Are young children just random explorers who learn serendipitously? Or are even young children guided by uncertainty-directed sampling, seeking to explore in a systematic fashion? We study how children between the ages of 4 and 9 search in an explore-exploit task with spatially correlated rewards, where exhaustive exploration is infeasible and not…

Anger is a central characteristic of negative affect and is relatively stable from infancy onward. Absolute levels of anger typically peak in early childhood and diminish as children become socialized and better able to regulate emotions. From infancy to school age, however, there are also individual differences in rank-order levels of anger. For…

Malnutrition and a lack of sufficient psychosocial support from caregivers both have a tremendous effect on children's development. Initiatives to support healthy child development in a context of poverty include caregiver interventions. There is growing evidence to support interventions that integrate psychosocial and nutritional support. The…

In this paper, (1) the psychosocial health in relation to (2) life-events was assessed among 156 children attending 20 schools by parents and teachers with the Child Behavior Checklist and the Caregiver-Teacher Report Form at the ages of four and six. Life-events were reported by parents. (1) According to the report, 93-96% children had no…

Illustrates contribution of genetic and environmental factors to differential ratings of within-family behavior and environmental differences. Maintains that, assuming differential ratings are a linear function of underlying trait differences, it is simple to recover within-family statistics, offering a more legitimate basis than comparing mean…

Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917-2005) was a pioneer in studying the behavior of children in their natural life space of family, school, peer group, and community. His concept of the ecology of human development is transforming practice for effective work with children and youth. Bronfenbrenner's research highlights the power of human relationships to…

Originally written for students at St. Thomas' Hospital in London, this guide to child development offers an overview of child development for parents, teachers, and all adults concerned with raising children. Many of the book's ideas come from direct work with children and draw on Rudolf Steiner's approach to child development. The book's…

When a behavior disappears and then resurfaces, developmental psychologists typically look more closely at the behavior to figure out what is different before and after--that is, they increase the grain with an eye toward discovering how the system that generates that behavior has changed. But what ought to count as a U-shaped phenomenon? How…

It is only natural for parents to wonder occasionally if the development of their preschool child is going well. Noting that psychologists have developed many normative scales to indicate how an individual child compares with others of the same age in similar populations, this parent brochure provides guidance for evaluating a child's behavior and…

Examined two hypotheses regarding activity level: (1) early appearing stability; and (2) inversion of intensity. Measured behavioral intensity or activity level six times between the neonatal period and first grade. Results indicated that parent ratings supported activity level stability. Observations revealed that intense neonatal activity…

Defines skills important for kindergarten success in areas of health and physical well-being, social and emotional skills, intellectual skills and general knowledge, and language and speech development. Lists eight "red flags" to help identify children who may need specialized assistance. (DLH)

Maintains that advances in the literature on perception-action development suggests that tool use may be a more continuous developmental achievement than previously believed. Suggests new research directions, including efforts to investigate the processes by which children detect and relate affordances between objects, coordinate spatial frames of…

Employing a child-centered approach to the growth and development of children from birth to age 16, this book describes in detail the personal, social, and intellectual development of children as they progress from infancy through adolescence. It contains anecdotes and examples that capture the unique qualities of each age and stage of child…

The author of this book takes up all the main issues confronting those who work with young children in a wide variety of settings. The explanations, case studies and suggestions provide an invaluable resource for all of those who aim to build solid foundations right from the start. This book is organized into the following chapters: (1) Confident…

The articles in this collection consider one very interesting puzzle of development: U-shaped developmental functions. At some point during development, an organism might exhibit what seems like a regression from its expected developmental trajectory and, according to continuity models of development, this is aberrant. In this special issue,…