There are a number of compelling reasons that justify attention to and implementation of non-familial adult participation in the lives of youth, through mentoring and intergenerational activities and programs. This article describes the rationale for activities that connect youth and older non-familial adults together in meaningful and productive…

This study investigates how program evaluation has contributed to the definition of quality in early childhood programs and what social and cultural conditions have influenced these definitions. First, a review of evaluation reports from the last 3 decades identified three types of quality used to evaluate early childhood programs: (a)…

We hypothesized that the difficulties of the child with autism originate from disorders of organization and regulation of actions according to environmental changes. Autism impoverishes general mental representation skills, which are the basis of symbolic play and the development of communication. Twenty-one children with autism were compared with…

A relationship between brain responses at birth and later emerging language and reading skills have been shown, but questions remain whether changes in brain responses after birth continue to predict the mastery of language-related skills such as reading development. To determine whether developmental changes in the brain-based perceptual skills…

The expansion of early childhood services has brought increasing recognition of the need to address mental health disorders in young children. The transactional perspective of developmental psychopathology is the basis for review of diagnostic frameworks for young children. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) is…

This paper reviews how cascading levels of contextual influences, starting with family factors and extending to neighborhood and school factors, can affect children's behavioral and emotional development. The ability of contextual factors to trigger or to attenuate children's underlying temperament and biological risk factors is emphasized.…

The authors studied sex-typing in the kinds (e.g., sports, handicrafts) and social contexts (same- vs. other-sex companions) of children's free time activities, and the links between sex-typed activities and gender development over 2 years. Participants were 200 White, working- and middle-class children (103 girls, 97 boys; mean age = 10.86…

This study examined the effects of mothers' style of interaction on children's interactive engagement. The study consisted of a sample of 30 children from Korea, including chronologically age-matched groups of children with disabilities (n = 13) and children without disabilities (n = 17). Parents were videotaped while playing with their children…

The parent-child programme at Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital was developed in 1991 to assist families in coping with young children who were at risk of or had been diagnosed with communication difficulties. The programme attempts to move away from the traditional medical model of service delivery towards a more family-focused approach. Children…

Challenging behaviour in children with learning disabilities seems to emerge as the result of an interaction between biological vulnerability and environmental risk, and studies indicate that the development of this behaviour to some extent may be prevented through adaptations of the social environment. Early intervention should have a pivotal…

Defines ways normative concerns enter into the design and interpretation of empirical research on children's development of justice conceptions. Emphasizes William Damon's stage theory of development. Suggests an alternative research program based on adjustments between the normative and the empirical. Argues this program must focus on children's…

This paper discusses the potential of the childcare centre as a child-rearing niche and is based on data collection and research carried out in childcare centres. The everyday experiences of infants were recorded on video over a period of eighteen months. These experiences were coded using a number of communicative language categories as well as…

This article describes the "Discovery Time" programme, a largely child-directed developmental programme, and discusses it in relation to the sociocultural approach to learning. It considers the effects of the programme on the development of children's oral language and cooperative social skills in a Year 1 classroom. Survey information…

Background: Fragile X syndrome is one of the world's leading hereditary causes of developmental delay in males. The past decade has witnessed an explosion of research that has begun to unravel the condition at its various levels: from the genetic and brain levels to the cognitive level, and then to the environmental and behavioural levels. Our aim…

We present a developmental model that describes normal peer relations and highlights processes that underlie the emergence of problems with peers in childhood. We propose that children's relationships with peers begin in the first years of life, with stable individual differences and preferences for particular peers emerging by three years of age.…