With a focus on within-person effects, this study investigated mutualism among academic skills (reading, math, science) and between those skills and verbal working memory in a general population sample and groups with high or low skills from Grades 2 to 5 (2010-2016, N = 859-9040, age 6.27-13.13 years, 49% female, ethnically diverse). Mutualism…

Background: Both transactional and common etiological models have been proposed as explanations of why externalizing behavior problems (EBP) and internalizing behavior problems (IBP) co-occur in children. Yet little research has empirically evaluated these competing theoretical explanations. We examined whether EBP and IBP are transactionally…

Both early childhood maternal language input and the quality of classroom instruction in elementary school have been shown to be important environmental supports in predicting children's literacy skill development. However, no studies have simultaneously examined these two environmental supports in relation to children's early language skills and…

This small action research study (ARS) began with a review of the literature examining the relationship of gangsta rap in regards to academic achievement, self-esteem, decision-making, identity issues and development of young African American males. The purpose of the ARS was to examine the correlation between gangsta rap and its influence on 5th…

This study examined reciprocal contributions between shyness-sensitivity and social, school, and psychological adjustment in urban Chinese children. Longitudinal data were collected once a year from Grade 3 to Grade 6 (ages 9-12 years) for 1,171 children from multiple sources. Shyness-sensitivity positively contributed to social, school, and…

This study examined whether children understand that people selectively conceal or express emotion depending upon the context. We prepared two contexts for a verbal display task for 70 first-graders, 80 third-graders, 64 fifth-graders, and 71 adults. In both contexts, protagonists had negative feelings because of the behavior of the other…

The present study used a variant of masked priming to track the development of 2 marker effects of orthographic and phonological processing from Grade 1 through Grade 5 in a cross-sectional study. Pseudohomophone (PsH) priming served as a marker for phonological processing, whereas transposed-letter (TL) priming was a marker for coarse-grained…

Existing literature shows promising effects of physical activity on children's cognitive outcomes. This study assessed via a randomized, controlled design whether additional curricular physical activity during the school day resulted in gains for children's fluid intelligence and standardized achievement outcomes. Participants were children…

Using a school-based sample of fifth graders (mean age = 10.38, SD = 0.66) and their parents (N = 408) from Washington, D.C., the authors examine associations of pubertal development with early adolescents' sexual and nonsexual risk behaviors and their caregivers' parenting behaviors and of these risk behaviors with parenting behaviors. Results…

The present longitudinal study examined how relationships with teachers and peers jointly shape the development of children's behavioral engagement in late elementary school. A sample of 586 children (46% boys; M[subscript age] = 9.26 years at Wave 1) was followed throughout Grades 4, 5, and 6. A multidimensional approach was adopted,…

Bidirectional theories of social development have been around for over 40 years (Bell, 1968), yet they have been applied primarily to the study of antisocial development. In the present study, the reciprocal relationship between parenting behavior and children's socially competent behaviors were examined. Using the National Institute of Child…

In an examination guided by cognitive developmental and attribution theory of how explanations of wealth and poverty and perceptions of rich and poor people change with age and are interrelated, 6-, 10-, and 14-year-olds (N = 88) were asked for their causal attributions and trait judgments concerning a rich man and a poor man. First graders, like…

The authors developed the Interpersonal Behavior Questionnaire for Children with the aim of assessing the constructs of the interpersonal circumplex model, that is, Dominance and Love and their possible combinations, via third- to fifth-grade children's self- and peer reports. In the three studies presented herein, the authors examined several…

National educational achievement statistics show that academic underachievement is a significant problem for all students in the United States and for culturally diverse students in particular. The relationship of attachment and its interaction with traumatic stress has been proposed as an alternative explanation for the persistent…

This study investigates the link between the frequency of family breakfasts and dinners and child academic and behavioral outcomes in a panel sample of 21,400 children aged 5-15. It complements previous work by examining younger and older children separately and by using information on a large number of controls and rigorous analytic methods to…