Young children often struggle to answer the question "what would have happened?" particularly in cases where the adult-like "correct" answer has the same outcome as the event that actually occurred. Previous work has assumed that children fail because they cannot engage in accurate counterfactual simulations. Children have…

Multifocal attention is the ability to simultaneously attend to multiple objects, and is critical for typical functioning. Although adults are able to use multifocal attention, little is known about the development of this ability. In two experiments, we investigated multifocal attention in 6-8-year-old children and adults using a child-friendly,…

Purpose: Generalizations can be made about the order in which speech sounds are added to a child's phonemic inventory and the ways that child speech deviates from adult targets in a given language. Developmental and disordered speech patterns are presumed to reflect differences in both phonological knowledge and skilled motor control, but the…

Autism spectrum disorder symptom emergence is heterogeneous, yet literature comparing young children diagnosed early versus later is relatively scant. Toddlers diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder between 12 and 18 months (n = 20), 19 and 24 months (n = 65), or 25 and 41 months (n = 27) were compared on demographics, developmental functioning,…

Children seem to be relatively delayed in their comprehension of the verbal "be"-passive in English, compared to their acquisition of other constructions of object-movement such as "wh"-questions and unaccusatives. Prior work has found that children's performance on these passives can be affected by the verb's lexical…

Purpose: Children and early adolescents seem to have an advantage over adults in acquiring nonnative speech sounds, supported by evidence showing that earlier age of acquisition strongly predicts second language attainment. Although many factors influence children's ultimate success in language learning, it is unknown whether children rely on…

Poor school connectedness (SC), defined as students' feelings of belonging, safety, and fairness at school, is a risk factor for negative psychosocial outcomes. Few studies have examined the specific relationship between SC and anxiety. This study examined the relation between SC and anxiety within a group of 114 clinically anxious youth (mean age…

Adolescence is a critical period for social development, which COVID-19 has dramatically altered. Quarantined youths had limited in-person interactions with peers. The present study used an intensive longitudinal design to investigate changes in interpersonal dynamics and mental health during COVID-19. Specifically, we investigated whether the…

After the "1994 Gun-Free School Act," schools expanded the use of zero-tolerance policies with all Connecticut private high schools implementing punitive drug and alcohol policies. Based on the criminological theory of deterrence, zero-tolerance policies deliver severe and certain punishments designed to deter rational actors from…

"The College Payoff: More Education Doesn't Always Mean More Earnings" explores how lifetime earnings vary by education level, field of study, occupation, industry, gender, race and ethnicity, and location. The lifetime earnings of a full-time full-year worker with a high school diploma are $1.6 million, while workers with an associate's…

Word frequency is an important predictor of lexical-decision task performance. The current study further examined the role of this variable by exploring the influence of frequency trajectory. Frequency trajectory is measured by how often a word occurs in childhood relative to adulthood. Past research on the role of this variable in word…

Four studies explored developmental changes in attitudes toward boasting. Overall, 5- to 7-year-olds (N = 130) were more likely than 8- to 11-year-olds (N = 126) and adults (N = 263) to view characters who boasted about valued traits as likable. In Study 1, younger children, unlike the older participants, liked and morally valued boasters who were…

This report describes how Connecticut took steps to collect consistent attendance data by learning mode -- remote, in-person and hybrid -- and publicly released data in a timely manner during the pandemic. For example, the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) agreed upon a standard definition of attendance -- showing up to school for…

Suppose you are presented with 2 informants who have provided answers to the same question. One provides a precise and confident answer, and the other says that they do not know. If you were asked which of these 2 informants was more of an expert, intuitively you would select the informant who provided the certain answer over the ignorant…

Identifying change at the individual level is an important goal for researchers, educators, and clinicians. We present a set of statistical procedures for identifying individuals who depart from a normative change. Using Latent Change Scores models (LCS), we illustrate how the Individual Likelihood computed from a statistical model for change…