Neighborhood is a key context where children learn to process social information; however, the field has largely overlooked the ways children's individual characteristics might be moderated by neighborhood effects. We examined 1,030 six- to 11-year-olds (48.7% female; 82% White) twin pairs oversampled for neighborhood disadvantage from the Twin…

Loneliness becomes more prevalent as youth transition from childhood into adolescence. A key underlying process may be the puberty-related increase in biological stress reactivity, which can alter social behavior and elicit conflict or social withdrawal (fight-or-flight behaviors) in some youth, but increase prosocial (tend-and-befriend) responses…

Dyslexia and developmental language disorders are important learning difficulties. However, their genetic basis remains poorly understood, and most genetic studies were performed on Europeans. There is a lack of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) on literacy phenotypes of Chinese as a native language and English as a second language (ESL) in a…

This study tested implications of new genetic discoveries for understanding the association between parental investment and children's educational attainment. A novel design matched genetic data from 860 British mothers and their children with home-visit measures of parenting: the E-Risk Study. Three findings emerged. First, both mothers' and…

Adult performance of high ability individuals has seldom been researched. Current results suggest that adult excellence occurs at lower rates than high ability individuals identified in their infancy or youth, with few cases of high intellectual abilities among adults that yield excellence products. This paper focuses on the analysis of the…

Growth, maturation, and development dominate the daily lives of children and adolescents for approximately the first 2 decades of life. Growth and maturation are biological processes, while development is largely a behavioral process. The 3 processes occur simultaneously and interact. They can be influenced by physical activity and also can…

Biology and the particular gun culture of the United States come together to explain the persistent and powerful attraction of American boys to both real guns and toy guns. The 1990s saw adults begin to conflate "the gun problem" with "the boy problem," sparking attempts (largely failed) to banish toy guns from homes and…

While both positive and negative peer interactions have long been a focus of scientific interest, much less attention has been given to children who tend to refrain from interacting with peers. This volume brings together leading authorities to review progress in understanding the development, causes, and consequences of shyness and social…

Background: Pain interferes with the functioning of typical children, but no study has examined its effect on children with pre-existing intellectual disabilities (ID). Methods: Caregivers of 63 children observed their children for 2-h periods and recorded in 1-week diaries: pain presence, cause, intensity and duration. Caregivers also recorded…

In 2 experiments, the authors examined the evolution of folkbiological reasoning in children (4 to 10 years of age) and adults from 4 distinct communities (rural Native American, rural majority culture, and suburban and urban North American communities). Using an adoption paradigm, they examined participants' intuitions regarding the inheritance…

Proposes a theory of development in which experience is directed by genotypes and in which genotypic differences affect phenotypic differences, both directly and through experience, via three kinds of genotype-environment effects. The theory adapts the three kinds of genotype-environment correlations in a developmental model used to explain…

Certain symptoms in disturbed or problematic children are believed to be the result of experiential difficulties. Other symptoms are attributed to biological factors, only to be remedied by medications. It is argued here that all psychological symptoms--even those as severe as delusions and hallucinations--have meaning and are directly related to…

To bring out Giyoo Hatano's contributions to the understanding of culture and cognitive development, we note first his special style--thoughtful, inventive, and always focused on central issues and on combining theory with data--and then, for three areas, some of the conceptual advances he proposed. The areas have to do with ties between cognitive…

Evidence from cross cultural studies and observational studies are provided to support the contentions that males are more aggressive than females and that this sex difference is evident as early as the preschool years. (Author/MP)

A study of 202 patients with autism found the incidence of a dodecamer duplication in the HOPA gene was not significantly different between patients and controls. Three female patients inherited the duplication from nonautistic fathers. Also, there was no systematic skewing of X inactivation in female patients with the duplication. (Contains…