Child development最新文献

Overparenting—taking over and completing developmentally appropriate tasks for children—is pervasive and hurts children's motivation. Can overparenting in early childhood be reduced by simply framing tasks as learning opportunities? In Study 1 (N = 77; 62% female; 74% White; collected 4/2022), US parents of 4-to-5-year-olds reported taking over less on tasks they perceived as greater learning opportunities, which was most often the case on academic tasks. Studies 2 and 3 (N = 140; 67% female; 52% White; collected 7/2022–9/2023) showed that framing the everyday, non-academic task of getting dressed as a learning opportunity—whether big or small—reduced parents' taking over by nearly half (r = −.39). These findings suggest that highlighting learning opportunities helps parents give children more autonomy.

Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten Class of 2011 (n = 14,370; 51% Male; 51% White; 14% Black; 25% Hispanic; 4% Asian; and 6% Other), this study examined the cumulative, timing-specific, and enduring associations between student–teacher relationships in the United States and a broad range of student outcomes. Student–teacher conflict and closeness were consistently associated with outcomes between kindergarten and third grade, both contemporaneously and over time. The main exception was for student absenteeism, where there were less consistent associations with student–teacher conflict. Cumulative models underscore the significance of the overall experiences of high-quality relationships over time. Despite little evidence of variability, girls fared less well socially due to more conflictual and less close relationships with their teachers than boys.

Social skills are dynamic developmental constructs typically measured using assessments developed via cross-sectional methods. The measurement model of derivatives (MMOD), a factor analytic approach targeting individual growth trajectories, was used to evaluate the longitudinal factor structure of the Social Skills Improvement System—Rating Scales (SSIS-RS) teacher form with a sample of 1320 first and second grade students (51.6% female, 54.8% white, 20.6% Black, 14.4% Hispanic). Although results provided support for three of the original SSIS-RS factors (Assertion, Empathy, Self-Control), there was some evidence that the other four original domains (Cooperation, Responsibility, Engagement, Communication) could be explained by two factors in this age range. Implications for using the SSIS-RS and the utility of the MMOD in developmental research are discussed.

The present study investigated how Black and White American children, ages 6 to 9.5 years and 9.5 to 12 years (N = 219, M_Age = 9.18 years, SD_Age = 1.90; 51% female) evaluated vignettes in which peers included a same- or cross-race peer in a high-intimacy or low-intimacy context. These data were collected from 2021 to 2022. Children expected characters to be less likely to include cross-race peers in high- than low-intimacy contexts. They also evaluated cross-race exclusion more negatively in high- and low-intimacy contexts. Black participants evaluated cross-race exclusion more negatively than did White participants. Older participants were more likely to personally include a cross-race peer. This study is a first step toward understanding the role of intimacy in cross-race peer relationships.

Adults readily coordinate on temporary pacts about how to refer to things in conversation. Young children are also capable of forming pacts with peers given appropriate experimenter intervention. Here, we investigate whether parents may spontaneously provide a similar kind of scaffolding with U.S. children in a director–matcher task (N = 201, 49% female; ages 4, 6, 8). In Experiment 1, we show that parents initiate more clarification exchanges with younger children who, in turn, are more likely to adopt labels introduced by the parent. We then examine whether the benefit of such scaffolding acts primarily through childrens' difficulties with comprehension (Experiment 2) or production (Experiment 3). Our findings suggest that parents primarily scaffold pacts by easing children's production difficulties, modeling cooperative communication.

Changes in family life related to globalization may include reduction in the collaborativeness observed in many Indigenous American communities. The present study examined longitudinal changes and continuities in collaboration in a Guatemalan Maya community experiencing rapid globalization. Fluid collaboration was widespread 3 decades ago among triads of mothers and 1- to 6-year-olds in 24 Mayan families exploring novel objects during home visits (Dayton et al., 2022). However, in the “same” situation 30 years later, 22 mother–child triads of their relatives spent half as much time in collaboration among all three people. This aligns with globalizing changes and with the pattern of Dayton et al.'s middle-class European American families. Nonetheless, the Mayan families maintained harmonious interactions, in line with preserving important cultural values.

Few studies have focused on off-reserve Indigenous children and families. This nationally representative, cross-sectional study (data collected from 2006 to 2007) examined Indigenous- and non-Indigenous-specific determinants associated with positive socioemotional and behavioral well-being among First Nations children living off-reserve in Canada. The parents or other caregivers of 2990 two-to-five-year-old children (M = 3.65; 50.6% male) reported on their children's socioemotional and behavioral well-being and a range of child, parent, and housing characteristics. Being taught an Indigenous culture, greater community cohesion, caregiver nurturance, good parental/other caregiver health, and fewer household members were associated with better socioemotional and behavioral well-being. These results highlight the importance of leveraging Indigenous-specific determinants and acknowledging non-Indigenous-specific factors, to promote the well-being of First Nations children living off-reserve.

Children raised in chaotic households show affect dysregulation during later childhood. To understand why, we took day-long home recordings using microphones and autonomic monitors from 74 12-month-old infant–caregiver dyads (40% male, 60% white, data collected between 2018 and 2021). Caregivers in low-Confusion Hubbub And Order Scale (chaos) households responded to negative affect infant vocalizations by changing their own arousal and vocalizing in response; but high-chaos caregivers did not, whereas infants in low-chaos households consistently produced clusters of negative vocalizations around peaks in their own arousal, high-chaos infants did not. Their negative vocalizations were less tied to their own underlying arousal. Our data indicate that, in chaotic households, both communicating and responding are atypical: infants are not expressing their levels of arousal, and caregivers are under-responsive to their infants' behavioral signals.

A focus on positive child development among Indigenous children has largely been absent from developmental science. In this special section of Child Development, we sought to address continuing inequity in representation and valuing Indigenous knowledge and voices by soliciting articles that identified cultural and strengths-based factors Indigenous children, youth, and families cultivate and leverage to promote positive development. In this introduction to the special section, we provide an overview of the four empirical articles included, with attention to the ways these articles advance Indigenous paradigms and methodologies by focusing on the unique histories and strengths of four distinct Indigenous communities. We end with a discussion of how to promote continued growth and inclusiveness in developmental science with Indigenous communities.

The ability to compare plays a key role in how humans learn, but words that describe relations between objects, like comparisons, are difficult to learn. We examined how children learn size comparison words, and how their interpretations of these change across development. One-hundred-and-forty children in England (36–107 months; 68 girls; majority White) were asked to build block structures that were bigger, longer, smaller, shorter, or taller than an experimenter's. Children were most successful with words that refer to size increases. Younger children were less accurate with smaller and shorter, often building bigger structures. The dimensional aspect of taller emerged gradually. These findings suggest that children's interpretation of the meaning of size comparison words changes and becomes more precise across development.