Not so far from home: How family characteristics predict child care quality

This study examined the relationship between family background and child care quality for 636 children enrolled in 120 day care centres in three states in the US with widely varying regulations for child care centre quality. Family characteristics accounted for a substantial portion of the variance in day care quality. Mother' attitudes towards child-rearing and parent' education were the most potent family-level predictors of quality. State child care policy variables were also strong predictors of quality. Findings also suggest that the influence of environment on children's development cannot be partitioned simply into family and out-of-home child care effects; rather, the child care environment is an extension of the family environment, with parents determining characteristics of both.     

Detecting fake-bad MMPI-A profiles

This study examined the extent to which the validity scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A; Butcher et al., 1992) could identify adolescents who were faking-bad. This study also examined the extent to which the validity scales could differentiate between nonclinical adolescents instructed to fake-bad and both clinical and nonclinical adolescents who received standard instructions. Participants were 58 male and 80 female high school students and 58 male and 80 female adolescents from clinical settings. Results indicated that the mean profiles resembled those previously reported for adults on the MMPI (Graham, 1987) and MMPI-2 (Graham, Watts, & Timbrook, 1991) and for adolescents on the original MMPI (Archer, Gordon, & Kirchner, 1987). Accurate identification of students who were faking-bad was achieved. It was possible to differentiate between the clinical adolescents and nonclinical adolescents who were faking, and it was possible to differentiate between nonclinical adolescents who were faking and nonclinical adolescents with standard instructions; however, different cutoff scores were needed for these two discriminations. Optimal cutoff scores were presented.     

Talk about preschool: Patterns of topic discussion and elaboration related to gender and ethnicity

Sixty-six mothers and their 4-year-old children recorded conversations about the children's experiences during a typical preschool day. Each dyad's ethnic background was either Hispanic or Anglo, with similar numbers of mother—daughter and mother—son pairs represented in each ethnic group. Both low- and middle-income dyads participated. The mother—child conversations were analyzed in order to identify the dyads' tendencies to elaborate on discussions of aspects of the school day related to learning, other individuals, and behavioral conduct as a function of the ethnicity of the dyad and the gender of the child. Gender of child was associated with dyads' propensities to devote differing percentages of their total conversational utterances to the discussion of other individuals and behavioral conduct, and interacted with ethnicity to produce different patterns of discussion related to the topic of learning. Mothers of boys used more elaborative utterances in their discussion of learning-related topics than did mothers of girls. Possible implications of these results for children's subsequent school-related attitudes and performance are discussed.     

Two apparatus assemblies for the study of real movement

Two forms of apparatus are described for the study of real movement. The first is characterized as a hydraulic system and is used where the S’s rate of movement threshold is to be deter-mined. The basis of the apparatus is a hydraulic cylinder with a piston rod carrying a crosspiece with a visual stimulus attached. The piston-crosspiece assembly is raised,by charging the apparatus with oil, which is then discharged back into a reservoir through a finely tapered adjustable needle valve. Velocity of motion may be regulated by varying the needle valve opening or a mass placed on the piston. The second apparatus is useful for determining the displacement threshold, the minimal distance through which a change of stimulus from one position to another can be perceived. The apparatus consists of a cathode ray display of a linear change of voltage from one value to another. Both total displacement and rate of displacement are adjustable. The S views the cathode ray trace through an optical system designed to minimize perception of extraneous motion.     

Agreement of parent and teacher rating scales with comprehensive clinical assessments of attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity

Forty-one clinic-referred children were given the DSM-III diagnosis of attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity (ADD/H) based on structured diagnostic interviews of the child and mother and on two teacher and two parent rating scales. The degree of agreement between diagnostic classification of ADD/H based solely on criterion scores on each rating scale and classification based on the comprehensive clinical assessments that included use of the same rating scaleswas assessed by comparing the ratings of the 41 children with ADD/H to those of 47 clinic-referred children given other diagnoses or no diagnosis. The accuracy of classification was highly similar across scales. Increasing the cutoff score increased the acing true positives. Using the point of intersection of these two curves to choose the optimal cutoff scores resulted in 70–75% accurate classification and 25–30% misclassification of children given clinical diagnoses of ADD/H. This rate of misclassification suggests that rating scales alone should not be used to classify ADD/H for most clinical and research purposes, especially because the method of comparison used in this study favored finding a high degree of correspondence.