The thrifty phenotype and fetal overnutrition hypotheses are two developmental hypotheses that originated from the "developmental origins of health and disease" (DOHaD) perspective. The DOHaD posits that exposures experienced prenatally and early in life may influence health outcomes through altering form and function of internal organs…

At what ages are young people most open to political influence? We test the "formative years" model that underscores the importance of childhood experiences for political development against the "impressionable years" model that asserts the primacy of lessons learned during adolescence. To assess the relative merits of these…

Musical play is a vital aspect of children's musical cultures. As the social and cultural experiences of children change over time, their playful engagements with music may reflect these shifts. The purpose of this oral historical research was to explore girlhood musical play experiences over the course of a span of approximately 80 years (ca.…

Students' experiences of physical education (PE) are considered important for lifelong attitudes towards physical activity. Sex-related differences and the individualised tempo in anthropometric growth because of biological maturation lead to secondary school students within chronological age-ordered classes possessing vast differences in…

Background/purpose. This study aimed to explore various demographic and relational factors affecting adolescents, with a particular focus on their self-esteem. Materials/methods. This study employed a descriptive and correlational research design to gather quantifiable data and examine the relationship between parent-adolescent dynamics and…

Research to date has shown longitudinal changes in conscientiousness during early and middle adolescence, but most studies have been conducted in Western countries. The present study aimed to examine the pattern of mean-level conscientiousness change at the transition into early adolescence among a Chinese sample using curve of factors (CUFFS)…

This article examines the role of the Great Depression in shaping the intergenerational mobility of some of the most upwardly mobile cohorts of the twentieth century. Using newly linked census and vital records from the Longitudinal, Intergenerational Family Electronic Micro-database, we examine the occupational and educational mobility of more…

Conceptualisations and constructs of children and childhood are temporally and contextually grounded. Historical documents are rich sources of insight and understanding regarding how children were understood, valued and treated at various times by particular societies. This article explores the conceptualisation of children and childhood in the…

This study examines interactions of heritable influences, prenatal substance use, and postnatal parental warmth and hostility on the development of conduct problems in middle childhood for boys and girls. Participants are 561 linked families, collected in 2 cohorts, including birth parents, adoptive parents, and adopted children. Heritable…

This study examines the relationship between the psychological states of Korean mothers and early childhood development. In the study, 480 mothers were classified into three groups: cluster A mothers were happy and competent, cluster C were depressed and stressed, and cluster B were neither depressed nor happy. The tendency of infant developmental…

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has a profound impact on millions of families in the United States. While Hispanic families represent the most rapidly growing demographic group within this population, little research explores their unique experiences in coping with the family impacts of ASD. This comparative study explored the lived experiences of…

Across all cultures, parents have intuitive ideas ("ethnotheories") of what undesirable child characteristics are as well as how to explain them. Yet there have been relatively few cross-cultural comparisons of parents' ethnotheories about the nature and causes of child misbehavior. 108 mothers of 5-year-old children from the United…

From an early age, most children choose to play with toys typed to their own gender. In order to identify variables that predict toy preference, we conducted a meta-analysis of observational studies of the free selection of toys by boys and girls aged between 1 and 8 years. From an initial pool of 1788 papers, 16 studies (787 boys and 813 girls)…

Early childhood education changed in the twentieth century, from mother-at-home-care in the 1950s, to professional early education today. Theoretical and social-political choices of pioneers in ECE had a profound impact on the way children's education is conceptualized. We argue from a social constructivist perspective. The oral history method is…

This study analyzed data on the early developmental status of 7352 children, aged from 36 to 59 months, using the "Early Childhood Developmental Index" (ECDI) to assess literacy-numeracy, physical, social-emotional, and learning domains. The study explored correlates of developmental status with a range of socio-demographic and…