Children’s On-line Processing of Scrambling in Japanese

This study investigates the on-line processing of scrambled sentences in Japanese by preschool children and adults using a combination of self-paced listening and speeded picture selection tasks. The effects of a filler-gap dependency, reversibility, and case markers were examined. The results show that both children and adults had difficulty in comprehending scrambled sentences when they were provided as reversible sentences. The reversibility effect was significant for children, whereas the interaction of reversibility and a filler-gap dependency was significant for adults. However, this does not indicate that children’s parsing is fundamentally different from that of adults. For those children who processed the nominative and accusative case markers equally fast, the reactivation of the dislocated constituent was observed in the gap position. These results suggest that children’s processing is basically the same as adults’ in that their sentence processing is incremental and they parse a gap to form a filler-gap dependency.     

Sensorimotor Impairment of Speech and Hand Movement Timing Processing in Parkinson’s Disease

Models of motor control have highlighted the role of temporal predictive mechanisms in sensorimotor processing of speech and limb movement timing. We investigated how these mechanisms are affected in Parkinson’s disease (PD) while patients performed speech and hand motor reaction time tasks in response to sensory stimuli with predictable and unpredictable temporal dynamics. Results showed slower motor reaction times in PD vs. control in response to temporally predictable, but not unpredictable stimuli. This effect was driven by faster motor responses to predictable stimuli in control subjects; however, no such effect was observed in the PD group. These findings indicated the relationship between PD pathology and sensorimotor deficits in temporal predictive mechanisms of timing processing during speech production and hand movement.     

The Impact of Teasing on Children’s Body Image

Being teased about one’s physical appearance in childhood has been found to have a strong impact on the way in which adolescent and adult women perceive their bodies. Teasing is also strongly related to self-esteem in children. However, little is known about the impact of teasing on the development of body image in childhood. Through a quantitative study of the experience of being teased and body image satisfaction in a group of 431 primary aged children, we examined the prevalence, type and impact of teasing on children’s perceived body image satisfaction. The results of our study indicated that many children, especially those who are over or underweight experience being teased. This experience does have a negative impact on children’s body image. This is especially significant for young girls and boys who are overweight. Underweight young boys also suffer negatively from this experience. It is important for parents and others to understand that what may be perceived as friendly banter with their children may not necessarily be innocuous. Further research exploring the concept and construct of teasing in childhood is warranted.     

Impact of a Father Figure’s Presence in the Household on Children’s Psychiatric Diagnoses and Functioning in Families at High Risk for Depression

The consequences of living in single-parent households on children’s wellbeing are well documented, but less is known about the impact of living in single-mother households among children with high familial risk for depression. Utilizing data from an ongoing three-generation study of high-risk families, this preliminary study examined a sample of 161 grandchildren of probands diagnosed with major depressive disorder, comparing those in single-parent households to those in dual-parent households with household status defined as the full-time presence of a resident male in the home. High-risk children were compared across households in terms of psychiatric diagnoses (measured by Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children; K-SADS-PL) and global functioning (assessed by Global Assessment Scale, child version; C-GAS). Results indicated that high-risk children in single-parent households had 4.7 times greater odds for developing a mood disorder and had significantly lower mean C-GAS scores (p = 0.01) compared to those in dual-parent households. Differences remained significant when controlling for household income, child’s age, and either parent’s depression status. There were no significant differences between high-risk children across households when household status was instead defined as legal marital status. This study has several limitations: sample size was small, probands were recruited from a clinical population, and participants had not passed completely through the period of risk for adult psychiatric disorders. These findings point towards the importance of identifying and closely monitoring children at risk for depression, particularly if they reside in households without a resident father figure.     

