Background: Teaching students about race and racism is critical to and relevant in psychology classrooms. Objective: We explored whether direct instruction dismantling ideas that race is genetic affects students' race essentialist and other related beliefs. Method: Undergraduate students enrolled in four social psychology courses completed…

This handbook offers comprehensive coverage of the topics that are relevant to the field of adolescent and young adult development. The "APA Handbook of Adolescent and Young Adult Development" reviews the many factors that impact youth development across varying themes including biological underpinnings, cognitive and emotive processes,…

Using alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana during adolescence is associated with risks, yet there is no single cause for adolescent substance use. The etiology of substance use develops over time, across multiple levels of influence. Informed by developmental perspectives, in this review, we provide an overview of biological (e.g., genetic,…

Purpose: Prenatal exercise is a health behavior that is receiving growing attention amid concern that women in Western societies are gaining excess weight during pregnancy and contributing to future obesity in both the mother and child. In this article, we draw on insights from the fields of social epidemiology and social theory of the body to…

This is a semester-long study of the development of first-person biofunctional understanding in educational psychology for teacher education majors. We defined biofunctional understanding as a spontaneous intellectual capacity. To reach its deep biological levels, sculpted by countless evolutionary millennia, students identified and dwelled in…

Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary field of researchers from psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, philosophy, computer science, and anthropology who seek to understand the mind. This paper considers findings from this field that are strong and clear enough to merit classroom application. Although many teachers and parents worry that high…

Background: Little is known about the nature, range and prevalence of different subgroups in language trajectories extant in a population from 4 to 11 years. This hinders strategic targeting and design of interventions, particularly targeting those whose difficulties will likely persist. Methods: Children's language abilities from 4 to 11 years…

Schizophrenia as mental illness is defined in terms of diagnostic criteria which do not include the full range of psychosocial difficulties that shape the lived experience of persons with this diagnosis and affect their quality of life. The biopsychosocial approach found in the World Health Organization's International Classification of…

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…

Although boys engage in more delinquent and criminal acts than do girls, female delinquency is on the rise. In 1980, boys were four times as likely as girls to be arrested; today they are only twice as likely to be arrested. In this article, the author explores how the juvenile justice system is and should be responding to the adolescent female…

As a consequence of somatic changes patients may suffer profound, indirect, and direct psychological effects in addition to the more direct biological ones. In order to prepare patients for living with new circumstances and feelings created by illness, intervention stragegies should address somatopsychic effects as well as others. (Author)

The emergence of minimally intrusive techniques for collecting biological data creates a case for the inclusion of these data into bullying research models. This integration would produce a more comprehensive understanding of the problems and better direct intervention and prevention techniques, which are currently based primarily on self-report,…

Argues that there is a wealth of little known but rapidly growing evidence that contradicts the assumptions and claims of genetic determinism. Recent research showing the impacts of child maltreatment and environmental pollutants suggest interventions that might alleviate the problems sometimes attributed to genetic deficiencies. (SLD)

Possible prenatal, perinatal, and postnatal causes of cerebral palsy are explored and a causal pathway theory is presented that provide a methodology to study the impact of the various causal factors. The role of an interdisciplinary team in assessment and program development is discussed and prevention strategies are presented. (Contains…

This review of the literature provides summaries of the genetic, neurophysiological, and biochemical approaches to understanding autism, with special reference to neuroanatomic, cognitive, and neuropsychological studies of this disorder. Available instruments for the assessment of autism and various treatment alternatives including drug therapy,…