British Journal of Developmental Psychology最新文献

Relations between children's motor skills and internalizing problems are poorly understood. The environmental stress hypothesis (ESH), originally developed for motor-impaired children, may provide understanding, yet has been scarcely examined in typically developing children. Therefore, we examined: (1) relations between children's motor skills and internalizing problems; (2) the role of secondary stressors, specifically interpersonal conflicts and externalizing problems; and (3) the role of personal resources, namely, prosocial behaviour and social self-efficacy (SSE). About 1154 Dutch primary school children (mean age 9.0 years, 50.0% boys) participated. Multilevel structural equation models showed that children's motor skills were related to internalizing problems, with a weak indirect relation via interpersonal conflicts. SSE had a weak indirect relation with internalizing problems. Prosocial skills (personal resource) and externalizing problems (secondary stressor) did not mediate relations between motor skills and internalizing problems. The ESH seemed applicable in typically developing children, although relations were weaker than for motor-impaired children.

This study extends research on relations between parental distress and mind-mindedness in high-risk samples by exploring these relations in parents of children who had/had not received professional support for mental health, emotional or behavioural difficulties. An online survey was completed by parents of children who had received professional input around mental health or behaviour (n = 67) versus a comparison group (n = 84) who had not. Measures of parental mind-mindedness, parental distress, and parent-child relationship quality (closeness and conflict) were administered. Parents in the clinical group reported higher distress, conflict with their child and negative mind-mindedness. Moderated mediation analyses showed the association between positive mind-mindedness and parental distress was fully mediated by conflict in both groups, and partially mediated by closeness in the clinical group. Negative mind-mindedness had a direct effect on parental distress, not mediated through relationship quality. Findings indicate that more positive and less negative mind-mindedness provides a buffer against parental distress. Interventions enhancing mind-mindedness are likely to alleviate parental distress and improve parent–child relationships. The findings are consistent with the proposal that mind-mindedness is a relational construct rather than a trait-like quality of the caregiver.

Previous studies have found that increased cognitive load during a task might result in the use of ‘easier’ motor strategies that nevertheless achieve task goals. Here, we investigated the influence of cognitive load on bimanual or unimanual strategy use in preschoolers, through a combination of secondary data analysis and new empirical data. Experiment 1 investigated block-stacking strategies under high, medium and low cognitive load tasks in 3-year-olds and showed that 3-year-olds demonstrated significantly more unimanual strategy use in the high cognitive load task. Experiment 2 investigated (i) whether this effect persisted across preschool years and (ii) whether it was modulated by differences in executive function abilities. There was no age effect in motor strategy use under high cognitive load from 3 to 5 years of age. However, individual differences in inhibitory control and working memory use were significantly associated with differences in unimanual strategy use. These results are interpreted as evidence for a cognitive/action trade-off in which higher cognitive demands result in the adjustment of motor strategies such as use of unimanual stacking instead of bimanual coordination in preschoolers.

With the popularization of short-form video platforms, excessive use of short-form videos among preschool children has become increasingly prevalent. However, the mechanisms underlying its impact on children's social behaviour development remain unclear. This study aims to examine the relationship between the overuse of short-form videos and prosocial behaviour and aggressive behaviour in preschool children, as well as the mediating roles of empathy and emotional regulation. Parents of 799 preschool children were invited to complete the Short-Form Video Overuse Scale, Empathy Questionnaire, Emotional Regulation Scale, Prosocial Behaviour Scale and Aggressive Behaviour Scale. The results revealed that: (1) Short-form video overuse was negatively correlated with prosocial behaviours and positively correlated with aggressive behaviours; (2) Short-form video overuse influenced prosocial and aggressive behaviours through the mediating role of empathy (it is noteworthy that short-form video overuse was positively correlated with empathy, while higher empathy levels were simultaneously associated with both more prosocial and aggressive behaviours); (3) Short-form video overuse also affected prosocial and aggressive behaviours through the mediating role of emotion regulation. These findings contribute to understanding the multifaceted effects of short-form video overuse on children's behavioural development and highlight the need for parents and educators to address preschool children's video usage.

In the present study, 43 Italian school-age children (age range = 7–14 years, 16 females) with (N = 19) and without DD (N = 24) were presented with pairs of visual displays separated by varying interstimulus intervals and performed either a temporal integration or segregation task despite an identical visual input. Children with DD had lower accuracy and slower RTs for longer temporal intervals. Additionally, efficiency (combined accuracy and speed trade-off) increased as a function of age only in the DD group, most markedly for the integration condition. Results suggest that visual temporal processing deficits in DD may depend on short-term/working memory liability as well as the existence of possibly differentiated developmental trajectories for integration and segregation abilities.

