The effect of enactment upon sentence imitation in preschool children

Preschool children imitated two matched lists of sentences varying in length, in syntactic complexity, and in semantic complexity. Sentences on one list were acted out with toys prior to imitating them. For 3-year-olds, enactment increased retention of all sentential variables: number of words, number of frames, number of propositions, and syntax. For children younger than 3 years, enactment increased only the number of words retained, while for children older than 4 years, enactment had a minimal effect on all sentential variables. In a second experiment, prior enactment had long-term effects on the degree to which children's spontaneous stories about the toys resembled the previous sentences that they had been given to imitate. Long-term effects, however, did not extend to retention of syntax. Enactment appears to increase both young children's interest in a sentence imitation task and the amount of semantic encoding in which they engage. Its effect, however, is mediated by the degree of mastery of relevant linguistic rules.Some of these data were presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Detroit, April 1983. The authors would like to thank Lorraine Chiasson, Judith Codd, and Susan Saba for their assistance with the data analysis.     

Measuring social skill in grade school boys

This study examined positive and negative assertive skill in 60 elementary school boys, grades 3–8. Subjects' role-played responses to standard analogue situations requiring expression of positive and negative assertion were videotaped and rated retrospectively. High- and low-assertive subjects were identified through ratings of overall assertiveness. Results of this study indicate that (1) high- and low-assertive subjects differ on a number of response components which are related to age level and type of assertive situation (positive vs. negative), (2) assertive skill is associated with role-taking (or decentering) ability, (3) teachers tend to perceive their assertive boys as more sociable and interpersonally sensitive than unassertive boys, (4) there is essentially no correlation between teachers' ratings of aggressiveness and separate behavioral ratings of assertive skill, and (5) behavioral ratings of assertiveness show little relationship to self-report or teachers' ratings of assertiveness.This article is based on a dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Loyola University of Chicago in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The study was conducted under the direction of the second, third, and fourth authors.     

Metalexical Awareness: Development, Methodology or Written Language? A Cross-linguistic Comparison

This study explores the ability to access word boundaries of pre-school children, using an on-line methodology (Karmiloff-Smith, Grant, Sims, Jones, & Cockle (1996). Cognition, 58, 197–219.), which has hardly been used outside English-speaking countries. In a cross-linguistic study in the Netherlands and Norway, four and five-year-old children were asked to repeat the last word every time a narrator stopped reading a story. In total 32 target-words were used, both closed and open class words, and both monosyllabic and disyllabic words. The outcomes in both countries were different from those of the original English study (Karmiloff-Smith et al., 1996): four- and five-year-olds were successful in only about 26% of the cases, whereas the success rate in the former English experiment was 75% for the younger and 96% for the older children. No differences were found between age groups and between open and closed class words. This methodology does reveal the ability to access word boundaries, but probably not because of the ease of the on-line methodology in itself, but rather because literacy introduces new representations of language, even in on-line processing. The outcomes implicate that the ability to mark word boundaries does not seem to be a valid indication of who is ready for reading.     

Risk perceptions, worry, and attitudes about genetic testing for breast cancer susceptibility

This study assessed the unique associations of risk perceptions and worry with attitudes about genetic testing for breast cancer susceptibility. Women (general practitioner clinic attenders, university students, and first-degree relatives of breast cancer survivors; N?=?303) read information about genetic testing and completed measures assessing perceived cancer risk, cancer worry, and genetic testing attitudes and beliefs. Worry was associated with greater interest in genetic testing, stronger beliefs that testing has detrimental emotional consequences, and positive beliefs about benefits of testing and risk-reducing surgeries. Perceived risk was unrelated to interest and associated with more skeptical beliefs about emotional consequences and benefits of testing and risk-reducing surgeries. At low worry levels, testing interest increased with more positive beliefs about testing benefits; at high worry levels, interest was high regardless of benefits beliefs. The findings support Leventhal's Common-Sense Model of self-regulation delineating interactive influences of risk-related cognitions and emotions on information processing and behavior.     

