Toddlers from Low-Income Families Have Below Normal Mental, Motor, and Behavior Scores on the Revised Bayley Scales

This study examined scores on the original and revised Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID-II) for 87 infants and toddlers from low-income families. Infants' scores were consistent with scores from the normative sample. In contrast, toddlers obtained mental, motor, and behavioral scores that were lower than scores from the normative sample. Mental, motor, and behavioral scores from the BSID-II were correlated for toddlers, but not for infants, suggesting that the interrelationship between behavior and development increases with age. These findings are consistent with longitudinal studies demonstrating a decline in developmental performance among toddlers from low-income families. They demonstrate that the vulnerability of toddlers can not be explained by outdated test norms. The findings may be partially explained by canalization theory in which early development is guided by species-specific self-righting processes that protect infants from all but the most devastating environmental influences or by a lack of enriching caregiving practices for toddlers in low-income families. With the restandardization of the BSID-II, more toddlers will qualify for early intervention. Recommendations are provided for prevention programs to reduce the vulnerability demonstrated among low-income toddlers.     

IQ in childhood and the metabolic syndrome in middle age: Extended follow-up of the 1946 British Birth Cohort Study

IQ in early adulthood has been inversely associated with risk of the metabolic syndrome in midlife. We tested this association in the British 1946 birth cohort, which assessed IQ at age eight years and ascertained the metabolic syndrome at age 53 years based on modified (non-fasting blood) ATPIII criteria. Childhood IQ was inversely associated with risk of the metabolic syndrome, but this association was almost entirely mediated by educational attainment and achieved occupational social class. This may be consistent with a pattern where childhood IQ is strongly associated with outcomes that reflect neurological disorder, such as the degenerative dementias, but less so with common chronic physical diseases of ageing.     

Developmental trajectory of dynamic resource utilization during walking: toddlers with and without Down syndrome

After years of walking practice 8-10-year-old children with typical development (TD) and those with Down syndrome (DS) show uniquely different but efficient use of dynamic resources to walk overground and on a treadmill [Ulrich, B.D., Haehl, V., Buzzi, U., Kubo, M., & Holt, K.G. (2004). Modeling dynamic resource utilization in populations with unique constraints: Preadolescents with and without Down syndrome. Human Movement Science, 23, 133-156]. Here we examined the use of global stiffness and angular impulse when walking emerged and across the ensuing months of practice in eight toddlers with TD and eight with DS. Participants visited our lab when first able to walk four to six steps, and at one, three, four, and six months of walking experience. For all visits, toddlers walked overground at their preferred speeds and for the last two visits on a treadmill. Toddlers with TD and DS demonstrated clear and similar developmental trajectories over this period with more similarities than differences between groups. At six months stiffness and impulse values were higher than previously observed for 8-10-year-old children. Stiffness values increased significantly throughout this period, though rate of change slowed for the TD group by three months of experience. Impulse values rose sharply initially and slowed to plateau during the latter months. Treadmill data illustrated toddlers' capacity to adapt dynamic resource use to imposed changes in speed, particularly well after six months of practice. Consistent with our studies of preadolescents and older adults, toddlers with DS produced significantly wider normalized step width than their TD peers. We propose that the challenge of upright bipedal locomotion constrains toddlers with TD and DS to generate similar, necessary and sufficient stiffness and impulse values to walk as they gain control and adapt to playful and self-imposed perturbations of gait over the first six months. The plateau in impulse and slow-down of stiffness increases over the latter months may be the first signs of a downward trend to the lower values produced by older children with several years of walking experience.     

Gender and Form of Cereal Box Characters: Different Medium, Same Disparity

We investigated the extent to which male characters outnumber female characters on cereal boxes, and the extent to which male and female characters are portrayed in gender stereotypical ways. Cereal boxes (N?=?217) from a large grocery store in the northeastern United States were examined. Characters on the front and back of the boxes were coded for gender, species (person, animal, object), age (child/adolescent, adult), and activity level (passive/sedentary, active). Male characters outnumbered female characters by more than 2 to 1. Female characters were more likely than male characters to be depicted as people and as children/adolescents, whereas male characters were more likely than female characters to be portrayed as animals and as adults. Suggestions for further research are discussed.     

The Cutest Little Baby Face: A Hormonal Link to Sensitivity to Cuteness in Infant Faces

ABSTRACT— We used computer image manipulation to develop a test of perception of subtle gradations in cuteness between infant faces. We found that young women (19–26 years old) were more sensitive to differences in infant cuteness than were men (19–26 and 53–60 years old). Women aged 45 to 51 years performed at the level of the young women, whereas cuteness sensitivity in women aged 53 to 60 years was not different from that of men (19–26 and 53–60 years old). Because average age at menopause is 51 years in Britain, these findings suggest the possible involvement of reproductive hormones in cuteness sensitivity. Therefore, we compared cuteness discrimination in pre- and postmenopausal women matched for age and in women taking and not taking oral contraceptives (progestogen and estrogen). Premenopausal women and young women taking oral contraceptives (which raise hormone levels artificially) were more sensitive to variations of cuteness than their respective comparison groups. We suggest that cuteness sensitivity is modulated by female reproductive hormones.     

Career decision making: The limits of rationality and the abundance of non-conscious processes

The terms of work have changed, with multiple transitions now characterizing the arc of a typical career. This article examines an ongoing shift in the area of vocational decision making, as it moves from a place where “it’s all about the match” to one closer to “it’s all about adapting to change”. We review literatures on judgment and decision making, 2-system models of decisional thought, the neuroanatomy of decision making, and the role of non-conscious processes in decision making. Acknowledging the limits of rationality, and the abundance of non-conscious processes in decision making, obliges us to act in ways that mitigate the inherent difficulties to which those processes make us vulnerable. We conclude that both rational and intuitive processes seem dialectically intertwined in effective decision making, and we offer a trilateral model of career decision making that includes rational and intuitive mechanisms, both of which are funded and kept in check by occupational engagement.     

On Attacking and Being Attacked in Group Psychotherapy

Verbal attacks are unavoidable within long-term psychotherapy groups. This article examines the inherent therapeutic value of potentially destructive exchanges. Group leader attempts to objectively define and regulate “attacks” are critiqued. A case example illustrates how leader interventions using induced feelings can enhance the therapeutic process and subsequent relational repair. Leader difficulties in identifying with the relational positions involved (attacker, victim, bystander) are explored, and a framework is offered for illuminating unconscious, dissociated, or unformulated emotional communications. It is argued that leader resistances may inadvertently promote and maintain group members’ damaging tendency to direct aggression toward rather than away from the self. Instead of being avoided or controlled, verbal attacking can be considered meaningful developmental progress and leveraged clinically to promote emotional maturation within the group.     

In Defense of Sensitivity

The sensitivity condition on knowledge says that one knows that P only if one would not believe that P if P were false. Difficulties for this condition are now well documented. Keith DeRose has recently suggested a revised sensitivity condition that is designed to avoid some of these difficulties. We argue, however, that there are decisive objections to DeRose’s revised condition. Yet rather than simply abandoning his proposed condition, we uncover a rationale for its adoption, a rationale which suggests a further revision that avoids our objections as well as others. The payoff is considerable: along the way to our revision, we learn lessons about the epistemic significance of certain explanatory relations, about how we ought to envisage epistemic closure principles, and about the epistemic significance of methods of belief formation.