L'APPRENTISSAGE DE LA NOTION D'INCLUSION DE CLASSES CHEZ DE JEUNES ENFANTS BAOULÉS (CÔTE D'IVOIRE)*

This training study of the concept of class inclusion follows a previous paper on the training of the conservation of liquids (Dasen et al. 1979). Twenty-eight African (Baoulé) children, aged 7 to 9 years, were attributed to two groups, matched on age, schooling and performance on a pretest comprising 5 concrete operational tasks. Fourteen subjects who performed at stages 1 or 2 on class inclusion were trained according to a method adapted from Inhelder et al. (1974). The training effect was measured during two post-tests at the interval of one month. The results show a stable training effect in half of the subjects; there is a statistically significant generalization to other concepts of the same stage. This finding, which is similar to what has been reported for European children, supports the hypothesis of connections between operational concepts based on the common structure of the ‘grouping’. A ‘time lag’ of about 2 years in the development of class inclusion appears when comparing Baoulé and European children. The absence of very rapid learning (‘actualization’) shows that this lag probably occurs at the competence and not only at the performance level. The training effect is sufficient to reduce and even bridge this lag.     

Developmental differences in children’s interpersonal emotion regulation

Previous research on interpersonal emotion regulation (ER) in childhood has been rather unsystematic, focusing mainly on children’s prosocial behaviour, and has been conducted in the absence of an integrative emotion theoretical framework. The present research relied on the interpersonal affect classification proposed by Niven et al. (Emotion, 9:498–509, 2009) to investigate children’s use of different interpersonal ER strategies. The study drew on two samples: 180 parents of children aged between 3 and 8 years reported about a situation where their child was able to change what another person was feeling in order to make them feel better. In addition, 126 children between 3- and 8-years old answered two questions about how they could improve others’ mood. Results from both samples showed age differences in children’s use of interpersonal ER strategies. As expected, ‘affective engagement’ (i.e., focusing on the person or the problem) and ‘cognitive engagement’ (i.e., appraising the situation from a different perspective) were mainly used by 7–8 years-old, whereas ‘attention’ (i.e., distracting and valuing) was most used by 3–4 and 5–6 years-old. ‘Humor’ (i.e., laughing with the target) remained stable across the different age groups. The present research provides more information about the developmental patterns for each specific interpersonal emotion regulation strategy.     

Cross‐examination: The Testimony of Children With and Without Intellectual Disabilities

The present study assessed how children with a range of cognitive abilities fared during a mock cross‐examination. Ninety children (aged 4 to 11 years; 18 with intellectual disabilities, 13 with borderline intellectual disabilities and 59 who were typically developing) witnessed a staged event, participated in an initial forensic interview (a few days later) and were cross‐examined by a barrister‐in‐training (10 months later). During cross‐examination, 98% of all children changed at least one response from their initial interview when challenged. However, group differences in performance (total number of changed responses, ‘resistance’ to challenges), controlling for age and memory for event details, were not significant or did not prove reliable at the level of individual group contrasts. Overall, little robust evidence for group differences in performance on cross‐examination could be identified, and memory for event details was the most reliable predictor of performance. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Attribution of intentionality as a function of age,outcome quality and affect for the actor

Studied the degree to which 40 children (half boys, half girls) in each of three age groups of 5–6, 7–8 and 9–10 years would be affected by the qualities of the actors and the outcomes in perceiving certain acts as either intentional or accidental. Each subject was randomly assigned to either the liked-actor or the disliked-actor conditions and was then administered both the good- and the bad-outcome stories, represented by pictures. Upon listening to each story in which the motivation of the actor was left ambiguous, the subject was asked to specify whether the act was meant to be done or not. The results indicate that in general all children showed a significant tendency to interpret a bad outcome caused by a liked actor as being accidental and that caused by a disliked actor as being intentional; conversely, when the outcome was good, the behavior of the disliked actor was interpreted as being accidental and that of the liked one as being intentional. Although there were no age differences within the experimental conditions, differences were observed between the conditions for different age groups. In general a developmental lag was revealed in the attributive behavior with respect to the disliked-actor condition. One important implication of the study is that children by 5 years of age seem to have learned the evaluative difference between causing something intentionally or accidentally, depending on the outcome quality. The results were interpreted in terms of Heider's ‘balance principles’ which were suggested to serve as a vehicle for making causal inferences.     