Disambiguating Information and Memory Resources in Children’s Processing of Italian Relative Clauses

We investigated the role of number agreement on verb and of animacy in the comprehension of subject and object relative clauses in 51 monolingual Italian-speaking children, mean age 9:33, tested through a self-paced listening experiment with a final comprehension question. A digit span test and a listening span test were also administered to examine the role of memory in comprehension. Subject relative clauses were easier to comprehend than object relative clauses; animacy of the relative clause head improved comprehension of object relative clauses; memory, as measured by the digit span test, modulates comprehension of object relative clauses, both with animate and inanimate heads, as shown in response accuracy. Although all children process number agreement morphology on the verb, only some perform a correct reanalysis, as shown by the accuracy measures. We argue that number agreement disambiguation is particularly taxing for children, as it provides a negative symptom in the sense of Fodor and Inoue (J Psycholinguist Res 29(1):25–36, 2000) and reanalysis requires them to hold two dependencies in memory.     

Role of Working Memory in Typically Developing Children’s Complex Sentence Comprehension

The influence of three mechanisms of working memory (phonological short-term memory (PSTM capacity), attentional resource control/allocation, and processing speed) on children's complex (and simple) sentence comprehension was investigated. Fifty two children (6-12 years) completed a nonword repetition task (indexing PSTM), concurrent verbal processing-storage task (indexing resource control/allocation), auditory-visual reaction time (RT) task (indexing processing speed), and a sentence comprehension task that included complex and simple sentences. Correlation and regression analyses were run to determine the association between the memory variables and sentence comprehension accuracy. Results revealed: (1) none of the memory variables correlated with simple sentence comprehension, (2) resource control/allocation and processing speed correlated significantly with complex sentence comprehension, even after covarying for age, and (3) attentional functioning and processing speed predicted complex sentence comprehension (after accounting for age). Results were interpreted to suggest that working memory is significantly involved in school age children's comprehension of familiar complex sentence structures.     

The Impact of Parent Empowerment in Children’s Mental Health Services on Parenting Stress

Emotional and behavioral (EB) problems in children are associated with increased perceptions of strain in parenting. Among children receiving services, parenting stress has been linked to initiating services for their children, and may strain the relationship between parent and child. In contrast, parental engagement and empowerment in services is an important quality indicator for positive treatment outcomes. However, no known studies have examined the association between parent empowerment in their child’s services and their perceptions of stress related to parenting a child with significant mental health needs. Further, no studies have explored whether empowerment moderates the relationship between the child’s symptoms and parental perceptions of stress. The current study examined the impact of child EB problems and parent empowerment on parenting stress. Among a sample of 525 parents of children receiving school-based services for disruptive behavior disorders, child EB problems significantly predicted parenting stress. Parent empowerment also correlated with lower parenting stress, as hypothesized. Although parent empowerment was not found to moderate the relationship between child symptomatology and parenting stress, the relationship between parent empowerment and parenting stress differed based on child gender and age. Parent empowerment was associated with lower parenting stress more for parents of females and younger children than for parents of males and older children.     

Chinese Children’s Knowledge of Topicalization: Experimental Evidence from a Comprehension Study

There is a debate as to whether topic structures in Chinese involve A’-movement or result from base-generation of the topic in the left periphery. If Chinese topicalization was derived by movement, under the assumptions of Friedmann et al.’s Relativized Minimality (Lingua 119:67–88, 2009), we would expect children’s comprehension of object topicalization (with OSV order) to be worse than their comprehension of subject topicalization (with SVO order). This study examined 146 Mandarin-speaking children from age three to age six by means of a picture-sentence matching task with an appropriate context. The results showed a subject/object asymmetry when the topic marker is overt, and no asymmetry when the topic marker is covert. This suggests that the presence or absence of topic markers play an important role in children’s comprehension of topicalization. We propose that both structures involve movement in the adult grammar, but not in the child grammar, at least initially. Sentences without overt topic markers are base-generated on a par with gapless sentences with a topic, and the base-generation analysis is abandoned as soon as children learn the syntax and semantics of topic markers, which function as attractors of topics.     

