Residential crowding in both U.S. and U.K. samples of 36-month-old children is related concurrently to the Bracken scale, a standard index of early cognitive development skills including letter and color identification, shape recognition, and elementary numeric comprehension. In the U.S. sample, these effects also replicate prospectively.…

Counselors are required to have high levels of social-cognitive development, significant knowledge regarding ethical and legal practice, and sound ethical decision-making processes to provide effective and ethical services to their clients. This study investigated the effect of two counseling ethics courses on 64 master's-level counselor education…

We know that social competence contributes to young children's adaptation to, and cognitive learning within, classroom settings. Yet initial evidence is mixed on the social competencies that Latino children bring to kindergarten and the extent to which these skills advance cognitive growth. Building from ecocultural and developmental-risk theory,…

This study examined developmental associations between growth in domain-general cognitive processes (working memory and attention control) and growth in domain-specific skills (emergent literacy and numeracy) across the prekindergarten year and their relative contributions to kindergarten reading and math achievement. One hundred sixty-four Head…

The relation between preschoolers' concept of teaching and theory of mind was explored to determine if there is a developmental change in understanding how teaching depends on knowledge and belief. The study tested whether 3- to 6-year-olds thought the awareness of a knowledge difference is necessary for teaching. The 3- and 4-year-olds understood…

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is a lifelong condition that significantly affects the individual's learning, development, behavior, family, and quality of life. Diagnosing children with this condition and providing effective supports is challenging for professionals because little intervention research has been performed with the…

Economic inequality is high and rising in a number of developed countries, including in the United Kingdom and the United States. There are growing concerns that this may have negative implications for equality of opportunity, and the extent to which social disadvantage is transmitted across generations. It is widely believed that providing…

The children's gambling task (CGT [Kerr, A., & Zelazo, P. D. (2004). Development of "Hot" executive function: The children's gambling task. "Brain and Cognition," 55, 148-157]) involves integrating information about losses and gains to maximize winnings when selecting cards from two decks. Both cognitive complexity and control (CCC) theory and…

According to cognitive complexity and control (CCC) theory complexity depends on number of levels of a hierarchy of rules. According to relational complexity (RC) theory complexity is a function of the number of related variables in the task, and the most difficult tasks are those in which there is a constraint on decomposition into simpler…

We applied overlapping waves theory and microgenetic methods to examine how children improve their estimation proficiency, and in particular how they shift from reliance on immature to mature representations of numerical magnitude. We also tested the theoretical prediction that feedback on problems on which the discrepancy between two…

This article presents the author's response to Joseph Reimer's article titled, "Beyond More Jews Doing Jewish: Clarifying the Goals of Informal Jewish Education." Reimer's essay on the goals of informal education is a welcome contribution to discussions about whether and how Jewish education may contribute to the continuity of Jews and Judaism…

The effects of prenatal stress on cognition and behavioral fearfulness in infants are studied. The findings suggest that mechanisms by which mental development and fearfulness are affected by prenatal stress are different and do not present a consistent relation.

The assessment and structure of personality traits and small group learning during classroom discussions are both research fields that have undergone fast development in the past few decades. However, very few studies have investigated the relationship between individual personality characteristics and performance in discussions, especially with…

Nearly 14% of people over age 71 have some form of dementia, with prevalence increasing to nearly 40% of those over age 90. As dimentia progresses, it impacts a person's independent functions and can increase the burden on caregivers. The use of assistive devices can help individuals with dementia live more independently. However, older…

This article is about student learning, specifically the problem of what a university can do to develop its students' powers of learning. The broad approach is to discover what we can learn from the university's long experience with developing students' critical faculties and then apply the lessons to developing students' powers of learning. The…