Using structural equation modelling (SEM), this study tested whether parental monetary investments (PMI) and parental time investment (PTI) mediate the effects of family income (FI) on primary math achievement (PMA) in a sample of Bangladeshi children (N = 760, 52% boys, M = 9.1 Years, SD = 3.3 at baseline), studying over 24 months. In doing so, the background variables (fourth-grade math scores, child's age, and sex) were controlled in the model. The results from SEM suggested that fewer PMIs in children's math stimulating materials and fewer PTIs in children's at-home math practices partially mediated the association between lower-FI and poor PMA. Although PTI had a greater amount of variance (15%) in the associations of lower-FI with lower-PMA as compared to PMIs (11%), the full model explained 25% of the variance in the lower-FI and lower-PMA link with control variables. Future directions for policy and research are discussed.

Whether scientific reasoning is a domain-general or domain-specific ability remains controversial. This longitudinal study followed 53 German aged 6–9 years (31 females, 22 males) from kindergarten into elementary school to investigate how kindergarten-age scientific reasoning, intelligence, and disciplinary knowledge influence their third-grade mathematics and German language abilities (based on teacher ratings). Scientific reasoning was assessed with comprehensive inventories (the Science-Kindergarten and the Science-Primary School Reasoning Inventories). Intelligence, language abilities (receptive language and text comprehension in kindergarten and elementary school, respectively), and kindergarten mathematics were assessed with standardized instruments. Kindergarten scientific reasoning predicted third-grade mathematics abilities independent of parental education levels, and also the intelligence and kindergarten mathematics ability of the children. The language ability of children was predicted solely by kindergarten language abilities. These findings support the view that scientific reasoning is a domain-general science skill, which is different from intelligence and relevant for mathematics learning among elementary school students.

Context affects human memory. Similarities between learning and retrieval environments facilitate memory, whereas dissimilarities disrupt memory. However, it is unclear whether the type of information being learned is relevant. In this experiment, we explored whether 2-year-olds demonstrate different patterns of context-dependent memory for category-relevant and category-irrelevant facts. Children (N = 48) were exposed to unfamiliar objects in consistent (match condition) or variable (multiple condition) contexts across training and test trials. Objects were paired with category-relevant (e.g. ‘This is used to play with cats.’) or category-irrelevant (e.g. ‘This looks like the one the cat stepped on.’) facts. Children's memory for facts was assessed immediately following training and after a 10-min delay. Context affected memory differently for each type of fact. For category-irrelevant facts, there was no significant context effect immediately or after a delay. For category-relevant facts, a context condition difference was present after a delay. Results suggest that the effect of category relevance of information may influence when context affects learning.

Extensive research has examined empathy in autistic people; this has largely been conducted by asking autistic participants to complete measures and engage in experimental procedures or by consulting with close relatives. To the best of our knowledge, this study is one of the first to seek the views of autistic participants on their self-perceived empathic capacity. In this case, empathy was explored within a wider context of self-concept. The study recruited 100 participants who were asked to complete 10 statements about themselves. Subsequently, participants were asked to rate their self-perceived empathy on a scale of 1–10, providing justification for this. Autistic and non-autistic participants made a comparable proportion of references to numerous psychological traits. However, non-autistic participants made a higher proportion of references to being happy, friendly and caring. Autistic participants gave lower self-ratings of empathy compared to non-autistic participants; however, the thematic analysis showed that both groups felt they had cognitive and affective empathic capacity, with nuanced differences between the groups. This paper highlights the importance of involving autistic voices in research about their empathic capacity and self-concept, identifying nuance in the autistic experience that has been generally overlooked in previous research.

This study investigates the network structure and interconnections of social–emotional skills among high-achieving 10- and 15-year-old students. Using cross-sectional data from the 2019 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Survey on Social and Emotional Skills, we identified central skills and examined how these skills interacted within the networks of the two age cohorts. The sample included 7731 10-year-olds and 7430 15-year-olds from 10 cities across nine countries. Empathy and cooperation were identified as the most central skills in the network of high-achieving 10-year-olds, while cooperation uniquely remained central among 15-year-olds. We also observed denser and more integrated network structures in adolescence. These findings highlight the importance of central skills, particularly cooperation and empathy, in fostering social–emotional competence through developmentally tailored educational programmes.