Parents’ and Children’s ADHD in a Family System

ADHD symptoms “run in families”. However, relatively little is known about the ways in which parents’ symptoms might additively and interactively work with the parenting environment, to influence (and be influenced by) the developmental trajectory of symptoms in children and adolescents. In this commentary on the special section addressing this gap in knowledge, emphasis is placed on the importance of replicating and extending family-wide studies of ADHD symptoms and etiology. The current papers exemplify the leading-edge of such efforts, demonstrating the feasibility and rigor with which studies are being conducted, utilizing longitudinal and experimental designs. Families and parenting environments operate as a system in which individuals influence each other’s symptoms and functioning. In so doing, parents produce tremendous variability within (as well as between) each family in individuals’ ADHD symptoms from childhood through adulthood, via gene-environment transactions that may even begin during prenatal development.     

Gender and Compensation: Understanding the Impact of Gender and Gender Stereotypes in Children’s Rewards

Children’s understanding of rewards for task completion was examined in the context of gender, and gender-based stereotypes. Eighty-eight children (43 girls, M_overall?=?58.39 months) completed a measure assessing gender-based occupational stereotypes. This measure, along with gender, was used to predict children’s self-reward for undergoing the testing, as well as their reward for a fictional other child having undergone the same procedure. The methodology provided a novel approach for studying reward allocation in children, as it did not require children to divide resources between themselves and another child for completing the same task. An occupation-based stereotype measure was found to predict the self-reward, as well as the reward allocated to the other child. In addition, the participant’s gender predicted self-reward, and an interaction between participant gender and gender of the experimenter contributed to predicting the other child reward. Overall, these findings suggest that gender and gender-based stereotyping have an impact on reward allocation of young children. Implications of these results in the context of reward allocation research among children and adult populations are discussed.     

Getting a Grasp on Children’s Representational Capacities in Pantomime of Object Use

This study examined how 5- and 9-year-old children (N = 40) produce pantomimes of object use on verbal request. The task required participants to enact an action with an imagined object. Results showed that with age, children (a) proceeded from body part as object to imaginary object and (b) incorporated into their pantomimes more distinctive features of the object and its use. While the first result replicated previous findings with more items and a more sophisticated coding procedure, the latter result revealed new insights. Children’s selection of distinctive features in pantomime was related to their performance on a semantic odd-one-out task that requires the abstraction of specific features without situational support. The discussion focuses on the cognitive requirements of the task and the potential of pantomime being a reflection of children’s representational development. We suggest an explanation of the findings within the more general developmental model of Karmiloff-Smith.     

Children’s Evaluation and Categorization of Transgender Children

Despite extant evidence of negative peer treatment of transgender adolescents and adults, little is known about how young children perceive transgender peers, particularly those who have socially transitioned or are living in line with their gender rather than sex at birth. Whereas children have been shown to be averse to gender nonconformity in peers, because many transgender children appear and behave in ways consistent with their expressed gender (but not their sex at birth), it is unclear how children evaluate these identities. In 2 studies, we investigated 5- to 10-year-old children’s (N_total = 113) preferences for transgender versus gender-“typical” peers who either shared their gender identity or did not. We also examined whether children categorized transgender peers by their sex or expressed gender, as it might inform their evaluations. Children preferred cisgender peers over transgender peers; however, they also liked peers of their own gender rather than the other gender (e.g., female participants preferred girls over boys), demonstrating that the oft-documented own-gender bias plays an important role even when children are reasoning about transgender peers. Children did not reliably categorize transgender peers by sex or gender; yet those who categorized transgender peers by their sex showed greater dislike of transgender peers. The current studies are the first to investigate cisgender children’s attitudes toward transgender children and suggest that perceptions of gender categorization and conformity play a role in children’s evaluations of transgender peers.     

