Early childhood co-sleeping: Parent-child and parent-infant nighttime interactions

This study investigated parent—child interactions during sleep onset and nighttime arousals in a rural sample of preschool children. The role of co-sleeping in relation to sleep habits and night waking was examined using parental self-report of both current and retrospective sleep patterns. The results showed that Solitary Sleepers engaged in more complex bedtime routines, and had more longstanding and stronger attachment to security objects and sleep aids, than did Co-sleepers. Infancy precursors to co-sleeping in early childhood were a history of breastfeeding, night feedings in the parent's bed, and returning to sleep in the parent's bed.     

A Playroom Observation Procedure to Assess Children with Mental Retardation and ADHD

Forty-two children (ages 6 to 12 years old) with moderate mental retardation to borderline intellectual functioning were studied in a laboratory playroom setting to determine whether children identified as ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) or controls differed on activity and attentional measures. Children with ADHD were further divided into ADHD + conduct problems (ADHD + CD) and ADHD-only subgroups (with an ADHD-combined group comprising children of both subgroups). An interval recording system was used to code observations of independent play and a restricted academic task. Results indicated that the ADHD-combined group was significantly more vocal and engaged in a significantly greater number of toy changes than controls during independent play. Significant group differences were also noted during the restricted academic task, with the ADHD-combined and ADHD + CD groups more off-task and engaging in a greater number of toy touches than controls. Discriminant analyses found independent play measures to predict group membership in 70 percent of cases (ADHD-combined vs. controls), but in only 64 percent of cases using measures from the restricted academic task. No significant findings resulted when the ADHD subjects were further divided into two subgroups. Despite some inconsistent findings, such laboratory-based observations may be of value in the diagnosis of ADHD in children with moderate mental retardation to borderline intellectual functioning.     

A Kid-Friendly Tool to Assess Rumination in Children and Early Adolescents: Relationships with Mother Psychopathology and Family Functioning

The early identification of ruminative processes in children and early adolescents is particularly important to prevent the development of a stable ruminative style in later stages of development. The present study first aimed at validating a child-friendly tool, Kid Rumination Interview (KRI), to be used in a sample aged 7–12 years (n?=?100; 50% females). Second, we hypothesized that maternal depression, family functioning and participants’ emotion regulation skills would be associated with children’ levels of rumination. Factor analysis on KRI scores yielded two main factors: personal life-related rumination and school-related rumination. Older and female participants showed higher tendencies to ruminate about school issues compared to their younger and male counterparts. A low-to-moderate correlation emerged between school-related rumination and child/early adolescent’s emotion regulation capacities. Mothers’ depressive rumination and mothers’ depressive symptoms were positively associated with children/early adolescents’ rumination about personal life and rumination about school issues. Conversely, an adequate and positive family functioning was negatively correlated with both school-related rumination and rumination about personal life. Hierarchical regression analyses pointed to a crucial role of maternal rumination and familiar rigidity in both types of rumination. Personal life-related rumination was also specifically predicted by maternal depression and family enmeshment, whereas school-related rumination was significantly associated with children/early adolescents’ emotional control and gender. Overall, the KRI appears as a promising tool to assess rumination in children/early adolescents. Results suggests partially different pathways to specific forms of ruminative thoughts.     

Reliable and Valid Coding of Thin Slices of Video Footage: Applicability to the Assessment of Mother-Child Interactions

When using behavioral-observation methods for coding video footage, it is unknown how much time of an interaction needs to be coded to gain results that are representative for the behavior of interest. The current study examined this problem using the INTAKT, a standardized observational measure for assessing the quality of mother-child interactions. Results from coding only 10 min of each video (i.e., thin slices) were compared with results from coding the remaining parts (averaging about 40 min) of the interaction. Inter-rater agreement for the short versions taken from the beginning or the middle, but not the end of the interactions indicated satisfactory observer accuracy. Coding results did not differ between short and long video sequences, when sequences were taken from the middle of the interactions. Importantly, characteristic differences between different interactive situations were equally well represented in the short and long video sequences. Therefore, our results show that coding only 10 min of an interaction is as reliable and valid as coding full-length videos, if those short sequences are taken from the middle of an interaction. Our findings support the idea that for every method, it is necessary to individually determine the window duration that is long enough to gain results that are reliable and valid.     

The Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment: A rejoinder to Elardo and Bradley''s comment

The published and unpublished research pertaining to Caldwell's Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) inventory was recently reviewed by R. Elardo and R. H. Bradley (Developmental Review, 1981, 1, 113–145). Their review was unfortunately deficient in a number of respects. For example, certain methodological issues bearing on the interpretation of the available data were either unrecognized or dismissed without adequate consideration. In addition, some of the data in the studies cited which contradicted or clouded their conclusions were omitted. An extension and reanalysis of the conclusions reached by Elardo and Bradley in light of recently published studies which were not included in their review, and data not discussed in the studies which were reviewed, is provided. Methodological problems are highlighted, and directions for future research are suggested.     

Social and Ethical Interactions with Nano: Mapping the Early Literature

There is a rapidly expanding field of research on social and ethical interactions with nano-scaled sciences and technologies. An important question is: What does social and ethical research actually mean when it is focussed on technological applications that are largely hypothetical, and a field of science spread out across multiple disciplines and lacking unification? This paper maps early literature in the field of research as a way of answering this question. Our aim is to describe how this field is developing in response to its difficult task, and particularly, to comment on the topics of focus and where there is potential for future development. We present four topical categories, labelled Governance, Perception, Science and Philosophy, and use these as a tool to both map the field and to analyse its development. We find a majority of literature currently focused on issues of governance and perception, and offer suggestions for why this might be so. We then discuss cross-category themes of definition, novelty and interdisciplinarity, highlighting diverse positions and a problematic lack of direct debate. Our conclusion is that the field would benefit from more interaction, cross-referencing and creative research across traditional fields of inquiry.     

Evaluating Family Interactions to Inform Exhibit Design: Comparing Three Different Learning Behaviors in a Museum Setting

ABSTRACT

How do we know that families are learning during the museum visit itself? In order to address this question, this study focuses on three frequently evaluated indicators of during-visit learning: time spent, exhibit engagement, and interpretive talk. Each of these types of data makes certain assumptions about family learning and how it occurs. Four hundred ninety-three family interactions at 25 different children's museum exhibits were analyzed to examine what the three measures reveal about family learning behavior. When compared, the three measures were not highly correlated, suggesting that generalizing information about the family experience from a single indicator is insufficient. Looking at all three indicators simultaneously can help evaluators begin to explore the relationships between families’ learning behaviors, and think about how exhibit characteristics can influence potential learning opportunities in informal settings.     

Abstract: Comparing Semiparametric and Parametric Methods for Modeling Interactions Among Latent Variables

Many approaches have been proposed to estimate interactions among latent variables. These methods often assume a specific functional form for the interaction, such as a bilinear interaction. Theory is seldom specific enough to provide a functional form for an interaction, however, so a more exploratory, diagnostic approach may often be required. Bauer (2005) proposed a semiparametric approach that allows for the estimation of interaction effects of unknown functional form among latent variables. A structural equation mixture model (SEMM) is first fit to the data. Then an approximation of the interaction is obtained by aggregating over the mixing components. A simulation study is used to examine the performance of this semiparametric approach to two parametric approaches: the latent moderated structures approach (Klein & Moosbrugger, 2000) and the unconstrained product-indicator approach (Marsh, Wen, & Hau, 2004). Data were generated from four functional forms: main effects only, quadratic trend, bilinear interaction, and exponential interaction. Estimates of bias and root mean squared error of approximation were calculated by comparing the surface used to generate the data and the model-implied surface constructed from each approach. As expected, the parametric approaches were more efficient than the SEMM. For the main effects model, bias was similar for both the SEMM and parametric approaches. For the bilinear interaction, the parametric approaches provided nearly identical results, although the SEMM approach was slightly more biased. When the parametric approaches assumed a bilinear interaction and the data were generated from a quadratic trend or an exponential interaction, the parametric approaches generated biased estimates of the true surface. The SEMM approach approximated the true data generation surface with a similarly low level of bias for all the nonlinear surfaces. For example, Figure 1 shows the true surface for the bilinear interaction along with the SEMM estimated average surface. The results suggest that the SEMM approach can provide a relatively unbiased approximation to variety of nonlinear relationships among latent variables.     

