Questioning others is one of the most powerful methods that children use to learn about the world. How does questioning develop? How is it socialized? And how can questioning be leveraged to support learning and education? In this volume, some of the world's leading experts are brought together to explore critical issues in the development of…

Evidence strongly suggests that shared book reading at home and in preschool is important for young children's development of the foundational skills required for the eventual mastery of decoding and comprehension. Yet the nuances of how learning from book reading might vary across these contexts and with children's skills are not well understood.…

This exploratory study examines the mother's perceptions of her preschooler's acculturation process, using qualitative methods to collect data from six Latino immigrant mothers about their own acculturation and that of their preschool child. Three patterns emerged: parallel dyadic acculturation, vertex dyadic acculturation, and intersegmented…

Introduces the Social Relations Model as a new approach for understanding reciprocity during parent-child and sibling play. (PCB)

Evidence exists that fathers have a potent influence on the sex-role adoption of their sons and daughters and that fathers tend to reinforce sex-role stereotypes of masculinity in their sons and femininity in their daughters. Crucial events appear to take place at the start of the second year of life. At this time, fathers begin to treat their…

Discusses both the advantages and difficulties of using nonlinear modeling in the context of a model used to study the relations between parental warmth and control and preschool children's competence. (HOD)

Evaluates the effects of presenting verbal models following the initiations or expressions of interest of 16 children aged 28 to 34 months on both production and comprehension abilities measures. Results suggest that the timing of exposure to language models plays a critical role in language acquisition. (RJC)

A study was conducted to develop a reliable measure for assessing the variations in reunion responses exhibited by preschoolers and to determine whether individual differences were consistent over multiple observations. A total of 22 preschool children (13 boys and 9 girls) participated in the study; their reunion behaviors were observed on six…

Patterns of attachment in preschool-age children were investigated in a nonexperimental, naturally occurring stressful situation. The sample included 86 families with at least one child 18 to 54 months of age. In each family, the mother planned to deliver another child in a hospital birthing center. Separation from the mother during admission was…

Many clinical observations of child witnesses of violence have been made, yet there has been little systematic research on the relationship between observing violence and perceived self-competence. Possible correlates of observing wife battering in the self-perceptions of young children were examined by administering the Pictorial Scale of…

This study attempted to (1) examine differences in the curiosity behavior of abused preschool children in situations with their mothers, a teacher, and a stranger; (2) determine whether the children exhibited more curiosity when exposed to novel versus familiar objects; and (3) examine adult behaviors theoretically related to children's curiosity.…

Investigates the effects of social class (middle vs. lower) on verbal and nonverbal maternal controls, maternal sensitivity, and child compliance. Suggests current conceptualizations of lower class mother-child interaction need to be reconsidered since no social class differences were revealed in the experiments. (HOD)

Explores the hypothesis that parenting practices of abusive mothers are characterized by (1) greater use of power-assertive strategies, (2) less flexible behavior with respect to child compliance attempts, (3) more inconsistent use of parenting techniques, and (4) diminished affective quality. (HOD)

A study identified the antecedent characteristics of child and family best predicting behavioral/emotional problems at three years of age. Considered were the relationship of the index of attachment security to several mother-child relationship measures and to other child characteristics, such as difficult temperament and sociability. (Author/NH)

Studies the perceived source of self-esteem among 300 children aged three to five. Results indicate that peers are the predominant source of self-esteem in the low intensity ("like") condition and parents are the predominant source of self-esteem in the high intensity ("love") condition. (RJC)