The transaction of children's core language skill and their home learning environment was assessed across 5 waves from infancy (15 months) up to adolescence (11 years) in 1,751 low-socioeconomic status families. Child core language skill and the quality of the home learning environment were each stable across waves, and the two covaried at each…

This study examined the longitudinal associations of various executive function components with subsequent psychiatric problems in Chinese school-age children. Data from 1,639 children (44.36% girls) ages 6-13 years were drawn from the Children School Functions and Brain Development project. Executive function components were assessed by the…

This study examined the consequences of negative change in mothers' implicit appraisals of their adolescents after engaging in a family disagreement. Participants included 194 mothers and their early adolescents (M[subscript age] = 12.4 at Wave 1; 50% female) followed over 1 year. Mothers' implicit appraisals of her child as "unlovable"…

Identity formation is a key developmental task in adolescence. Although many adolescents in modern societies face issues of identity, there are substantial individual differences in identity exploration and commitment. Little is known about the origins of these individual differences. The current study investigated the genetic and environmental…

Peer cultures of effort and achievement influence early adolescents' academic adjustment. A randomized controlled trials design was used to test the extent to which aspects of peer cultures of effort and achievement were enhanced following teachers' participation in the Supporting Early Adolescents' Learning and Social Success (SEALS)…

The aim of the 6th phase of this longitudinal study was to establish whether children born through assisted reproduction involving reproductive donation were at risk for psychological problems following the transition to adolescence at age 14 and, if so, to examine the nature of these problems and the mechanisms involved. Eighty-seven families…

We examined the joint role of constructive and destructive interparental conflict in predicting children's emotional insecurity and psychological problems. In Study 1, 250 early adolescents (M = 12.6 years) and their primary caregivers completed assessments of family and child functioning. In Study 2, 201 mothers and their 2-year-old children…

The literature proposes that leisure boredom may systematically increase during adolescence. Moreover, some authors assume that this hypothesized developmental trend is associated with increases in youthful delinquency and depression. Individual dispositions (e.g., temperamental disinhibition) are believed to exacerbate the relationship between…

How and why do internalizing and externalizing problems, psychopathological problems from different diagnostic classes representing separate forms of psychopathology, co-occur in children? We investigated the development of pure and co-occurring internalizing and externalizing problems from ages 2 to 12 with the use of latent class growth…

The present study examined to what extent different types of friendship experiences (i.e., friendlessness, having depressed friends, and having nondepressed friends) are associated with early adolescents' longitudinal trajectories of depressed mood. On the basis of a sample of 201 youths (108 girls, 93 boys), we identified 3 distinct longitudinal…

The creation and cultivation of an imaginary companion is considered to be a healthy form of pretend play in early childhood, but there tends to be a less positive view of older children who have them. To test the extent that having an imaginary companion in middle school is associated with positive or negative outcomes, an ethnically diverse…

The present study examines reciprocal associations between marital functioning and adolescent maladjustment using cross-lagged autoregressive models. The research involved 451 early adolescents and their families and used a prospective, longitudinal research design with multi-informant methods. Results indicate that parental conflicts over child…

Data from a prospective 11-year longitudinal survey were used to identify early predictors and pathways to symptoms of anxiety and depression at 12-13 years of age, and to examine whether there were unique predictors of anxious versus depressive symptoms. Structural equation modeling was used to explore longitudinal relations between contextual…

This study examined online communication on social networking web pages in a longitudinal sample of 92 youths (39 male, 53 female). Participants' social and behavioral adjustment was assessed when they were ages 13-14 years and again at ages 20-22 years. At ages 20-22 years, participants' social networking website use and indicators of friendship…

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of cumulative risk exposure in concert with maternal responsiveness on physiological indicators of chronic stress in children and youth. Middle-school children exposed to greater accumulated psychosocial (e.g., family turmoil, poverty) and physical (e.g., crowding, substandard housing) risk…