Antecedent Priming at Trace Positions in Children’s Sentence Processing

The present study examines whether children reactivate a moved constituent at its gap position and how children’s more limited working memory span affects the way they process filler-gap dependencies. 46 5–7 year-old children and 54 adult controls participated in a cross-modal picture priming experiment and underwent a standardized working memory test. The results revealed a statistically significant interaction between the participants’ working memory span and antecedent reactivation: High-span children (n = 19) and high-span adults (n = 22) showed evidence of antecedent priming at the gap site, while for low-span children and adults, there was no such effect. The antecedent priming effect in the high-span participants indicates that in both children and adults, dislocated arguments access their antecedents at gap positions. The absence of an antecedent reactivation effect in the low-span participants could mean that these participants required more time to integrate the dislocated constituent and reactivated the filler later during the sentence.     

The Impact of Latino Caregiver Acculturation on Treatment Engagement in Children’s Community Mental Health Services

Ongoing treatment engagement is low in children’s community mental health. Although concerns are more pronounced for racial/ethnic minorities, findings have been mixed when comparing racial/ethnic minorities with Non-Hispanic Whites. Within-group variability, such as level of acculturation, may be a more proximal predictor of treatment engagement. The current study aimed to examine the effect of Latino caregivers’ acculturation on ongoing treatment engagement indicators, specifically session attendance, premature treatment termination, and treatment satisfaction. Participants were families of youth, ages 5–15, with a Latino primary caregiver (N = 93) receiving treatment for anxiety/trauma, depression, or disruptive behavior problems in community-based mental health agencies. Caregivers were classified into low and high acculturation groups using latent class analysis based on demographic indicators, such as nativity status and primary language spoken. Groups significantly differed in terms of caregivers’ nativity status, age at immigration, primary language spoken, language of study assessment completion, and language spoken in the home. Families of low acculturation caregivers no showed to significantly fewer planned treatment sessions than families of highly acculturated caregivers. Treatment satisfaction did not differ between groups. Low acculturation families also had lower odds of prematurely withdrawing from treatment. Results of this study highlight the importance of considering family characteristics such as acculturation when engaging families in treatment.     

The Effect of Induced Mood on Children’s Social Information Processing: Goal Clarification and Response Decision

We investigated whether induced mood influenced the social information processing steps of goal clarification and response decision in 480 1st–3rd graders, and in more selected groups of low accepted-aggressive (n = 39), average accepted-nonaggressive (n = 103), and high accepted-nonaggressive children (n = 68). Children participated in two sessions; in the first session peer assessments were administered. In the second session children were randomly assigned to receive either a happy, angry, or neutral mood induction prior to participating in a social cognitive interview assessing goals, outcome expectancies, and self efficacy for competent, hostile, and passive responses in the context of ambiguous provocations. Results revealed that an angry mood increased focus on instrumental goals. Low accepted-aggressive children were more susceptible to the effects of mood than were high accepted- and average-nonaggressive children. In addition, children’s predominant goal orientation was related to children’s response decisions; children with predominantly instrumental goals evaluated nonhostile responses to provocation more negatively and had higher self efficacy for hostile responses. Implications and future research directions are discussed.     

The Impact of a Child’s Cancer on the Father’s Relationship with His Spouse in Korea

A father of a child with cancer experiences psychological stress related to his child’s cancer diagnosis and treatment, which may affect his relationship with his spouse. Nevertheless, little attention has been paid to how having a child with cancer affects the marital relationship from the perspective of the father. We examined the impact of the child’s cancer on the father’s relationship with his spouse in Korea. We conducted in-depth interviews with 20 fathers (mean age?=?41.35 years; SD?=?4.49) of children who were diagnosed with cancer before the age of 19 and were within 5 years of the diagnosis. The mean age of the child with cancer was 9.1 years (SD?=?3.68), and the mean age at diagnosis was 6.4 years (SD?=?4.08). The analysis of the interviews revealed the following four themes (and eight subthemes): conflicts between spouses (lack of father’s participation in caregiving, financial and work-related stress), mental suffering (heartbroken, torn between caregiving and work), change in communication (child-focused communication, avoiding communication), and change in the marital relationship (neglected relationship, new trust built in the relationship). A father’s increased conflict in the marital relationship after his child’s diagnosis of cancer was intensified by his limited involvement in child care and parenting responsibilities. An understanding of the change in the father’s relationship with his spouse can inform the development of a psychosocial intervention that may strengthen a father’s emotional intelligence and resilience, which could improve the marital relationship.     

