The construct of "empathy" embodies a number of characteristics necessary for psychological health in children. Surprisingly, most research has been based solely on children and adolescent report and observational measures despite evidence that multi-informant assessment is fundamental to the accurate measurement of such constructs. We present…

Theory of mind is claimed to develop universally among humans across cultures with vastly different folk psychologies. However, in the attempt to test and confirm a claim of universality, individual studies have been limited by small sample sizes, sample specificities, and an overwhelming focus on Anglo-European children. The current meta-analysis…

We present a domain-general framework called "constrained attentional associative learning" to provide a developmental account for how and when infants form concepts for animates and inanimates that encapsulate not only their surface appearance but also their movement characteristics. Six simulations with the same general-purpose architecture…

Background: Children with cleft lip and palate are at risk for psychological problems. Difficulties in mother-child interactions may be relevant, and could be affected by the timing of lip repair. Method: We assessed cognitive development, behaviour problems, and attachment in 94 infants with cleft lip (with and without cleft palate) and 96…

In this paper it is proposed that the prefrontal lobe participates in two closely related but different executive function abilities: (1) "metacognitive executive functions": problem solving, planning, concept formation, strategy development and implementation, controlling attention, working memory, and the like; that is, executive functions as…

This paper proposes a cultural-developmental approach to moral psychology. The approach builds on and synthesizes findings from different research traditions, including the cognitive-developmental, domain, two orientations, three ethics, and moral identity traditions. The paper introduces a conception termed a "cultural-developmental template."…

We examined the effect of 4-month-old infants' previous experience with dogs, cats, or both and their online looking behavior on their learning of the adult-defined category of "cat" in a visual familiarization task. Four-month-old infants' (N = 123) learning in the laboratory was jointly determined by whether or not they had experience…

The present study examined children's implicit and explicit knowledge of linear and non-linear processes. Five- and nine-year-olds (N = 60) were asked to forecast linear and exponential growth by providing the corresponding number of beads. Implicit knowledge was assessed via the magnitudes of the forecasts; explicit knowledge was investigated…

Eye direction detection has been claimed to be intact in autism, but the development of this skill has not been investigated. Eleven children with autism and 11 typically developing children performed a demanding face-to-face eye direction detection task. Younger children with autism demonstrated a deficit in this skill, relative to younger…

Methodological ingenuity and deep knowledge of expected development are combined by Immordino-Yang to produce an enlightening analysis of 2 hemispherectomized youths. Specific lessons to be drawn from her article include the following: the limitations of anatomy in predicting function; the need for educators to understand fully the…

One of the most important issues in Tibetan education is resolving the problem of instruction language in the Tibetan regions. This paper provides a preliminary exploration of this issue and makes some proposals based on the bilingual state of today's education in the Tibetan regions and the needs of Tibetan as a language of instruction for social…

Throughout the author's career as an art educator in public schools and at the university level, a perplexing question has recurred: "Why teach art?" This query never fails to surprise her, for in her estimation the arts are at the very core of all art educators need to know and what they should be teaching. As art teachers--regardless of where or…

This experiment aimed to expand previous findings on the development of mental number representation. We tested the hypothesis that children's familiarity with numbers is directly reflected by the shape of their mental number line. This mental number line was expected to be linear as long as numbers lay within the range of numbers children were…

Viewing challenging behavior as the result of lagging skills (kids do well if they can) rather than as poor motivation (kids do well if they want to) has significant ramifications for how adults interact with kids with behavioral challenges and try to help them. A wide range of lagging skills can set the stage for challenging behavior. Challenging…

This study examines skillful EFL writers' and less skillful writers' EFL performance and perceptions of paraphrasing and inappropriate text borrowing, the extent to which their performance matches perceptions, and the factors behind their problematic text borrowing. Ninety-five postgraduates and undergraduates in Taiwan accomplished a paraphrasing…