This study compared the effect of stimulus inversion on 3- to 5-year-olds' recognition of faces and two nonface object categories matched with faces for a number of attributes: shoes (Experiment 1) and frontal images of cars (Experiments 2 and 3). The inversion effect was present for faces but not shoes at 3 years of age (Experiment 1). Analogous…

The parental report instrument is the most efficient developmental detection method and has shown high validity with professional assessment instruments. The reliability and validity of the Taiwan Birth Cohort Study (TBCS) 6-, 18- and 36-month scales have already been established. In this study, the reliability and validity of the 60-month scale…

A total of 271 early childhood professionals completed pre- and post training knowledge assessments in True-False only (TF) or True-False with "unsure" option formats (TFU). In Study 1, only TFU format was used. In Study 2, participants were randomly assigned to TF or TFU formats. Responses which were initially "unsure" were…

This study examined the bidirectional relationship between parenting and boys' externalizing behaviors in a four-wave longitudinal study of toddlers. Participants were 104 intact two-parent families with toddler sons. When their sons were 17, 23, 29, and 35 months of age, mothers and fathers reported on a broad range of parenting dimensions…

Background: The Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ) is a screening instrument with established validity against the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) in children aged 4 years and older. Indices of diagnostic accuracy have been shown to be strong in school-aged samples; however, relatively little is known about the performance of the…

Research suggests that exposure to books and other resources about people who look like them, and stories that reflect their world, may contribute to an infant and toddler of color's developing appreciation of self. The purpose of this study was to examine children's board books published between 2003 and 2008 to determine the representation of…

The authors assessed the reliability of the Autism Diagnostic Interview (ADI-R). Seven Clinical Examiners evaluated a three and one half year old female toddler suspected of being on the Autism Spectrum. Examiners showed agreement levels of 94-96% across all items, with weighted kappa (K[subscript w]) between 0.80 and 0.88. They were in 100%…

We investigated the congruent and criterion validity of the Aberrant Behavior Checklist (ABC) in a clinical sample of toddlers seen over 1 year in Turkey. All consecutive patients (N = 93), 14-43 months old (mean, 30.6 mos.), in a child psychiatry outpatient clinic were included. The ABC, Autism Behavior Checklist (AuBC), and Child Behavior…

This article examines caregiver speech to young children. The authors obtained several measures of the speech used to children during early language development (14-30 months). For all measures, they found substantial variation across individuals and subgroups. Speech patterns vary with caregiver education, and the differences are maintained over…

Teaching sign language--to deaf or other children with special needs or to hearing children with hard-of-hearing family members--is not new. Teaching sign language to typically developing children has become increasingly popular since the publication of "Baby Signs"[R] (Goodwyn & Acredolo, 1996), now in its third edition. Attention to signing with…

There is a scarcity of empirically validated treatments for infants and toddlers under age 3 years with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), as well as a scarcity of empirical investigation into successful intervention characteristics for this population. Yet early screening efforts are focused on identifying autism risk in children under age 3 years.…

Deficits in attention, communication, imitation, and play skills reduce opportunities for children with autism to learn from natural interactive experiences that occur throughout the day. These developmental delays are already present by the time these children reach the toddler period. The current study provided a brief 12 week, 1 hour per week,…

Several instruments have been developed to screen for autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in high-risk populations. However, few studies compare different instruments in one sample. Data were gathered from the "Early Screening of Autistic Traits Questionnaire," "Social Communication Questionnaire," "Communication and Symbolic…

The aim of the present study was to investigate the influence of maternal modeling on the acquisition of fear and avoidance towards fear-relevant and fear-irrelevant, novel stimuli in a sample of 71 toddlers. Children were shown a rubber snake or spider (fear-relevant objects) and a rubber mushroom or flower (fear-irrelevant objects), which were…

The prevalence of traumatic stress in the lives of families who are homeless is extraordinarily high. Often these families are headed by single mothers who have experienced ongoing trauma in the form of childhood abuse and neglect, domestic violence, and community violence, as well as the trauma associated with poverty and the loss of home,…