There's a strong case for making social and emotional learning (SEL) skills and competencies a central feature of elementary school. Children who master SEL skills get along better with others, do better in school, and have more successful careers and better mental and physical health as adults. Evidence from the most rigorous studies of…

"Making Assessment Work: Ten Practitioner Beliefs" was developed by the National Practitioner Advisory Group on Using Data to Inspire SEL Practice (NPAG), a group of social and emotional learning (SEL) practice leaders convened to provide insights on SEL. Educators, program leaders, and policymakers recognize the value of holistically…

Psychometric and utility studies on Social Emotional Assessment Measure (SEAM), an innovative tool for assessing and monitoring social-emotional and behavioral development in infants and toddlers with disabilities, were conducted. The Infant and Toddler SEAM intervals were the study focus, using mixed methods, including item response theory…

Restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs) are a core feature of autism spectrum disorders. They constitute a major barrier to learning and social adaptation, but research on their definition, cause, and capacity for change has been relatively neglected. The last decade of research has brought new measurement techniques that have improved the…

Despite many disagreements on the utility of neuropsychological applications in schools, executive function measures have been found to be useful across a variety of areas and ages. In addition, many disagreements are extant in discussions of the maturational course of the development of executive functioning abilities that are dependent on…

There is considerable debate about the assessment of psychopathic traits in adolescence due in part to questions regarding the stability of traits. We investigated the 6-month stability of psychopathic traits in a sample of 83 male adolescent offenders using an augmented protocol for the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version and the self-report…

The Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm was used to investigate developmental trends in accurate and false memory production. In Experiment 1, DRM lists adjusted to be more consistent with children's vocabulary were used with 2nd graders, 8th graders, and college students. Accurate and false recall and recognition increased with age, but…

Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, the aims were (a) to obtain, describe, and compare different solutions of three, five, and six first-order factors raised in the previous literature about the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI); (b) analyze the number and nature of the second-order factors; (c) test which model best reproduces…

The awareness and knowledge of developmental milestones among health practitioners need to be enhanced to better enable early identification and intervention with children who have delays in development, intellectual deficit, and developmental disabilities and are residents in low-and middle-income countries. To meet this end, a simple one-page…

This paper estimates models of the evolution of cognitive and noncognitive skills and explores the role of family environments in shaping these skills at different stages of the life cycle of the child. Central to this analysis is identification of the technology of skill formation. We estimate a dynamic factor model to solve the problem of…

The human peripheral auditory system is fully developed at birth; however, myelination continues for several years in the higher auditory pathways. The aim of the present study was to assess the maturation course of the frequency and duration pattern tests and the middle latency response (MLR). One hundred and fifty normal participants ranging…

A study used the Three-Interval Forced-Choice Test of Speech Pattern Contrast Perception (THRIFT) to examine sensory-level speech-perception performance under the input modalities of hearing alone, speech-reading alone, and the two combined in 44 children (ages 5-10). Within each condition there were significant influences of age on performance…

Reveals a two-factor structure (general retentiveness and memory) in the Wechsler Memory Scale for total male and female samples and for both males and females aged 13 to 39 years and 40 to 59 years but not for males or females aged 60 to 88 years. (Author/RL)

A study analyzed the narratives of 24 predominately English-speaking Latino children (ages 3-5) enrolled in a federally subsidized preschool. The length of narrative did not differ significantly by age. However, older children produced stories that contained longer sentences, a higher proportion of grammatically acceptable sentences, and more…

Child sex abuse increasingly is recognised as a societal problem that can no longer be ignored. In this paper definitions, prevalence, trends, assessment, and available diagnostic procedures are described and critically evaluated. It is argued that the lack of reliable diagnostic procedures remains one of the main difficulties in dealing…