This study investigated the extent to which class-specific parameter estimates are biased by the within-class normality assumption in nonnormal growth mixture modeling (GMM). Monte Carlo simulations for nonnormal GMM were conducted to analyze and compare two strategies for obtaining unbiased parameter estimates: relaxing the within-class normality…

The use of assisted reproduction technology has increased over the last two decades. Autism spectrum disorders and assisted reproduction technology share many risk factors. However, previous studies on the association between autism spectrum disorders and assisted reproduction technology have shown inconsistent results. The purpose of this study…

Nonnormality of univariate data has been extensively examined previously (Blanca et al., 2013; Micceri, 1989). However, less is known of the potential nonnormality of multivariate data although multivariate analysis is commonly used in psychological and educational research. Using univariate and multivariate skewness and kurtosis as measures of…

Complex surveys are often used to estimate causal effects regarding the effects of interventions or exposures of interest. Propensity scores (Rosenbaum & Rubin, 1983) have emerged as one popular and effective tool for causal inference in non-experimental studies, as they can help ensure that groups being compared are similar with respect to a…

Growth curve modeling provides a general framework for analyzing longitudinal data from social, behavioral, and educational sciences. Bayesian methods have been used to estimate growth curve models, in which priors need to be specified for unknown parameters. For the covariance parameter matrix, the inverse Wishart prior is most commonly used due…

Autism spectrum disorder diagnoses sometimes change due to misdiagnosis, maturation, or treatment. This study uses a probability-based national survey--the Survey of Pathways to Diagnosis and Services--to compare currently diagnosed (n = 1,420) and previously diagnosed (n = 187) children aged 6-17 years based on retrospective parental reports of…

In 2 studies, we attempted to capture the information-processing abilities underlying children's reality-status judgments. Forty 5- to 6-year-olds and 53 7- to 8-year-olds heard about novel entities (animals) that varied in their fit with children's world knowledge. After hearing about each entity, children could either guess reality status…

In order to shed more light on why referred girls are less likely to be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder than boys, this study examined whether behavioral characteristics influence the probability of an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis differently in girls versus boys derived from a multicenter sample of consecutively referred children…

Three experiments examined children's and adults' abilities to use statistical and temporal information to distinguish between common cause and causal chain structures. In Experiment 1, participants were provided with conditional probability information and/or temporal information and asked to infer the causal structure of a 3-variable mechanical…

In observational studies, selection bias will be completely removed only if the selection mechanism is ignorable, namely, all confounders of treatment selection and potential outcomes are reliably measured. Ideally, well-grounded substantive theories about the selection process and outcome-generating model are used to generate the sample of…

In this article, we present a study to test whether neutral observers perceive a resemblance between a parent and a child. We demonstrate the general approach for two separate parent/ child pairs using survey data collected from introductory statistics students serving as neutral observers. We then present ideas for incorporating the study design…

Background: This study investigates gaze behaviour in child dialogues. In earlier studies the authors have investigated the use of requests for clarification and responses in order to study the co-creation of understanding in a referential communication task. By adding eye tracking, this line of research is now expanded to include non-verbal…

Determining the effectiveness of many special education interventions is most difficult because of the practical and ethical limitations associated with assigning participants to a control or non-treated group. Using Longitudinal Study of Australian Children data, this article utilised eight different propensity score analysis methods to determine…

This article reconsiders the association between childhood arts participation and cognitive and developmental outcomes. Using data from a large, nationally representative sample with extensive covariates, we employ propensity score weighting to adjust comparisons of children who do and do not participate in arts education (music and performing…

Objectives: To identify factors associated with repeat emergency department (ED) presentations for suicide-related behaviors (SRB)--hereafter referred to as repetition--among children/youth to aid secondary prevention initiatives. To compare rates of repetition in children/youth with substantiated maltreatment requiring removal from their parental…