Assessing Recall in Mothers’ Retrospective Reports: Concerns Over Children’s Speech and Language Development

Retrospective recall about children’s symptoms is used to establish early developmental patterns in clinical practice and is also utilised in child psychopathology research. Some studies have indicated that the accuracy of retrospective recall is influenced by life events. Our hypothesis was that an intervention: speech and language therapy, would adversely affect the accuracy of parent recall of early concerns about their child’s speech and language development. Mothers (n?=?5,390) reported on their child’s speech development (child male to female ratio = 50:50) when their children were aged 18 or 30 months, and also reported on these early concerns retrospectively, 10 years later, when their children were 13 years old. Overall reliability of retrospective recall was good, 86 % of respondents accurately recalling their earlier concerns. As hypothesised, however, the speech and language intervention was strongly associated with inaccurate retrospective recall about concerns in the early years (Relative Risk Ratio = 19.03; 95 % CI:14.78–24.48). Attendance at speech therapy was associated with increased recall of concerns that were not reported at the time. The study suggests caution is required when interpreting retrospective reports of abnormal child development as recall may be influenced by intervening events.     

The Impact of the Built Environment on Children’s School Conduct Grades: The Role of Diversity of Use in a Hispanic Neighborhood

A population-based study examined the relationship between diversity of use of the built environment and teacher reports of children’s grades. Diversity of use of the built environment (i.e., proportion of a block that is residential, institutional, commercial and vacant) was assessed for all 403 city blocks in East Little Havana, Miami—a Hispanic neighborhood. Cluster analysis identified three block-types, based on diversity of use: Residential, Mixed-Use, and Commercial. Cross-classified hierarchical linear modeling was used to examine the impact of diversity of use, school, gender, and year-in-school on academic and conduct grades for 2857 public school children who lived in these blocks. Contrary to popular belief, mixed-use blocks were associated with optimal outcomes. Specifically, follow-up analyses found that a youth living on a residential block had a 74% greater odds of being in the lowest 10% of conduct grades (conduct GPA <2.17) than a youth living on a mixed-use block. In fact, an analysis of the population attributable fraction suggests that if the risk associated with residential blocks could be reduced to the level of risk associated with mixed-use blocks, a 38% reduction in Conduct GPAs <2.17 could be achieved in the total population. These findings suggest that public policy targeting the built environment may be a mechanism for community-based interventions to enhance children’s classroom conduct, and potentially related sequelae.     

Children’s and Adolescents’ Conceptions of Happiness

Previous research on children’s and adolescents’ happiness has mainly focused on the different variables that may contribute to it. However, very few studies have investigated the beliefs that children and adolescents hold about happiness. It is important to study developmental and gender differences in the conceptions of happiness as beliefs affect people’s emotions and behaviors, and they may help explain how children and adolescents strive for their own (and potentially others’) happiness. To that aim, we conducted two different studies. In Study 1a 20 people (lay judges) completed two categorization tasks to obtain categorization systems that may include all the relevant content categories identified in previous literature with adults, adolescents and children. In Study 1b, we asked 162 children and adolescents to define—in their own words—what happiness meant for them. Their responses were coded according to two different systems derived from previous finding with adults and children and to an alternative coding system derived from the qualitative analyses of children’s and adolescents’ responses. Overall, results showed that hedonic conceptualization of happiness were mainly present in late childhood; whereas eudaimonic conceptualizations were mainly present in adolescence. No significant gender differences were found.