Differentiation hypotheses concern changes in the structural organization of cognitive abilities that depend on the level of general intelligence (ability differentiation) or age (developmental differentiation). Part 1 of this article presents a review of the literature on ability and developmental differentiation effects in children, revealing…

This study explored developmental and individual differences in intellectual humility (IH) among 127 children ages 6-8. IH was operationalized as children's assessment of their knowledge and willingness to delegate scientific questions to experts. Children completed measures of IH, theory of mind, motivational framework, and intelligence, and…

Temporal proximity is one of the key factors determining whether events in different modalities are integrated into a unified percept. Sensitivity to audiovisual temporal asynchrony has been studied in adults in great detail. However, how such sensitivity matures during childhood is poorly understood. We examined perception of audiovisual temporal…

This study extends the methodological and theoretical understanding of executive functions (EFs) in preschoolers from low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). First, the authors describe a rigorous process of adapting and evaluating six EF tasks to produce a culturally and developmentally appropriate measure of emerging EFs in a large sample of…

Individuals' implicit theories of intelligence exist on a spectrum, from believing intelligence is fixed and unchangeable, to believing it is malleable and can be improved with effort. A belief in malleable intelligence leads to adaptive responses to challenge and higher achievement. However, surprisingly little is known about the development of…

Two main theoretical constructs seek to describe the elaborated sense of time that may be a uniquely human attribute: diachronic thinking (the ability to think about the past and use that information to predict future events) and event ordering (the ability to sequence events in temporal order). Researchers utilize various tasks to measure the…

Although still a matter of some debate, there is a growing body of research supporting Early and Intensive Behavioral Intervention as the intervention of choice for children with autism. Learning rate is an alternative to change in standard scores as an outcome measure in studies of early intervention. Learning rates can be displayed graphically…

Early child development is influenced by various genetic and environmental factors. This study aims to identify factors that affect the phonological awareness of preschool and first grade children. Based on a sample of 330 German-speaking children (mean age = 6.2 years) the following domains were evaluated: Parent factors, birth and pregnancy,…

Child development researchers often discuss a "two-word" stage during language acquisition. However, there is still debate over whether the existence of this stage reflects primarily cognitive or linguistic constraints. Analyses of longitudinal data from two Deaf children, Mei and Cal, not exposed to an accessible first language (American Sign…

Aim: This study investigated prediction of separate cognitive abilities at the age of 5 years by cognitive development at the ages of both 2 and 3 years, and the agreement between these measurements, in very preterm children. Methods: Preterm children (n=102; 44 males; 58 females) with a gestational age less than 30 weeks and/or birthweight less…

A large-scale ("N" = 552) controlled multivariate prospective 14-year longitudinal study of a developmental cascade embedded in a developmental system showed that information-processing efficiency in infancy (4 months), general mental development in toddlerhood (18 months), behavior difficulties in early childhood (36 months),…

A number of authors have proposed models of cognitive development that explain improvements in intelligence over the course of childhood via changes in the efficiency of inhibitory processes (Anderson, 2001; Bjorklund & Harnishfeger, 1990; Dempster, 1991, 1992; Dempster & Corkill, 1999a; Harnishfeger, 1995; Harnishfeger & Bjorklund, 1993). A…

In longitudinal studies data is collected in a series of waves. Each wave after the first suffers from attrition. Therefore it can be difficult to discriminate between changes in sample parameters due to a longitudinal process (e.g. ageing) and changes due to attrition. The problem is particularly vexing if one of the purposes is to compare…

Until recently, the impact of early brain insult (EBI) has been considered to be less significant than for later brain injuries, consistent with the notion that the young brain is more flexible and able to reorganize in the context of brain insult. This study aimed to evaluate this notion by comparing cognitive and behavioural outcomes for…

Research on children's concepts of intelligence has not considered how children conceptualise specific thinking skills. This study extends previous research on the development of children's concepts of intelligence and produces novel data on children's understandings of effective thinking and thinking skills. Seventy-five children were sampled…