In This Issue

Young children look to adults for information, but do they trust some more than others? In particular, how much do they trust mom, especially when what she says contradicts the evidence and what another person says? In a longitudinal study, Corriveau et al. (p. 750) suggest that the emotional ties children forge with their mothers early in life affect the extent to which they can shift between sources of information. The researchers studied almost 150 mostly White 4- and 5-year-olds. Their findings: When what mom said did not come close to the evidence at hand and a stranger’s comments were closer, secure children were able to judge the conflicting cues and believe the stranger. But children who had ambivalent relationships with their mothers as babies did not show this sort of flexibility and were unable to independently use the same cues. In a different take on sources of information, Jaswal and Dodson (p. 629) look at memory. Our memory can fail in two different ways—when we forget and when we misremember or remember something incorrectly. The researchers studied the reaction of 5- and 6-year-olds when another child made mistakes in a memory game to determine whether they understood the difference between false memories (which are usually related to something that actually happened) and guesses (which do not have to be). Six-year-olds consistently showed they understood the difference between the two, indicating that they grasp that people can misremember past events and that such errors are likely related to something that has really happened. Two thirds of American teenagers have sex by the time they are 18. In a longitudinal study, Coley, Votruba-Drzal, and Schindler (p. 808) find that parents and their adolescent children influence and react to each other on these matters, but differently than previously thought. Their study, of 3,200 teens from ages 13 to 18, confirms that teens who took part in family activities like eating meals together or joining in fun projects were less likely to engage in risky sexual activity, and teens who did not engage in risky sexual behavior were more likely to participate in family activities. But it sheds new light on a related area: When teens engaged in risky sexual behavior, instead of parents becoming less involved, as previously seen, fathers boosted their involvement, learning more about their children’s friends and activities. Given the potential harm of risky sexual behavior, these results can contribute to the development of programs that encourage parents to become more involved with their children. Risky or not, children’s behavior is determined, in part, by the genes they carry and the settings in which they develop. In a longitudinal study, Brody, Beach, Philibert, Chen, and Murray (p. 645) developed a family-based prevention program to help rural African American youngsters avoid such risky behaviors as drinking, smoking marijuana, and having sex. Almost six hundred and fifty 11-year-olds and their mothers took part in the program, which taught skills and then, 2 years later, collected the children’s DNA to see if they carried a gene found to increase the risk of substance use. Teens who had the gene but did not participate in the program were almost twice as likely to have taken part in these risky behaviors as teens who had the gene and took part in the program. The findings underscore the crucial role parents can play protecting their children and overriding genetic tendencies. Science learning is becoming more important in our increasingly technological world. Haworth, Dale, and Plomin (p. 662) assessed more than 2,500 pairs of British twins at ages 9 and 12 to discover whether their performance in science was influenced more by nature (genes) than nurture (the environment) as they became adolescents. The surprising verdict of this longitudinal study: When it comes to studying science, environmental influences become much more important as children make their way through school, and genetic influences become less important. Although the responsible elements of the environment—parents, teachers, peers—are yet to be identified, the study offers hope that steps can be taken to help ensure the success of students, especially girls, who are less likely to pursue science study and careers. Research on reading and language also addresses the nature-nurture question. We know that children who are exposed to reading at home, among other learning opportunities, come to school better prepared to learn. Now, in a comprehensive, longitudinal study of almost 450 pairs of Canadian twins from 6 months to 5 years old, Forget-Dubois et al. (p. 736) find that children who have more exposure to reading and whose families are better off economically have better language skills as toddlers and that their language skills, in turn, help boost their readiness for school. In this process, environment plays a bigger role than genetic predispositions. This information can be used to develop programs that encourage families, especially those that are poor, to read to their young children in an effort to prepare them for school. Out of the mouths of babes: Infants can communicate long before they utter words. But when do babies learn that their babbling has an effect on others? And does this influence later language development? Goldstein, Schwade, and Bornstein (p. 636) looked at American 5-month-olds to assess the degree to which they expected their babbling to provoke responses in others. Not only did the babies grasp that their babbling had an effect on adults’ behavior, but babies who had a greater awareness of the social power of their babbling understood more words and phrases when they were 13 months old. The researchers conclude that babbling is a crucial part of