This paper estimates models of the evolution of cognitive and noncognitive skills and explores the role of family environments in shaping these skills at different stages of the life cycle of the child. Central to this analysis is identification of the technology of skill formation. We estimate a dynamic factor model to solve the problem of…

Research on the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy, and in particular, exposure with response prevention for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), has only been systematically evaluated in children and adolescents ages 7-17. These treatments do not address the unique characteristics of young children with OCD. This paper discusses…

Perceptual grouping by luminance similarity and by proximity was investigated in infants with Williams syndrome (WS) aged between 6 and 36 months (visit 1, N=29). WS infants who were still under 36 months old, 8 months later, repeated the testing procedure (visit 2, N=15). Performance was compared to typically developing (TD) infants aged from 2…

Oral tradition has a long and valued history in Native American cultures and communities. In the past and still today, reading has had lesser value among many Native Americans. But oral tradition can be a vehicle toward improved literacy. This article uses literacy stories from Native American people, as well as quotes from prominent Native…

During adolescence the body undergoes many physical changes. These changes necessitate an updating of internal models of action. Here, we tested the hypothesis that internal models undergo refinement between adolescence and adulthood. We investigated the chronometry of executed and imagined hand actions, which relies on internal models, in 40…

Infants represent the acts of others and their own acts in commensurate terms. They can recognize cross-modal equivalences between acts they see others perform and their own felt bodily movements. This recognition of self-other equivalences in action gives rise to interpreting others as having similar psychological states such as perceptions and…

In the present experiment, we used a deferred imitation paradigm to explore the effect of crawling on memory retrieval by 9-month-old human infants. Infants observed an experimenter demonstrate a single target action with a novel object and their ability to reproduce that action was assessed after a 24-hr delay. Some infants were tested with the…

The study reported in this article examines primary teachers' understandings of thinking skills within the curriculum. All respondents were from primary schools within a local authority in central Scotland, and in total thirty-six schools were represented. Practitioners' perceptions were explored by analysing their quantitative responses to…

This study describes a longitudinal design (following subjects described in Rutherford & Rogers [2003, "Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorder", 33, 289-302]) to test for predictors of pretend play competence in a group of children with autism. We tested the hypothesis that developmental change in pretend play performance can be predicted by…

This paper reports findings from a follow-up evaluation of a short inservice course designed to enable teachers to assess and teach pupils with PMLD more effectively by combining the use of custom built ICT hardware and software (the Declan materials) and cognitive developmental psychology. The Declan materials were introduced to teachers at a…

The Speech Fluency Profile of fluent adolescent speakers of Brazilian Portuguese, were examined with respect to gender and neurolinguistic variations. Speech samples of 130 male and female adolescents, aged between 12;0 and 17;11 years were gathered. They were analysed according to type of speech disruption; speech rate; and frequency of speech…

Recent literature suggests that emerging adults are more likely to use individualistic criteria to define adulthood, rather than traditional criteria such as role transitions and family capacities. In this study of 425 college students from a northeastern university, we identified several sources of variation in both the ways in which young people…

This paper explores the public awareness that there presently exists a crisis in mathematics education and a "dumbing down" of the curriculum, examines the nature of this crisis and argues that there has been a lowering of cultural, pedagogical and cognitive expectations with respect to most learners. The notion of cognitive development in…

Political events both in the United States and around the world have led to a resurgence of interest in citizenship education. With this in mind, we conducted a study in rural schools to determine the perceptions of eighth and eleventh grade students regarding citizenship. We wanted to find out what rural students believe are the attributes of a…

The nation's child protection system (CPS) has historically focused on preventing maltreatment in high-risk families, whose children have already been maltreated. But, as Jane Waldfogel explains, it has also begun developing prevention procedures for children at lower risk--those who are referred to CPS but whose cases do not meet the criteria for…