Background: The increased life expectancy of people with Down syndrome puts pressure on parents, who are usually the main caregivers but who find caring more difficult as they get older. The quality of the support provided by brothers and sisters depends on the intra-family relationships they build when growing up. Methods: 121 adult siblings of…

This analysis set out to identify associations between birth order and sexual health outcomes, focusing on family involvement in sex education and early sexual experiences. The third National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles is a stratified probability sample survey of 15 162 men and women aged 16-74 in Britain. Logistic regression was…

To illuminate how within-family differences in achievement may emerge, this study examined sibling experiences in middle childhood as predictors of sibling differences in college graduation. First- and second-borns from 152 families reported on their experiences with siblings and parents at ages 11.80 (SD = 0.56) and 9.22 (SD = 0.90),…

Families with deaf parents and hearing children often demonstrate bimodal bilingualism, using both a signed and a spoken language. This study uses an audience design framework to analyze the home language use of two bimodal bilingual families in the United States. The school-age children in these families appeared to design their utterances for…

This study examined the association between observed cognitive sensitivity (CS) during family interactions and children's receptive vocabulary for older and younger siblings. Maternal and sibling CS was considered and associations were explored at the family-wide (between-family) and child-specific (within-family) levels of analysis. The…

The aim of the current study is to examine the quality of sibling relationships in relation to family functioning in Greek families with typically developing school-age children. The sample: 251 intact Greek families with two children (251 parents -- 1 parent participated from each family -- and 251 children). Research instruments: (a) the Family…

We examined profiles of sibling relationship qualities in 246 Mexican-origin families living in the United States using latent profile analyses. Three profiles were identified: "Positive," "Negative," and "Affect-Intense." Links between profiles and youths' familism values and adjustment were assessed using…

Issues of equality and fairness and invasion of the personal domain, 2 previously identified topic areas of adolescent sibling conflict (N. Campione-Barr & J. G. Smetana, 2010), were examined in 145 dyads ("M" [subscript first-born] = 14.97, "SD" = 1.69 years; "M" [subscript second-born] = 12.20,…

Disclosure, or revealing personal information to others, is important for the development and maintenance of close relationships (Jourard, 1971; Rotenberg, 1995). More recently within developmental psychology, however, the focus has been the study of adolescent disclosure to parents as a means of information management regarding their daily…

This study charted the course of parent-child and sibling relationships from early adolescence to early adulthood and examined how these relationships changed following firstborns' departure from their parents' home for the first time. Data were drawn from a 10-year longitudinal study of family relationships. Participants included mothers,…

This study investigates the psychosocial adjustment of hearing siblings of deaf and hard of hearing (d/hh) children, as well as the quality of the relationships between siblings and between hearing siblings and mothers. Thirty families from Cyprus took part in the study. Self-report data were collected from the mothers and the hearing siblings.…

We tested social comparison predictions about cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between parents' differential treatment of siblings and both youth depressive symptoms and sibling relationship qualities from middle childhood to late adolescence, controlling for dyadic parent-child relationships and siblings' ratings of parents'…

Examines the effect of birth order on child development, noting that spacing of children, gender, family size, and family configuration all play a role in determining what effect birth order will have. The article looks at various traits of firstborn, middle, lastborn, and only children. (SM)

Explores whether the effects of sibling birth are mediated by associated changes in the family environment and changes in family members' interaction patterns. Data from a national longitudinal survey indicate that the birth of a sibling lessened positive interactions with the older child and mothers increasingly adopted controlling parenting…

A review of popular press books and articles published between 1975 and 2000 was conducted to delineate areas in which the advice given to parents about the transition to a second child is consistent with or diverges from results of relevant research. Results highlight the need for researchers and popular press writers to acknowledge their…