Cognitive and motivational determinants of children's humor responses

Cognitive and motivational influences on children's humor responses were examined. Forty-eight Caucasian children from three economically heterogeneous schools were tested. Equal numbers of middle SES and lower SES boys and girls from kindergarten and third grade were shown 12 aggression and dependency cartoons of different difficulty levels. Three responses to each cartoon were recorded: mirth, funniness rating, and comprehension score. Results support aspects of both psychodynamic and cognitive theories of humor response. All children preferred aggressive themes to dependency themes, and third graders especially showed attenuated response to dependency cartoons. Funniness ratings decreased as difficulty levels increased. IQ, as assessed by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-R, was positively related to humor. Mirth responses and funniness ratings increased as comprehension increased.     

Reading abilities of school-age stutterers

The reading abilities of 20 school-age stutterers and their matched normally fluent controls were assessed by means of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests. Results indicate that the reading abilities of school-age stutterers are not significantly different from those of school-age normals. Similarly, knowing whether a subject was classified as a stutterer or normally fluent speaker was of minimal assistance in predicting the subject's reading performance. These findings suggest that school-age stutterers' reading abilities are within normal limits. An individual stutterer, just like an individual normally fluent speaker, may exhibit “reading problems”; however, caution should be employed in extrapolating from one individual stutterer's reading performance to the reading abilities of all stutterers.