Mind-mindedness (MM) refers to caregivers' proclivity to treat a child as having an active and autonomous mental life. It has been shown to be a powerful predictor of many developmental outcomes and to mitigate the impact of risk conditions. However, longitudinal studies on MM reporting changes over time and individual differences among mothers…

Background: Research suggests that considerable individual differences may exist among preschool children in terms of emergent writing performance. However, there is no study examining this variability. Objective: This research explored the patterns of within-group individual differences in the emergent writing skills of preschool children.…

Preschoolers' vocabulary acquisition sets the stage for later reading ability and school achievement. This study examined the role of socioeconomic status (SES) and the quality of the home environment of seventy-seven Chilean majority and Mapuche minority families from low and lower-middle-class backgrounds in explaining individual differences in…

Research Findings: The current study examined achievement motivation orientation in preschool-age children from low- and middle-income families. Participants were 126 children who were attending an urban Head Start site or a private preschool. Children's motivation orientation was assessed as being performance oriented or mastery oriented using a…

The relative development of Piagetian concrete logical operational abilities was investigated in Mexican American and Anglo American children. Performance was assessed on eight classification tasks and three forms of transitivity, measuring seriation skills. One phase of the study compared the performances of 30 Anglo and 30 Mexican American…

Compared the attention patterns of 40 toddlers and their mothers with or without dysphoric symptoms in a situation that allowed both common and independent foci of attention. Found that dysphoric mothers appeared to attend to an event in common with their children less frequently than did nondysphoric mothers. (MOK)

The discrepancy between middle-class and lower-class children's performance on IQ tests has been thought of as "cognitive deficit" or as "cognitive differences." This paper proposes another explanation--cognitive lag hypothesis--according to which the low IQ test scores of lower-class children are seen as due to the developmentally delayed…

Examined whether neighborhoods influenced the likelihood of high school graduation for a cohort of African-American children who were followed from 1966 to 1993. Found that living in a poverty census tract did not seem to influence the likelihood of high school graduation or school leaving over and above the impact of family and individual…

Sex role typing in the preschool child is the subject of this research report. Specific topics considered are sex differences, awareness of sex differences, sex role preferences, parent preferences, sex role identification, and family variables related to sex role typing. This summary of research studies in the field reports experimental and…

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN RISK TAKING WERE STUDIED IN A SAMPLE OF 162 MIDDLE-CLASS CHILDREN IN GRADE 5. MEASURES OF ANXIETY, CREATIVITY, DEFENSIVENESS, INTELLIGENCE, AND RISK TAKING WERE ANALYZED TO DETERMINE CERTAIN SELECTED RELATIONSHIPS. THE AUTHOR CONCLUDED THAT CREATIVITY BEARS A MORE POWERFUL RELATIONSHIP TO RISK TAKING THAN DOES…

Tested assumption that variability in home literacy environments has no effect on individual differences in reading development. Found that variability in shared reading interactions was significantly related to growth in phonological awareness even after accounting for the effects of age, oral language, and phonological awareness at the beginning…

BASED UPON WORK WITH MIDDLE-CLASS ADULTS AND CHILDREN, THREE APPROACHES TO GROUPING HAVE BEEN IDENTIFIED--(1) DESCRIPTIVE PART-WHOLE, (2) RELATIONAL-CONTEXTUAL, AND (3) CATEGORICAL-INFERENTIAL. A COMPARISON WAS MADE OF THE FREQUENCY OF THE USE OF THESE APPROACHES AMONG MIDDLE- AND LOWER-CLASS, NEGRO PRESCHOOL AND KINDERGARTEN CHILDREN. INITIALLY,…

In this study, twenty 3-day-old Caucasian neonates were observed before and during feeding in an attempt to demonstrate that individual characteristics of infants, such as alertness and social behaviors, are related to the interaction of mothers and infants during feeding situations. Ten of the infants were males, 10 were females; approximately 70…

The importance and consequences of raising the average ability level (IQ) of the population requires consideration of the ability level that society requires, how the relevant abilities are distributed, and the efficiency of the current educational process. Within the framework of these factors, the document discusses the determinants of mental…

This research was designed to serve two major purposes: (1) to create a substantial library of theoretically neutral observational data as permanent documentation of actual life experiences in the lives of 3-year-old children from different socioeconomic backgrounds and (2) to analyze specimen records in order (a) to describe and quantify the…