This article presents a very general survey of tracks and trends in music education research in Germany and its roots in the 19th century, where the beginning of empirical music psychology can be traced back to "Tonpsychologie" and perception research of scholars such as Helmholtz, Stumpf, Wundt, and Wellek. Focus areas that are…

This conceptual article examines what is meant by the term "ecological-contextual" in relation to the assessment of children's needs. Revisiting the discipline of ethology, the article applies the construct of niche to the human species, including examples from children's experiences to validate the relevance of this link. Issues of…

This study tested a model of the association between maternal and child anxiety that views mother and child attachment beliefs and children's perceptions of maternal control as mediators of the association. The study was conducted with mothers and their children aged 6 to 17 (N = 88). Maternal anxiety was significantly associated with child…

Many caregivers are encountering the issue of communicating with children and adolescents about current world events, specifically war and terrorism. As health care providers, it is important to raise awareness of how children may understand, interpret, and respond to related fears and concerns. Although honesty and reassurance are clearly the…

Neuromaturation is the functional development of the central nervous system (CNS). It is by its very nature a dynamic process, a continuous interaction between the genome and first the intrauterine environment, then the extrauterine environment. Understanding neuromaturation and being able to measure it is fundamental to infant neurodevelopmental…

There is little information available about how and why parents of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) make decisions regarding which of the many available treatments to implement with their children. Given the lack of available information regarding treatment efficacy, it is likely that parents' beliefs about child development,…

The present paper discusses some of the current issues confronting practitioners and researchers in understanding gender differences in children's adjustment to divorce. Gender differences in children's developmental adjustment to divorce are influenced by pre and post divorce development processes, parent expectation and children's coping…

The purpose of the present study was to examine the developmental outcomes of children 7 years after their initial diagnosis. Children diagnosed with autism or PDD-NOS at age 2 received follow-up evaluations at age 9. Diagnostic stability was high, with 88 percent of the sample obtaining autism spectrum diagnoses at age 9. Cognitive scores…

Gottman and associates theorized emotion coaching, parents' processing of negative emotions with children, as important for children's later development. Bowen viewed differentiation, the balance between emotional and cognitive reactions to one's family of origin, as an important developmental process. However, research has not specified parenting…

This article reviews five large national studies that include significant findings about the effects of early care and intervention on the children of teens. Five large-scale, national early childhood intervention research trials have included teen parents: Early Head Start, Nurse Family Partnership, Parents as Teachers, Healthy Start/Healthy…

In recent years sociocultural theory has provided an important conceptual tool for re-thinking many practices in early childhood education (e.g. Anning, Cullen & Fleer, 2004; Edwards, 2001; Edwards, 2003). While much has been gained, many taken-for-granted practices still remain in need of critique. Although the term "Child…

Looking for relevant material for the Adolescent Psychology course she teaches, the author's attention was drawn to a book by Thomas Cottle, "Mind Fields: Adolescent Consciousness in a Culture of Distraction" (2001). Robert Frost's quotation, "Grant me intention, purpose, and design--That's near enough for me to the Divine," in the frontispiece…

Although child maltreatment has often been described as leading to language deficits, the few well-controlled investigations of language acquisition in maltreated children have focused on language content rather than form, or have used qualitative rather than quantitative measures. This study examines syntactic complexity in 19 maltreated and 14…

It is through culture that children make sense of their worlds (Trevarthen, 1998). Cross- cultural models show that families are likely to primarily foster either independence or interdependence in their children (Gonzalez-Mena, 1997; Greenfield, 1994). Young children are likely to pay the "price of acculturation" when they enter early…

This study investigated the impact of a short-term interaction-focused parenting curriculum on maternal behaviors and child development outcomes. Participants were 94 teen-mother-child dyads; 48 in the intervention group received a relationship-focused curriculum offered in 24, 1-hour sessions. Maternal behaviors during play were videotaped and…