Developmental differences in children's understanding of epistemic authority

An experiment was carried out to examine age differences in children's understanding of epistemic authority and its role in conversation. Two hundred and forty-six children from two age groups (6–7 and 11–12 years) were asked to make an independent judgement as to the equality or inequality of two lines in an optical illusion. Experimental conditions varied; ‘expertise’ in the task was given by training in a measurement algorithm and ‘familiarity with related stimuli’ by being shown illusions other than the test stimulus in training. Subjects who had answered independently that the lines were equal in length were paired with a same-age subject who had responded that they were unequal, and the two were then asked to arrive at agreement. Results showed that younger children rely on external features of a situation in justifying their beliefs. Gender differences in conversations suggest younger children have difficulty differentiating status and knowledge attributes of authority. Older children displayed an awareness of self as a necessarily autonomous element in the process of knowledge acquisition. Unexpected gender effects of stimulus familiarity in the process of persuasion are probably due to differences in subjects' behavioural styles.     

Differential Development of Learning Strategies on a Pictorial Verbal Learning Test (PVLT) in Primary-School Children

The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that developmental differences exist in the use of learning strategies in primary school children. Serial and subjective clustering in a multitrial Pictorial Verbal Learning Test (PVLT) were compared in 79 children aged 6–12. Correlation analyses indicated that serial clustering yielded better performance when information was presented on the initial trials of the test. Subjective clustering was superior when information was presented repeatedly, i.e., after three or more trials. Analyses of variance indicated that subjective clustering was used more often in older children with repeated presentations. On the other hand, there was no increase in the use of serial clustering with age and with repeated presentations. The findings imply that training in the use of proper strategies could have benefit for children who use an inefficient learning strategy and/or have a learning problem. In addition, they point to the importance of the factor “age” in relation to the way information is presented to children.     

Immediate and delayed suggestibility among suspected child victims of sexual abuse

Children suspected of being victims of sexual abuse are often interviewed by police, but little is known about the effects of sexual abuse on their suggestibility. The aim of this paper was to investigate differences in ‘immediate’ and ‘delayed’ suggestibility between children being investigated as suspected victims of sexual abuse and other children and to compare the suggestibility scores of children allegedly abused by a family member versus a person from outside the family. The participants were 180 children aged between 7 and 16 years, who had been subdivided into ‘victim’ and ‘control’ groups; each group being comprised of 90 children and matched for IQ. All children completed the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale (GSS 2) and a non-verbal IQ test. The children in the victim group scores significantly higher on Shift and Yield 2 than the control group, after controlling for memory capacity. Children abused by a family member coped significantly worse with interrogative pressure (high Shift) than those abused by a non-family member. Immediate suggestibility showed much stronger effects than delayed suggestibility. The findings suggest that sexually abused children are very vulnerable during questioning where there is interrogative pressure and those abused by a family member are even more vulnerable.     

Development and training of role-taking abilities with emotionally disturbed preschoolers: A pilot study

The purposes of the present study were to verify whether emotionally disturbed preschoolers admitted to a medical day-care center would evidence a developmental lag in role-taking skills as compared to nondisturbed kindergartners and to study the effects of a training program with as its purpose to teach the MDC children to deal with their own and others' emotions. Forty-three children from a kindergarten (n=22; mean age of 4.11 years) and a medical day-care center (n=21; mean age of 4.11 years) participated in this study. The MDC children were randomly assigned to a control (n=9) and to a training condition (n=12). The training for the latter group covered a 10-week period. The results from this pretest and posttest design revealed no differences in performance for emotional role-taking (i.e., Borke-task) and social guessing (i.e., De Vries-task) between the disturbed and nondisturbed children on the pretest. On the posttest, however, a significant developmental lag was evident for the MDC-children who did not receive the training and those who did and the control group.     