language development. To babies, all language is unfamiliar at first. Pelucchi, Hay, and Saffran (p. 674), in a study of 8-month-old English-learning infants who were exposed to Italian, show that infants can track the statistical properties of speech in a language they do not know. They do so by recognizing patterns to figure out how words are divided, which syllables occur together, and where beginnings and endings take place, which gives them a foothold into the new language. This research is the first to study this issue using a real language. In highlighting the power of infant learners, it can further our understanding of language disabilities and second language acquisition. Young children learn how to speak and understand language from the words parents speak at home and teachers speak in preschool. It turns out that their preschool classmates also play a part. Mashburn, Justice, Downer, and Pianta (p. 686) took a longitudinal look at more than 1,800 preschoolers in 11 U.S. states. Their findings: Children figure out how to speak and understand words faster when they are with classmates who have better language skills, particularly when their teachers run an orderly classroom and when they themselves started preschool with more language skills. Given the growing recognition that young children’s language abilities affect their readiness for school and later school success, these results provide ideas for the structure of preschool classrooms. Spanish-speaking students, the fastest-growing population of English language learners in U.S. public schools, face challenges learning to read and are at risk for failing in school. In the midst of debate over whether they should be taught in English or their native language, Farver, Lonigan, and Eppe (p. 703) show how a preschool curriculum targeting children’s early literacy skills delivered in either Spanish that transitions to English or only in English contributes to young children’s skills in both English and Spanish. Their year-long study of almost 100 Spanish-speaking 4-year-olds in an inner-city Head Start program provides guidance for programs for young English language learners. In a cross-cultural study of reading skills that uses an innovative method to explore eye movements, Feng, Miller, Shu, and Zhang (p. 720) considered whether readers of English differ from readers of Chinese. Based on an assessment of third and fifth graders as well as adults, they find that adults’ and children’s eye movements while reading are remarkably similar from one language to the other. But English-speaking children who are just beginning to read spend a lot more time rereading the same words than do their Chinese counterparts, perhaps because they try to sound out words or are slowed down by complex words. The study suggests that acquiring reading skills is a complex interaction between biological, cognitive, and cultural processes. Babies develop healthy relationships, behaviors, and social and emotional skills in the context of early sensitive interactions with their mothers. In longitudinal research using information from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, Leerkes, Blankson, and O’Brien (p. 762) find that the ways mothers respond to their babies’ negative emotions are important to the children’s later development. The study looked at the children of more than 375 American families when they were 6 months old, then again when they were 2 and 3, to see how mothers responded to their children’s negative emotions. Children whose mothers responded sensitively to these feelings at 6 months had fewer behavior problems and were more socially competent as toddlers, and those who had been characterized as difficult babies were better able to control their emotions. The results stress the importance of maternal sensitivity to distress to help infants learn to manage their feelings. Turning to an older group of children, Perez and Gauvain (p. 776) sought to examine whether the way children express their emotions and control their attention and behavior relates to how they develop planning skills. After observing mothers and their first-grade children work together on a series of mazes, they conclude: Even when children display more negative emotions and are not as good at controlling themselves, they do better at planning ahead with their mothers if they have a clear goal in mind. Given that these types of planning experiences may help children develop the skills that are needed for success in first grade, the study provides ideas for parents and educators to ease this transition. In the United States, adolescence is commonly viewed as a time when children become more independent from their parents. In a 2-year study of more than 800 seventh graders living in the outskirts of Chicago and Beijing, Pomerantz, Qin, Wang, and Chen (p. 792) find that this phenomenon is more common in America than in China and suggest that it happens, in part, because Americans value independence and individuality. American children surveyed said the quality of their relationships with their parents declined over the period, although Chinese children painted a picture of stability in the quality of their relationships. Moreover, the tendency of children to see their parents as part of their own identity declined among American youngsters, although it stayed the same among Chinese youth. In highlighting the importance of understanding cultural differences, the findings suggest that it is not inevitable for teens to grow apart from their parents. Young children act aggressively when they want to harm others, with the aggression taking different forms (from hitting, kicking, and biting to gossiping and excluding other children) and happening for different reasons (as a response to frustration or