Maternal employment and child development: a fresh look using newer methods

The employment rate for mothers with young children has increased dramatically over the past 25 years. Estimating the effects of maternal employment on children's development is challenged by selection bias and the missing data endemic to most policy research. To address these issues, this study uses propensity score matching and multiple imputation. The authors compare outcomes across 4 maternal employment patterns: no work in first 3 years postbirth, work only after 1st year, part-time work in 1st year, and full-time work in 1st year. Our results demonstrate small but significant negative effects of maternal employment on children's cognitive outcomes for full-time employment in the 1st year postbirth as compared with employment postponed until after the 1st year. Multiple imputation yields noticeably different estimates as compared with a complete case approach for many measures. Differences between results from propensity score approaches and regression modeling are often minimal.     

The effectiveness of early head start for 3-year-old children and their parents: lessons for policy and programs

Early Head Start, a federal program begun in 1995 for low-income pregnant women and families with infants and toddlers, was evaluated through a randomized trial of 3,001 families in 17 programs. Interviews with primary caregivers, child assessments, and observations of parent-child interactions were completed when children were 3 years old. Caregivers were diverse in race-ethnicity, language, and other characteristics. Regression-adjusted impact analyses showed that 3-year-old program children performed better than did control children in cognitive and language development, displayed higher emotional engagement of the parent and sustained attention with play objects, and were lower in aggressive behavior. Compared with controls, Early Head Start parents were more emotionally supportive, provided more language and learning stimulation, read to their children more, and spanked less. The strongest and most numerous impacts were for programs that offered a mix of home-visiting and center-based services and that fully implemented the performance standards early.     

Neighborhood poverty and public policy: a 5-year follow-up of children's educational outcomes in the New York City moving to opportunity demonstration

Data from the Moving to Opportunity Program, a randomized mobility experiment in which a subset of low-income minority families living in public housing in high-poverty neighborhoods were given vouchers to move to low-poverty neighborhoods, were used to evaluate 1 policy approach for improving children's educational outcomes. Four hundred twenty-five New York City children were seen 2 1/2 and 5 years following relocation (mean age=14.64 years, SD=3.21 years). Analyses examining program effects on 5-year educational outcomes, accounting for 2 1/2-year outcomes, revealed that program effects on adolescent boys' achievement found at 2 1/2 years were not sustained at 5 years. Rather, male and female youths 14-20 years of age in low-poverty neighborhoods reported lower school grades and engagement relative to youths in high-poverty neighborhoods. From a policy standpoint, the complexity of enhancing low-income minority children's educational outcomes is underscored by the multiple dynamics involved--family, neighborhood, housing, and school.     

Use of a self-regulated strategy intervention to improve word problem-solving skills of students with mild disabilities

We investigated the effects of self-regulated strategy instruction on the ability of four elementary-school students with mild handicaps (2 with learning disabilities [LD] and 2 with mild mental retardation [MMR]) to perform 4 types of addition and subtraction word problems. We used a multiple baseline design and a self-instructional strategy to address story problem solving. Results indicated that the strategy was effective in increasing the number of correctly solved word problems. Gains were maintained across a 6 and 8 week follow-up check. The study supports previous research indicating that cognitive strategies are effective for students with LD and suggests that cognitive strategies are appropriate for students with MMR.     

Prevention of depression with primary care patients: A randomized controlled trial

The prevention of major depression is an important research goal which deserves increased attention. Depressive symptoms and disorders are particularly common in primary care patients and have a negative impact on functioning and well-being comparable with other major chronic medical conditions. The San Francisco Depression Prevention Research project conducted a randomized, controlled, prevention trial to demonstrate the feasibility of implementing such research in a public sector setting serving low-income, predominantly minority individuals: 150 primary care patients free from depression or other major mental disorders were randomized to an experimental cognitive-behavioral intervention or to a control condition. The experimental intervention group reported a significantly greater reduction in depressive levels. Decline in depressive levels was significantly mediated by decline in the frequency of negative conditions. Group differences in the number of new episodes (incidence) of major depression did not reach significance during the 1-year trial. We conclude that depression prevention trials in public sector primary care settings are feasbile, and that depressive symptoms can be reduced even in low-income, minority populations. To conduct randomized prevention trials that can test effects on incidence with sufficient statistical power, subgroups at greater imminent risk have to be identified.