Comparing Attention to Socially-Relevant Stimuli in Autism Spectrum Disorder and Developmental Coordination Disorder

Difficulties with social interaction have been reported in both children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD), although these disorders have very different diagnostic characteristics. To date, assessment of social skills in a DCD population has been limited to paper-based assessment or parent report. The present study employed eye tracking methodology to examine how children attend to socially-relevant stimuli, comparing 28 children with DCD, 28 children with ASD and 26 typically-developing (TD) age-matched controls (aged 7–10). Eye movements were recorded while children viewed 30 images, half of which were classed as ‘Individual’ (one person in the scene, direct gaze) and the other half were ‘Social’ (more naturalistic scenes showing an interaction). Children with ASD spent significantly less time looking at the face/eye regions in the images than TD children, but children with DCD performed between the ASD and TD groups in this respect. Children with DCD demonstrated a reduced tendency to follow gaze, in comparison to the ASD group. Our findings confirm that social atypicalities are present in both ASD and to a lesser extent DCD, but follow a different pattern. Future research would benefit from considering the developmental nature of the observed findings and their implications for support.     

The Course of Childhood Anxiety Symptoms: Developmental Trajectories and Child-Related Factors in Normal Children

This three-wave longitudinal study explored developmental trajectories for various types of childhood anxiety symptoms (i.e., specific fears, social anxiety, generalized anxiety, and separation anxiety) and examined how these trajectories were associated with several factors thought to be involved in the pathogenesis of anxiety. Parents of a community sample of 224 children aged 4 to 11 years repeatedly completed a standardized questionnaire of anxiety symptoms during a 2-year period. At Time 1, parents also filled out scales for measuring children’s level of behavioral inhibition (BI), internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and prosocial behaviors, while an interview was conducted with children to assess Theory-of-Mind (TOM) ability. Growth Mixture Modeling identified multiple developmental trajectories in childhood anxiety symptoms of which the ‘stable-low’ or ‘stable-medium’ reflected the normative trajectories. Further, multinomial regression analyses indicated that the higher developmental trajectories of anxiety were associated with higher levels of BI and internalizing symptoms at Time 1. In sum, results show heterogeneity in the development of anxiety symptoms and underline the importance of early prevention programs for children at high risk for developing an anxiety disorder.     

The role of experience and discourse in children's developing understanding of pretend play actions

The present work investigated the development of an explicit understanding of pretend play actions. Study 1 revealed a long décalage between earlier implicit understanding of pretence as an intentional activity and a later more explicit understanding. Study 2 was a training study. It tested for two factors – systematic pretence experience and explicit pretence discourse – that may be important in development from early implicit to later explicit pretence understanding. Two training groups of 3.5‐year‐old children received the same pretence experiences involving systematic contrasts between pretending, really performing and trying to perform actions. In the ‘explicit’ group, these experiences were talked about with explicit ‘pretend to’ and ‘pretend that’ language. In the ‘implicit’ group no such discourse was used, but only implicit discourse in talking about pretence versus real actions. The two training groups were compared with a control group that received functional play experience. After training, only the explicit group showed improvement in their explicit pretence understanding. In none of the groups was there any transfer to tasks tapping mental state understanding, false belief (FB) and appearance‐reality, (A‐R). The findings are discussed in the context of current theories about the developmental relations between pretence, discourse, and mental state understanding.     

