Childhood is a critical period for the development of prosocial behavior, and the family serves as a crucial microsystem for fostering prosocial behavior in children. Prior research has indicated that parental monitoring, a specific family factor directly targeting children, can predict children's prosocial behavior. However, the influence of the…

The transition from early childhood education to primary education is, in many countries, the beginning of compulsory education. This has meant that much of the research on this transition has focused on academic aspects such as literacy or logical-mathematical competence. The lines of research have changed, and in recent years, very diverse…

Experiences of and exposures to violence impact older adolescents and young adults in a myriad of ways. While typically conceptualized as interpersonal, other forms of violence, namely structural and symbolic, can be harmful to development for this population. This study utilized qualitative methodologies, including ethnographic field notes and…

Recent genetic discoveries offer a new lens through which to study cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and social processes that are foundational to children's development. In this article, we review the latest advances in genomics--genome-wide association studies and the polygenic scores that have come out of them--and discuss how these techniques…

Discusses, with special reference to socially disapproved conduct, possible family and school influences on behavioral development. Influences are discussed in terms of alternative explanations for causal inferences relating environmental variables and children's disorders; mechanisms and processes; persistence of environmental effects; and…

Researchers examine how and why America's children are getting fatter and raise new questions about how to treat childhood obesity. (HOD)

Provides an overview of a longitudinal, prospective, multivariate adoption study of behavioral development and discusses the results of analyses of cognitive measures and environmental assessments as examples of the types of information that can emerge from a design of this sort. (Author/RH)

Independent investigations have demonstrated consistent relationships among family communication, cognitive style, and media behavior when any two of these variables are associated in the same study. The evidence so far supports the hypotheses that family communication patterns are associated with different strategies for dealing with persons and…

The variables of age, father's education, rural upbringing, religion and region in which one was raised are related to the complexity of the child-rearing environment. Data suggests an increase in modern man's intellectual flexibility is a reflection of the complex conditions characterizing the modern world. (JB)

This study examined the development of aggressive and oppositional behavior among alcoholic and nonalcoholic families using latent growth modeling. The sample consisted of 226 families assessed at 18, 24, 36, and 48 months of child age. Results indicated that children in families with nonalcoholic parents had the lowest levels of aggressive…

Over the past 20 years, care reasoning has been increasingly recognised as an important aspect of moral development. Skoe has developed an interview measure of levels of care reasoning about the needs of self and other in relationships, the Ethic of Care Interview or ECI. In the present longitudinal research, we investigated developmental changes…

Presents a model for a parent education program successfully implemented by a counseling intern as part of the total school guidance program. (Author)

Four papers discuss the Harvard Preschool Project whose goal is to learn how to structure the experiences of the first six years of life to encourage maximal development of human competence. To determine what competence at age 6 is, a group of 13 highly competent 6-year-olds of mixed residence, class, and ethnicity were compared to a like group of…

This case study of 72 homeless families and their 78 children in day care at a large welfare hotel in New York City evaluates the children's health status, separation and attachment, sleep patterns, eating patterns, emotional status, attention span, gross motor development, speech and language development, and cognitive development. (JDD)

Explored interrelationships among day-care experience, temperament, and preschoolers' social behaviors in a peer play laboratory. Found that sex predicted both aggressive and prosocial behaviors, and daycare inhibited socialization for some children. Findings suggest that variables of temperament and day-care experience are important to consider…