Discusses issues raised in "The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life" (Richard Herrnstein, Charles Murray), a controversial book that looks at the role of intelligence in shaping social structure. The authors' methodology, approach, and interpretations of statistical data are criticized. It is suggested that a…

Argues that an evolutionary perspective can unite the study of species-typical development and individual variation. Provides examples from the domains of personality, social, and intellectual development. Maintains that understanding the ways in which genes and environments work together helps developmentalists identify children who need…

A quantitative examination was made of the association of parental mood and anxiety disorders with severity of disability within a large sample of young children with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD). Maternal recurrent mood disorders were associated with elevated cognitive and adaptive functioning in their affected children, parent reports…

This hypothesis-driven laboratory exercise teaches how DNA evidence can be used to investigate an organism's evolutionary history while providing practical modeling of the fundamental processes of gene transcription and translation. We used an inquiry-based approach to construct a laboratory around a nontrivial, open-ended evolutionary question…

Historical perspectives on science serve to humanize the sciences, increase student motivation, communicate academic content, and convey the nature of science. This paper briefly reviews pertinent literature regarding the history of science and narrates the author's experiences of incorporating historical perspectives in high school biology…

Biology knowledge and understanding is important not only for the conversion of the loftiest dreams into reality for a better life of individuals but also for preparing secondary pupils for such fields as agriculture, medicine, biotechnology, and genetic engineering. But a recent study has revealed that many aspects of school science (biology…

Background: Given the importance of parenting for the child's early socio-emotional development, parenting perceptions and behaviours, and their correlates, should be assessed as early as possible in the child's life. The goals of the present study were 1) to confirm, in two parallel population-based samples, including a large sample of twins, the…

Background: Parent-child mutuality is comprised of emotional reciprocity, co-responsiveness, and cooperation, which together represent aspects of co-regulation of emotion and behavior that may be important in the etiology of children's behavior problems. Furthermore, individual differences in children's mutuality and behavior problems involve…

Experimental research suggests the differentiation of "nice" and "nasty" theory of mind (ToM). Over 5000 parents from the Twins Early Development Study reported on nice (e.g., being considerate) and nasty (e.g., blaming others) behaviours following their twins' second, third, and fourth birthdays. Factor analyses yielded four factors and it was…

In this article, we consider the theoretical debates and frameworks that have shaped research on language development and intervention in persons with mental retardation over the past four decades. Our starting point is the nativist theory, which has been espoused most forcefully by Chomsky. We also consider more recent alternatives to the…

This study examined whether family history of reading disability influences the efficacy of reading remediation. A retrospective review of children's performance in a reading remediation program was carried out along with parental interviews for 102 families. Significant improvements were found in the areas of nonword decoding, phonological…

Laboratory exercises using "Drosophila" crosses are an effective pedagogical method to complement traditional lecture and textbook presentations of genetics. Undergraduate thesis research is another common setting for using "Drosophila." A significant barrier to using "Drosophila" for undergraduate teaching or research is the time and skill…

"Name That Gene" is a simple classroom activity that incorporates bioinformatics (available biological information) into the classroom using "Basic Logical Alignment Search Tool (BLAST)." An excellent classroom activity involving bioinformatics and "BLAST" has been previously explored using sequences from bacteria, but it is tailored for college…

The aim of this study was to improve understanding of smokers' potential reactions to genetic testing for smoking-related diseases. One thousand twenty-four respondents completed a postal survey; 186 were smokers. Questions addressed anticipated psychological and behavioral reactions to genetic test results using hypothetical scenarios. Of…

Purpose: The primary goal of this case study was to describe the speech, prosody, and voice characteristics of a mother and daughter with a breakpoint in a balanced 7;13 chromosomal translocation that disrupted the transcription gene, "FOXP2" (cf. J. B. Tomblin et al., 2005). As with affected members of the widely cited KE family, whose…