Young children are often called as witnesses to crimes they were victims of or observed. Because of their immaturity, child witnesses are sometimes more heavily scrutinized than adult witnesses before being allowed to testify in court, for example, through competency screening. This review discusses the psychology and US law relevant to decisions…

Compared to skilled adult readers, children typically make more fixations that are longer in duration, shorter saccades, and more regressions, thus reading more slowly (Blythe & Joseph, 2011). Recent attempts to understand the reasons for these differences have discovered some similarities (e.g., children and adults target their saccades…

Atypical attention, while not a diagnostic feature, is common in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The study of these atypicalities has recently gained in both quantity and quality, due in part to an increased focus on attentional atypicalities as one of the earliest signs of ASD in infancy. A range of attentional processes and…

This paper presents a new perspective on the transition from early to middle childhood (i.e., human juvenility), investigated in an integrative evolutionary framework. Juvenility is a crucial life history stage, when social learning and interaction with peers become central developmental functions; here it is argued that the "juvenile transition"…

In this paper we review current definitions and measurement approaches used to assess individual differences in children's temperament. We review the neural bases of temperamental reactivity and self-regulation and propose that these constructs provide a framework for examining individual differences and developmental change in emotion-cognition…

We outline the nature of dynamic systems, both linear and nonlinear, and we review dynamic systems principles that apply well to various aspects of human development, including the emergence of new forms, phases of stability and instability, continuous and discontinuous change, and differentiation among individual trajectories. We then document…

Fuzzy trace theory explains why children do not have to use rules of logic or premise information to infer transitive relationships. Instead, memory of the premises and performance on transitivity tasks is explained by a verbatim ability and a gist ability. Until recently, the processes involved in transitive reasoning and memory of the premises…

Biological reactivity to psychological stressors comprises a complex, integrated system of central neural and peripheral neuroendocrine responses designed to prepare the organism for challenge or threat. Developmental experience plays a role, along with heritable variation, in calibrating the response dynamics of this system. This calibration…

We describe an integrated theory of individual differences that traces the behavioral development of life history from genes to brain to reproductive strategy. We provide evidence that a single common factor, the K-Factor, underpins a variety of life-history parameters, including an assortment of sexual, reproductive, parental, familial, and…

The ideas of Vygotsky [Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). "Thinking and speech." In "The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky," (Vol. 1). New York: Plenum. (Original work published 1934.)] have been increasingly influential in accounting for social-environmental influences on the development of social understanding (SU). In the first part of this article, I…

Reviews literature for strongest position with respect to sex differences in parent-child relationships, namely that both parents' sex and child's sex contribute to four distinct dyad relationships. Found many claims and assumptions about the distinctness of relationships but little empirical evidence. When dyadic distinctness was found, it often…

Maintains that the findings of the Utrecht Study of Adolescent Development are consistent with theoretical expectations and previous research outcomes. Uses the Utrecht data to analyze hypothesized age differences in patterns of intraindividual identity status change. Discusses possible explanations for the partial failure to confirm this aspect…

Data from over 3400 individuals ranging from 5 to 93 years of age were analyzed to investigate the structural organization of cognitive variables, and to use that structure to examine relations between cognitive abilities and neuropsychological variables. The results indicated that the variables could be organized into the same cognitive ability…

Discusses metacognitive and associative models of children's strategy discovery and use. Contends that models based on only one type of mechanism cannot entirely account for observed variability and constraint revealed by microgenetic studies of children's strategy change. Proposes a new model of children's strategy development in which…

Outlines a sociocultural perspective on the study of moral development grounded in Vygotskian theory, highlighting semiotic mediation of moral functioning via inner speech as inner moral dialog, the social origins of moral functioning, and sociocultural "situatedness" of moral development. Suggests that this perspective addresses…