CROSS-CULTURAL SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES ON TWO NEO-PIAGETIAN COGNITIVE TASKS*

Two studies are reported concerning performance differences and similarities across cultures. Pascual-Leone's tests of mental attention/energy (M-power) were administered to Zulu-speaking township children aged from 7 to 12 years. In study 1, the Compound Stimulus Visual Information task (CSVI) was used to determine whether children (N = 292) performed at theoretically predicted levels previously obtained with middle-class Canadian children. In study 2, the children (N = 252) were required to complete the Figural Intersection Test (FIT) four times. Unlike the CSVI, in which learning is controlled by training prior to testing, the FIT assumes basic familiarity with the general test requirements. The purpose of repeated testing was to assess the extent of learning across trials. The results for study 1 indicate that subjects do perform at the predicted levels on the CSVI and have the same M-power as Canadian children. The results for study 2 indicate that the subjects underperform on trial 1 of the FIT but overperform on trial 2 relative to Canadian children. Deux études sont rapportées concernant des différences et des similarités inter-culturelles de performance. Les tests de l'attention mentale/énergie (‘M-power’) de Pascual-Leone ont été administrés à des enfants âgés de 7 à 12 ans provenant de communautés d'expression Zulu. Dans la première étude, la tâche d'information visuelle du stimulus composé (CSVI) a été utilisée pour déterminer si les enfants (N = 292) pouvaient performer aux niveaux prédits théoriquement qui avaient été préalablement observés chez les enfants Canadiens de classe moyenne. Dans la seconde étude, les enfants (N = 252) devaient compléter quatre fois le test de l'intersection des figures (FIT). Contrairement au CSVI, dans lequel l'apprentissage est contrôlé par l'entraînement qui précède l'administration du test, le FIT assume une familiarité de base avec les prérequis généraux du test. Le but visé par la répétition du test était d'évaluer l'étendue de l'apprentissage en fonction des essais. Les résultats de la première étude indiquent que les sujets obtiennent les performances prévues au CSVI et possèdent le měme niveau de ‘M-Power’ que les enfants Canadiens. Les résultats de la seconde étude indiquent que, par comparaison avec les enfants Canadiens, les sujets livrent une performance inférieure au premier essai du FIT, alors qu'ils obtiennent une performance supérieure au second essai.     

“It can save you if you just forget”: Closeness and Competence as Conditions for Coping among Ugandan Orphans

This article explores the coping strategies of orphaned children and their caregivers supported by a community-based organization in a Ugandan slum area. In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with eight orphans (aged 12 to 16 years) and their caregivers selected by the community-based organization. The children had experienced several co-occurring risk factors such as loss and separation, poverty, disease, and an unsafe environment. Most caregivers were extended family members. One caregiver was an unrelated foster carer. Three of the households were child-headed. Data were analysed using an adapted approach of Giorgio's (Hafting, 1995; Malterud, 2001) psychological-phenomenological method. Participating children from child-headed households lacked protective factors associated with closeness (i.e., supportive dyadic relationships). All the children in the study experienced competence in the arenas of school and household chores. Cultural advice on handling adversity, including ‘forgetting’, ‘accepting’ and ‘adjusting’, appears to contradict Western theories of coping. Sommerschild's theoretical model on the conditions for coping was effective in identifying conditions in children's lives that may impair their coping, self-worth, and resilience.     

The Mystery Man Can Help Reduce False Identification for Child Witnesses: Evidence from Video Line‐ups

It is well established that children (as young as 5 years) can correctly identify a target from a target present (TP) line‐up as accurately as adults; however, when shown a target absent (TA) line‐up, children make more false identifications. In the present study, children aged 5–7 and 8–11 years viewed a film of a staged theft, then 1–2 days later were shown either a TP or TA video line‐up. Half of the witnesses viewed line‐ups that included a ‘mystery man’ (a black silhouette with a white question mark), which they could select if they did not recognise anyone from the line‐up. When the ‘mystery man’ was present in the line‐up, there were significantly fewer false identifications for the TA line‐ups. This study shows that including a silhouette in a video line‐up can help reduce false identifications for children as young as 5 years of age, without reducing correct identifications. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A methodology for assessing the functions of emerging speech in children with developmental disabilities

