These comments on EC 604 103, concerning child temperament effects on the special education process and outcomes, focus on how the author became interested in the topic, reasons for the paucity of research in this area, the relationship between child temperament and parental temperament, and ways in which teachers can apply the research. (JDD)

Author Joseph Chilton discusses parents' roles in child rearing, the importance of nurturing, and how negative and positive childhood experiences affect one's emotional and physical health throughout life. Describes neurocardiology, which is documenting the biological connections between the brain and heart and lifting the wisdom and intelligence…

Surveyed middle school students on incidents of bullying and victimization. Found that psychosocial and behavioral predictors such as problem behaviors, attitudes toward deviance, peer influences, depressive symptoms, school-related functioning, and parenting linearly separated never bullied or victimized students from the victim group, from the…

Analysis of Iowa Youth and Families Project data found three distinct routes to 4-year college attendance: the traditional path of youth with professional/managerial parents; farm youth's use of parents' community ties; and the path of resourceful lower-status rural youth, whose attainment grew from early educational ambition and varied community…

This study compared 20 young deaf children with either exceptionally good or exceptionally poor spoken language for their hearing loss, age, and intelligence. Factors associated with high performance included earlier use of binaural ear-level aids, better educated mothers, auditory/verbal or auditory/oral instruction, reliance on spoken language…

Examined relationship between family literacy practices and mothers' beliefs about early reading instruction, and children's emergent literacy skills. Identified mothers with 'whole language' theories and mothers with phonics orientations. Found that mothers' implicit theories were associated with their modeling of literacy behaviors, helping…

Explored gender differences in school achievement and perceived parental and familial influences on school grades with 525 rural and urban secondary students. Differences in achievement and perceptions can be attributed to parents' differential socialization practices for females and males, and similarities to less sex-role stereotyping by…

A multidimensional model is presented for understanding an ecological perspective to the study of development in language minority children. Socioeconomic and sociocultural factors influencing language minority child development are discussed, with emphasis on the effects of cultural familial factors and home language use. Recommendations for…

The present study compared the modelling and control theories of parental influence on children's eating attitudes and behaviour with a focus on snack foods. Matched questionnaires describing reported snack intake, eating motivations and body dissatisfaction were completed by 112 parent/child pairs. Parents completed additional items relating to…

The proportion of low-achieving children in a class can affect the progress of individual pupils in that class. Having a large proportion of low achievers in a class could slow down growth in cognitive achievement but, might also boost such growth, due to the effects of specialist teaching geared to low achievers' needs. In a longitudinal study of…

This study used a community-wide survey of adolescents to compare adolescent perceptions of parental support, knowledge, and authoritative decision making in samples of Hmong and European Americans. Additional analyses considered variation in parental influence on adolescent outcomes across these groups. The results suggested that Hmong American…

Children's internalizing problems are a concerning mental health issue, due to significant prevalence and continuity over time. This study tested a multivariate model predicting young children's internalizing behaviors from parenting practices, parents' anxiety-depression and family stressors. A community sample of 2 year old children (N=112) was…

A behaviorally-uninhibited temperament, callous-unemotional (CU) features, and harsh parenting have been associated with specific patterns of aggressive behavior in older children and adolescents. We tested the additive and interactive effects of these factors in predicting different types of aggressive behavior in a high-risk preschool sample.…

This study examines students' and parents' choices in one district that recently began offering a new problem-centered high school mathematics program aligned with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards, in addition to its traditional mathematics sequence. Despite the district's previous implementation of Standards-based…

This multi-method study sought to identify parameters of developmental change and stability of child reaction patterns to interparental conflict in the context of family relations in a sample of 223 6-year-old children and their parents followed over the course of one year. Consistent with the sensitization hypothesis, interparental withdrawal and…