Presents a framework for relating degree of bilingualism to aspects of linguistic awareness. Found the more fully bilingual a child was, the better his or her performance on metalinguistic tasks requiring high levels of analysis of knowledge. (SKC)

Examined developmental changes in maternal control strategies and children's responses to maternal directives. Found that: (1) maternal control strategies shifted from physical to verbal modalities with age; (2) maternal explanations, bargaining, and reprimands increased with age; and (3) children's passive noncompliance and defiance decreased…

Responds to criticisms of the author's study concerning children's interpretations of ambiguous referential communications. (HOD)

Replies to B.P. Ackerman's response to the authors' comments on his study concerning children's interpretations of ambiguous referential communications. (HOD)

In this study children between the ages of 3 and 6 years were each presented with six number problems in which length and density were varied according to the proposed composition rules. (Authors)

Determined whether young children's inconsistent production of sentence subjects was due to limitations in their knowledge of English or in their ability to access and use that knowledge. Subjects were 19 young children from 1 to 2 years old. Found that processing limitations, rather than defective grammar, explain the missing subjects in very…

Found support for a path-analytic model correlating the child outcomes of child's level of play, negative peer interaction, and physical health. (RH)

Children were asked whether someone would get sick from drinking juice placed near a bug. Some preschoolers and most seven- and eight-year olds recognized the need for physical contact with the bug to make the juice noxious, whereas some believed the mere presence of a contaminant made it noxious. Thus, associational contamination sometimes plays…

Examined the development of compliance and self-assertion toward parents in two-, four-, and six-year-old children. Found that older children were more compliant, more likely to use logical argument, and less likely to ignore. Boys showed higher levels of compliance to their fathers, whereas girls were more likely to state their preferences and to…

Six experiments examined how children approach the task of learning novel count nouns. Findings indicated that three- and four-year olds function with an antithematic bias and that children do not reliably extend novel count nouns to subordinate exemplars when perceptual similarity is controlled until about age 7. (MDM)

Controlling for early sensorimotor differences, found that high levels of distress and anger expressed by children at age three months predicted low cognitive scores at four years. Controlling for early emotional and sensorimotor differences, found that high levels of maternal responsiveness in the same group of children predicted high cognitive…

Videotaped preschoolers playing while experimenter covertly placed and later removed a large sticker on their head. Procedure was repeated one week later. Found that most four- and five-year-olds who observed video taken three minutes earlier reached for the sticker, but few who saw video taken a week earlier did so. Fewer than half of the…

Two studies had children role-play successful and unsuccessful tasks to test the hypothesis that both criticism and praise that conveyed person or trait judgments could send a message of contingent worth and undermine subsequent coping. Found that 5- to 6-year olds displayed significantly more "helpless" responses after person criticism or praise…

Children's attachment patterns at early preschool age and 2 years later as well as factors related to stability-instability were examined in a diverse socioeconomic status French Canadian sample of 120 children. Attachment was assessed during 2 laboratory visits using separation-reunion procedures when the children were approximately 3.5 (J.…

Compared head circumference and interaural distance in infants between birth and 22 weeks of age and in a small sample of preschool children and adults. Calculated changes in interaural time differences according to age. Found a large shift in distance. (SKC)