preterm infants. Findings indicated a substantial relation between infant visual recognition memory and later intelligence. (RJC)

Presents a study of the cumulative deficit hypothesis and a discussion of some of the theoretical issues and methodological problems involved. Results of the study indicate a significant age decrement in verbal, but not nonverbal, IQ among a large sample of Negro elementary school children. (Author/ED)

Paternal nurturance and some of its components were correlated significantly and positively with the children's IQ scores in the retesting, suggesting that these paternal behaviors may foster cognitive development. Indications were also found that other paternal behaviors may affect the intellectual growth of the child. (Author)

Both forms of the Muller-Lyer illusion were presented to the normal and retarded subjects to determine possible changes in illusion strength in either or both forms of the illusion when age, amount of repetition, and IQ were varied. (Author/ED)

Reviews the major contributions of Alfred Binet. Explains why the fame of the Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale was so long lasting whereas that of his other contributions was so fleeting. Discusses implications of his contributions for current efforts to formulate unified theories of cognition and cognitive development. (Author/GLR)

Studied the relationship between mental age and progression toward Piaget's stages of concrete operations and formal operations in a sample of middle class children. Formal operations in preadolescence and adulthood are discussed in relation to IQ. (GO)

Examines the mental development scores for two groups of at-risk infants throughout their childhood--those classified as small for gestational age (SGA) and those twins falling below 1,750g birth weight--and determines that SGA twins showed only a modest deficit in IQ scores as compared to the full twin samples. (HOD)