perceived threats). Using a new measurement and analysis system, Murray-Close and Ostrov (p. 828) followed more than 100 American 3- to 5-year-olds over the course of a school year, rating their aggressive behaviors in preschool and taking reports from teachers. They find that in very young children, the types of aggression stay the same over time, but the reasons change; that is, children use specific forms of aggression to meet a variety of needs. These results can help experts tailor prevention and intervention efforts aimed at reducing aggressive behavior in children. Children who are aggressive often direct their behavior at other children, many of whom become victims. In a longitudinal study of 400 Canadian children and their teachers from first through third grades, Leadbeater and Hoglund (p. 843) find that children who start first grade with signs of depression and anxiety are more likely than others to be victimized by their classmates by the time they reach third grade. Surprisingly, children who are aggressive when they start first grade are also more likely to be victimized. Because children’s early mental health problems appear to set the stage for abuse by peers, treating these problems early through active screening and intervention may help reduce victimization. Getting babies to sleep is a big source of stress for many new parents. In a longitudinal study, Tikotzky and Sadeh (p. 860) asked whether upper-middle-class Israeli mothers’ ideas of sleep are related to their babies’ sleep patterns from pregnancy through that sometimes-sleepless first year of life. Mothers who said during pregnancy that crying infants needed help getting back to sleep were more likely to have babies who woke a lot during the night, whereas mothers who believed in limited nighttime involvement had babies who woke up less frequently. The study suggests that mothers with concerns about their babies’ sleep are more involved with their babies at night, which may make it difficult for babies to develop self-soothing skills. Such research can inform programs to help parents and babies sleep through the night. It is not just babies and their mothers—even schoolchildren are not sleeping as long or as well as experts recommend. In a longitudinal study that is the first to relate the quality of sleep to how children do in school, Buckhalt, El-Sheikh, Keller, and Kelly (p. 875) assessed more than 150 elementary school children without sleep disorders from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds twice in 2 years. Their findings: Children who slept poorly did not do as well on tests of cognitive and academic ability, but for African American children and especially for poor children, the ties between sleep and performance were the strongest. These results can inform prevention and intervention programs. A growing number of children are enrolled in child care and debate continues over how these settings affect them. Two studies that draw on the large, longitudinal NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development in the United States address these questions and provide food for thought for policymakers and practitioners alike. Adi-Japha and Klein (p. 893) looked at more than thirteen hundred 3-year-olds and their families from a broad socioeconomic background to gauge the effect of parenting and child care on children. Children with high-quality parenting were better prepared for school and had better language skills than those with less optimal parenting. That should not come as a surprise. What is surprising, though, is their finding that young children who had good parenting and spent a medium amount of time (10–32 hr a week) in child care did much better on basic preschool concepts than children who had been in child care for longer amounts of time. The results suggest that the quality of parenting and the amount of time children spend in child care are not independent of each other, but rather interact in shaping children’s development. In the second study, Roisman et al. (p. 907) used information from the same NICHD investigation, which followed children from 1 month through midadolescence, to determine the effect of child care in children’s first 3 years of life on later adolescence. They did so by measuring the stress hormone cortisol in the participants when they were 15 years old. Children who, during their 1st 3rd years, had insensitive mothers and spent time in center-based child care were slightly more likely to have lower levels of awakening cortisol, which could indicate higher levels of early stress; these findings held even after taking into consideration a number of background variables. The implications—that these early child-care experiences might have enduring developmental effects—merit both attention and further study. About 35% of all births in America are unintended, and many of the children of these pregnancies suffer health and psychological problems and have fewer resources than children who are planned. Barber and East (p. 921) tell us that the older siblings of unintended children also suffer. The study is based on a national sample of more than 3,000 mothers and their approximately 6,000 children from a broad socioeconomic spectrum. Researchers asked mothers about the resources they gave their children, including time and learning materials at home, and looked at changes in how parents doled out resources to children after an unintended child was born. Mothers’ responsiveness and warmth toward their older children dropped after the birth of an unintended child more than after the birth of an intended child. Programs that bolster family resources may help, especially when they target mothers’ sensitive and responsive parenting.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.