This digest explores some of the reasons for spanking, examines its effectiveness, and suggests alternative discipline methods. Many parents believe that spanking will teach children not to do things that are forbidden, stop them quickly when they are being irritating, and encourage them to do what they should. Others believe nonphysical forms of…

In comparing research conducted in the Netherlands and the United States on parental reports of child behavior, this document reports several studies in which Dutch parents of children ages 3 to 36 months completed a translated version of Bates' Infant Characteristics Questionnaire (ICQ). In the first part of the Dutch study, 7,000 parents…

Addressing methodological limitations, Study One compared parent-child interactions of normal and language-delayed children; Study Two investigated whether mothers adjust the length of their utterances to the child's ability to comprehend or to produce language; Study Three probed interactional variables associated with variations in the…

Explores the ability of 5 children aged 1 month to 30 months to initiate and maintain topics of conversation. The data demonstrate that at the beginning of development children simply attract attention to themselves as the topic of conversation and that later, as their interests broaden, their topic repertoire expands. (Author/SED)

Offers practical information in chart and list format for presenting literature to infants and toddlers in group settings. Highlights include developmental characteristics; sample book titles to match to age characteristics; strategies for planning and presenting storytimes; related resources; and a bibliography. (Author/LRW)

A study investigated the degree of association between parent-reported language scores at ages 1,2, and 3 years, and the cumulative duration of middle-ear effusion (MEE) during the first 3 years in 621 children. At age 3, the cumulative duration of MEE significantly contributed to the variance in parent-reported scores. (Contains references.) (CR)

The relation between mastery motivation and expressive language was studied in 200 children (ages 7-67 months) with hearing loss. When demographic and hearing loss variables were entered into a regression equation, increased social/symbolic persistence was significantly related, and increased object-oriented persistence was marginally related, to…

Investigated development of working memory in the transitional period from infancy to preschool years. The age-related increase in scores on the Imitation Sorting Task (IST) appeared to be about one unit every six months. Results suggest that the IST has a good construct validity. (AA)

Twenty-eight toddlers with slow expressive language development were compared to normally speaking age-mates and found to show delayed rather than deviant development in the average level of complexity of their syllable structures, the number of different consonant phonemes produced, and the percentage of consonants correctly produced in…

Two studies: evaluated the consistency of toddlers' motor activity level over time and across situations; and examined the relations between several measures of activity level and ratings of problem behavior in toddlers. Found that activity level was stable when measured by the same methods in the same situation but not across methods or across…

In a study of differential socialization of boys and girls by mothers and fathers, families of 12 and 18 month olds, and 5 year olds, were examined at home. There were several differences in mothers' and fathers' reactions to boys and girls. Implications for further studies of parental sex-role socialization are discussed. (GLR)

Tested understanding of correspondence on the part of 2.5- to 3.5-year olds who watched a toy hidden in a model and tried to find an analogous toy in a room. Retrieval scores increased with increasing model-room similarity; were higher for older than younger children; and were affected by object and size similarity. (BC)

Mothers' and fathers' responses to their children's spontaneous sibling conflicts were observed. Findings indicated that associations between parents' conflict management strategy and sibling interaction quality varied according to children's ages, gender of the monitoring parent, and type of strategy. Passive nonintervention was highly associated…

Background: Using longitudinal data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, we examined behavior problems and social and academic outcomes from ages 9 through 12 in children classified into five trajectories of physical aggression, on the basis of maternal ratings obtained from 24 months through 9 years (N = 1195). Methods:…

Despite previous research indicating that early negative child behavior and the quality of parent-child relationships are predictive of later externalizing problems, few investigators have attempted to trace these antecedents back to infancy. In a sample of 100 infants from low-income families, infant persistence and maternal responsiveness were…