Friendship Interactions in Children with and without Depressive Symptoms: Observation of Emotion during Game-Playing Interactions and Post-Game Evaluations

This observational study supplements the strong and consistent link found between childhood depression and deficits in interpersonal functioning by examining the relationship between a high versus low score on the Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI) and children’s emotions when interacting with their best friends. High-CDI and low-CDI target children (n=86) were paired for videotaped game-playing with self-reported best friends. Researchers found that although high-CDI target children were not distinguishable from low-CDI peers in their displays of positive and negative emotion. However, the partners of high-CDI target children displayed significantly more negative emotion during the competitive task and significantly less positive emotion during the cooperative task than did partners of low-CDI target children. In addition, high-CDI target children and their partners reported less enjoyment of their interactions than low-CDI target children and their partners. This combination of findings suggests that depressive symptoms were associated with a relative lack of success achieving an optimal friendship interaction even under highly favorable conditions.     

Prevention of Problem Behavior Through Annual Family Check-Ups in Early Childhood: Intervention Effects From Home to Early Elementary School

This randomized intervention trial examined the effects of yearly Family Check-Ups (FCUs) and tailored parent management training on parent report of problem behavior from age 2 to 5 years and teacher report of oppositional behavior at age 7.5. A multiethnic risk sample of 731 families in 3 distinct geographical settings who were receiving assistance from the Women, Infants, and Children Nutritional Supplement (WIC) program were randomly assigned to a yearly FCU. Intention to treat (ITT) analyses were used to examine overall intervention effects, and complier average causal effect (CACE) modeling was used to examine the effects of annual intervention engagement in the FCU on parent reports of child problem behavior from age 2 to 5 and teacher reports of problem behavior at age 7.5. ITT intervention effects were found regarding parent report at ages 2 to 5 and teacher report at age 7.5, indicating less growth in problem behavior for children in the intervention group than for those in the control group. CACE modeling of intervention engagement revealed that the effect sizes on parent- and teacher-reported problem behavior increased as a function of the number of yearly FCUs caregivers participated in. Findings suggest that embedding yearly FCU services within the context of social, health, and educational services in early childhood can potentially prevent early-onset trajectories of antisocial behavior. The increases in effect size with successive FCU engagement underscores the importance of a motivational approach to parenting support among high-risk families.     

Number Use at Home by Children and Their Parents and Its Relationship to Early Mathematical Performance

The purpose of this research was to measure the frequency and variety of number activities occurring in the homes of pre-school and kindergarten children and to determine if there was a relationship between those activities and the children's mathematical performance. In two studies, parents were interviewed over the telephone and asked how often their child or they and their child had engaged in each of 33 number-related activities over the last week. Both studies found considerable variability in the frequency and type of number activities that children participated in at home. There was a positive correlation between the frequency of number activities that parents reported for their children and parental participation in the same activities. In addition, in study 2, parental reports of children's number activities at home were predictive of children's performance on a standardized test of early mathematical ability.     

