Although mental imagery's positive role in reading comprehension is clear, the means of introducing imagery to young readers is comparatively vague. Mental imagery's very nature, being nonverbal, invisible, and often unconscious, results in a mismatch with standard instructional practices. Verbal explanations of nonverbal phenomenon fall short.…

Alcohol use was studied in 158 adolescents with visual impairments and 537 sighted adolescents in Germany. The students with visual impairments reported lower levels of alcohol use and drunkenness, and between-group differences increased across adolescence. The lower alcohol use by students with visual impairments was explained, in part, by the…

Independent youth migration is socially embedded in many African societies. While it is often exclusively perceived of as a process of intergenerational negotiation which leads to higher social positions after returning home, this article points out that peer influences play a major role in the process of decision-making of leaving and returning…

In a large sample of early adolescents (T2: N = 1023; M age = 13.51; 55.5% girls), the impact of parental protection and unsupervised wandering on adolescents' antisocial behavior 2.5 years later was tested in this TRAILS study; gender and parental knowledge were controlled for. In addition, the level of biological maturation and having antisocial…

Developmental trajectories of risky sexual behavior were identified in a multiethnic sample of 1,121 youth drawn from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data set (NLSY79). Group-based trajectory modeling of a composite index of sexual risk taking revealed four sexual risk groups from ages 16 to 22: low risk, decreasing risk,…

The author examined purposes for doing homework as perceived by 969 eighth-grade students from 52 classes and 831 11th-grade students from 45 classes. Through an exploratory factor analysis, 15 homework purposes were reduced to a 3-factor structure: peer-oriented, adult-oriented, and learning-oriented reasons. A series of 3 multilevel models were…

Background: The presence of callous-unemotional (CU) features may delineate a severe and persistent form of conduct problems in children with unique developmental origins. Contextual risk factors such as poor parenting, delinquent peers, or neighborhood risk are believed to influence the development of conduct problems primarily in children with…

The purpose of this study was to examine individual, family, peer, and community risk and protective factors associated with past-30-days alcohol and marijuana use among African-American adolescents living in rural and urban communities. This study used data collected from 907 tenth- and twelfth-grade African-American students who completed the…

Few studies have explored the possible contribution of the peer group to dating violence victimization. The current study tested the hypothesis that a risky lifestyle would mediate the relationship between deviant peer affiliation and dating violence victimization among adolescent girls. The proposed mediation model was derived from lifestyles and…

In this article, the author suggests that children with language impairments have difficulty working in groups because of deficits in the area of pragmatic language. Pragmatic language skills are identified and suggestions for intervention in the general education classroom are discussed. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)

Objective: The current study was designed to explore the prevalence of child sexual abuse (CSA) and its association with health risk behaviors (i.e., smoking, alcohol use, binge drinking, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempt) among rural children and adolescents in China. Methods: A sample of 683 rural children and adolescents (8 to 18 years of…

Adolescence heralds a unique period of vulnerability to depressive symptoms. This longitudinal study examined relational victimization in adolescents' peer relationships as a unique predictor of depressive symptoms among a primarily (85%) Caucasian sample of 540 youth (294 females) concurrently and across a 6-year period. The moderating effects of…

There is a burgeoning line of criminological research examining the genetic underpinnings to a wide array of antisocial phenotypes. From this perspective, genes are typically viewed as risk factors that increase the odds of various maladaptive behaviors. However, genes can also have protective effects that insulate against the deleterious effects…

While the number of children diagnosed with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders (HFASD) continues to rise, the number of research-based methods to meet the needs of this population lags behind. Social dysfunction is perhaps the most pervasive and debilitating deficit for those diagnosed with HFASD. This article presents a narrative review…

Although physical activity may provide a means for adolescents to improve their physical appearance and subsequently lessen body-related concerns, the fear of being negatively evaluated by others can act as a barrier to physical activity. Moreover, environments where people are constantly looked at and evaluated--such as physical education…