An approach based on Skinner's (1957) theory of verbal behavior has been developed to understand and teach elementary communication skills to children with autism and developmental disabilities (Sundberg & Partington, 1998). However, few studies have directly examined the characteristics of emerging language in children with developmental disabilities. The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate an assessment for identifying the elementary functions of vocal speech in children. Participants were 4 children with developmental disabilities, aged 6 years to 12 years, who exhibited at least one distinguishable vocal response (word or phrase) frequently in the natural environment. The assessment focused on three verbal operants delineated by Skinner (mand, tact, and intraverbal). One or more functions were identified for at least one vocal response of each child. Results suggested that this assessment would be useful for (a) evaluating Skinner's theory, (b) guiding decisions about language training for individual children, and (c) studying the nature of expressive language development in children with developmental disabilities.     

父母元情绪理念、情绪表达与儿童社会能力的关系

对341名学前儿童及其父母进行问卷调查, 考察父母元情绪理念、情绪表达与儿童社会能力的直接与间接关系。结果表明：(1) 父亲情绪教导对儿童社会能力有促进作用, 而情绪紊乱对儿童社会能力有阻碍作用; 父亲的积极情绪表达对儿童社会能力有促进作用, 消极情绪表达则有负向作用; 此外, 父亲情绪教导、情绪紊乱除了对儿童社会能力具有直接作用外, 还通过其情绪表达对儿童社会能力具有间接影响。(2) 母亲情绪教导对儿童社会能力具有积极作用, 而情绪紊乱则具有消极影响; 母亲积极情绪表达对儿童社会能力有促进作用, 而消极情绪表达对儿童社会能力无显著预测关系; 母亲情绪教导通过其积极情绪表达对儿童社会能力具有间接促进作用。     

Understanding enjoyment in youth sport: A developmental perspective

ObjectivesHistorically, the youth sport emotional response literature focused mainly on stress and enjoyment. Although research on these emotional responses has been significant, no systematic examination of these responses from a developmental perspective has been undertaken and therefore, developmental influence and implications for competitive youth sport are largely unknown. To begin to address this issue, the present study examined the developmental progression of sources of enjoyment among youth sport participants.DesignA multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to examine the developmental differences in sources of enjoyment among younger (under 11 years) and older (over 11 years) children participating in individual and team sports.MethodsParticipants (n=152) aged 8–15 years were categorized into groups of younger and older children based on underlying cognitive-developmental criteria. Self-report measures of enjoyment, sources of enjoyment, perceived sport competence, and task and ego goal orientation were recorded.ResultsOlder children reported significantly greater enjoyment and other-referenced competency and recognition than younger children. Although all sources of enjoyment predicted enjoyment among younger children, no single source added a unique proportion of variance to the model. Competitive excitement (CE) and other-referenced competency and recognition significantly predicted enjoyment among older children. Team sport participants reported significantly greater self-referenced competency (SRC), affiliation with peers (AP), competitive excitement (CE), positive parental involvement (PPI) and enjoyment compared with individual sport participants. Finally, aligned with previous research, task orientation and perceived competence significantly predicted enjoyment.ConclusionsThe results of the present study underline the importance of understanding the developmental progression of sources of enjoyment among children and adolescents in sport. Furthermore, consideration should also be given to the nature of the sport (team or individual) children participate in for long-term enjoyment and commitment to sport.     

Gender stereotypes in education: Development,consequences, and interventions

Despite many efforts to increase gender fairness in education in recent years, the issue has not yet become obsolete: Gender discrimination still exists and finds expression in unused chances and limited action repertoires for both sexes. This article gives an overview on existing gender differences across the lifespan before providing explanations for these differences from a developmental perspective. We present psychological theories of development dealing with the adoption of gender typical preferences and behaviors in children, and draw the connection to the role parents’ and teachers’ gender stereotypes play in this process. The mechanisms contributing to the perpetuation of gender differences are illustrated via empirical studies. Finally, we offer starting points for interventions to prevent the development of these gender differences, and introduce the REFLECT program which enhances gender competence in secondary school teachers and their students, and a training program for kindergarten teachers as concrete examples of such interventions.