Mind, Self, and Personality: Dynamic Interactions from Late Childhood to Early Adulthood

This paper aims to integrate research on mind, personality, and self-development using a general model which hypothesizes that mind and personality are organized in 3 levels. The first level includes environment-oriented, domain-specific systems that specialize in the representation of and interaction with particular types of relationships in the environment in both the cognitive and the social realms. The second level comprises self-oriented monitoring and representation processes that build maps of the environment-oriented systems. Self and identity derive from the interaction between these 2 levels, which is subject to the constraints and the system's processing capacity at the successive ages. These constraints may be taken as the third level of the self. Efficiency in overcoming these constraints is determined by the self-oriented processes, generating feelings and self-representations of self-worth. These feelings are idiosyncratic, and function as a personal constant, which is applied on self-evaluation and self-representations. This constant is rescaled and differentiated with development. Thus, we have simultaneously both modular and transmodular constructs in the mind and the self, which change with relative independence of each other under the constraints of the general processing capabilities and the personal constant. A series of studies are presented to support this model, and its implications for life-span theories of development are discussed.     

How to Assess a Model's Testability and Identifiability

Formal definitions are given of the following intuitive concepts: (a) A model is quantitatively testable if its predictions are highly precise and narrow. (b) A model is identifiable if the values of its parameters can be ascertained from empirical observations. (c) A model is redundant if the values of some parameters can be deduced from others or if the values of some observables can be deduced from others. Various rules of thumb for nonredundant models are examined. The Counting Rule states that a model is quantitatively testable if and only if it has fewer parameters than observables. This rule can be safely applied only to identifiable models. If a model is unidentifiable, one must apply a generalization of the Counting Rule known as the Jacobian Rule. This rule states that a model is quantitatively testable if and only if the maximum rank (i.e., the number of linearly independent columns) of its Jacobian matrix (i.e., the matrix of partial derivatives of the function that maps parameter values to the predicted values of observables) is smaller than the number of observables. The Identifiability Rule states that a model is identifiable if and only if the maximum rank of its Jacobian matrix equals the number of parameters. The conclusions provided by these rules are only presumptive. To reach definitive conclusions, additional analyses must be performed. To illustrate the foregoing, the quantitative testability and identifiability of linear models and of discrete-state models are analyzed. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.     

From Melancholia to Meaning How to Live the Past in the Present

Freud's theory of melancholia has lately experienced a renaissance among those interested in the creative potentialities of the psyche. In this essay, I consider the ways in which melancholia can contribute to the actualization of these potentialities by preparing the ground in which inspiration can later take root. I also outline the circumstances in which the melancholy subject's refusal to abandon its lost objects represents an entirely valid response to loss. At the same time, I propose that if the subject is to develop an affirmative and imaginatively supple relationship to its psychic history, it must in the end move from melancholia to meaning production. Insofar as melancholia signals the psyche's inability or stubborn unwillingness to move forward, its powers by necessity remain dormant until the subject is able to exchange its sadness for the versatile meaning-making capacities of the signifier. I moreover argue that it is only when the subject is able to transcend its melancholia enough to begin to desire new objects that it can develop loving and responsible relationships with others—that it can begin to welcome others in their own terms rather than reducing them to its own narcissistic image.     

Learning to Live in the Anthropocene: Our Children and Ourselves

This essay responds to recent philosophical interest in the Anthropocene by asking (Trachtenberg in Inhabiting the Anthropocene: how we live changes everything, 2016): Can and should educators adopt, form, transmit, teach ways of living to maintain, if not enhance Earth’s habitability, especially its habitability for diverse children? This inquiry therefore calls for conceptual study of learning to live through the Anthropocene—with, despite, after, before, amid, among, away from, and against its myriad harms, possible and actual, especially its harms to children. Examining cases of environmental racism in Checker’s Polluted Promises (2005), and other cases of environmental threats to children’s health, in Steingraber’s Raising Elijah (2011), this study begins by proposing the ecological gap in philosophy of education consequential for children resides within another epistemological gap, variously designated gender gap, love gap, care gap (Martin in The schoolhome: rethinking schools for changing families. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1992; Education reconfigured: culture, encounter, and change. Routledge, New York, 2011; Warren in Ecofeminist philosophy: a Western persepctive on what it is and why it matters. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, 2000). Ruddick’s maternal thinking (1984, 1988) provides a conceptual frame for theorizing three moral aims of learning to live in the Anthropocene that might inform public schooling.