The present study was the first to investigate the ability to selectively trust reliable informants in a sample of Brazilian preschool children from two different socioeconomic backgrounds. Ninety-three 3- and 4-year-old children, equally distributed across a low- and medium-SES group, participated. A standard selective trust task was used.…

The research literature well establishes that adverse conditions, such as poverty, can affect children's cognitive development and academic achievement. Educators are challenged to translate these understandings into instructional practices grounded in research that best meet the needs of students, especially students living in poverty who are at…

Previous research assessing consequences of interpregnancy intervals (IPIs) on child development is mixed. Utilizing a population-based US sample (n = 5339), we first estimate the associations between background characteristics (e.g. sociodemographic and maternal characteristics) and short ([less than or equal to]1 year) and long (>3 years)…

The purpose of this evaluation study was twofold: to evaluate the overall impact of an intensive early childhood literacy project on children's vocabulary knowledge and to examine the sociocultural context of the vocabulary assessment for the early literacy project. Children's language development and vocabulary knowledge was measured with PPVT-IV…

The study explored the nature of mother-child conversation during and after a shared book reading (SBR) interaction and how it relates to children's social understanding and prosocial behavior. Participants were 61 mother-child dyads (children's mean age 5 years, 8 months) from low socioeconomic strata (SES). Mother-child SBR and their…

Evidence points to associations between the socioeconomic composition of neighborhoods and children's and adolescents' development. A minimal amount of research, however, examines how timing of exposure to neighborhood socioeconomic conditions matters. This study used longitudinal data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development…

TWO GROUPS OF CHILDREN ATTENDED THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS NURSERY SCHOOL FOR EIGHT WEEKS. THE MORNING CLASS WAS HELD FOR 20 FOUR-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN OF MIDDLE-CLASS FAMILIES. THE AFTERNOON CLASS WAS FOR 24 FIVE-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN OF LOW-INCOME FAMILIES. THREE COMPARATIVE STUDIES WERE MADE. IN STUDY I NO CHANGE WAS FOUND ON THE PEABODY PICTURE…

AS PART OF THE EVALUATION OF EFFECTIVENESS OF FULL-YEAR HEAD START PROGRAMS, CHILDREN FROM A NATIONWIDE SAMPLE OF CENTERS WERE TESTED WITH FIVE INSTRUMENTS (PEABODY PICTURE VOCABULARY TEST, PRE-SCHOOL INVENTORY, VINELAND SOCIAL MATURITY SCALE, DRAW-A-PERSON, AND BEHAVIOR INVENTORY). CENTERS WERE SELECTED TO BE REPRESENTATIVE OF PROGRAMS OF…

PREKINDERGARTENS IN 8 NEW YORK STATE SCHOOL SYSTEMS WERE EVALUATED TO FIND OUT IF THE CHILDREN INVOLVED SHOWED INCREASED CAPACITY TO LEARN, AND IMPROVEMENT IN LANGUAGE AND COGNITIVE SKILLS. 1010 DISADVANTAGED AND 225 NONDISADVANTAGED SUBJECTS WERE RANDOMLY ASSIGNED TO EXPERIMENTAL AND CONTROL GROUPS AND PRE- AND POST-TESTED WITH THE STANFORD-BINET…

Four-year old children in the New York State Experimental Prekindergarten Program (PreK) were administered three cognitive and two behavioral measures to determine if the data would provide sets of a smaller number of variables, to see if the variables overlapped, and to determine the appropriateness or redunduncy of the tests. The tests were: the…

AN INSTRUMENT FOR MEASURING VISUAL DISCRIMINATION ABILITY WITHOUT CONFOUNDING VARIABLES OF MOTOR SKILLS HAS BEEN CONSTRUCTED. TO AVOID THE EYE-HAND COORDINATION USUALLY REQUIRED ON THESE TESTS, A SELECTION, RATHER THAN A DRAWING, RESPONSE WAS DEVELOPED. THIS TEST, THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES DISCRIMINATION INVENTORY (VDI), CONSISTS…