Children's numerical skill and judgments of confidence in estimation

This study investigated how children's fluent use of a basic numerical skill is related to their perceptions of confidence on a task of quantitative estimation. One hundred four 10th graders (age 15.7 years) were categorized according to level of numerical fluency as assessed by timed tasks of counting in various nonunity increments. They then made estimates of large numbers of dots and rated how confident they were on each trial. The estimation task varied according to two within-subject factors of task difficulty. It was found that counting skill was related not only to accuracy in estimating, but also to the appropriateness of the children's confidence in their responses. Skillful children made judgments that corresponded with actual task difficulty. A derived calibration score corroborated ANOVA findings of the interaction of skill level and task difficulty on confidence ratings. It also revealed that while girls were less confident than boys, they were actually more realistic in their judgments. Findings are discussed in terms of (a) the effect of stimulus knowledge on awareness of task difficulty and (b) sex differences in achievement-related expectancies.     

Developmental differences in recall: Encoding or retrieval?

First- and fifth-grade children and college adults (ages 6, 10, and 18 years, respectively) were presented a 30-item set of pictures to recall in a 4-trial study-test procedure. The stimuli were presented in one of three ways (encoding condition): randomly, blocked (according to categories), or sort (the subject was given the stimuli in random order and asked to sort them into categories). Recall was either free, cued, or constrained (retrieval condition). Results indicated that maximum adult recall was a function of the interaction of encoding and retrieval conditions, and that first- and fifth-grader's recall was influenced by retrieval conditions but not by encoding conditions. The blocked and sort encoding conditions did result in increased clustering relative to random encoding at all three ages, however. It was concluded that encoding conditions influence recall only as they effect the use of retrieval strategies.     

Comprehension,selective imitation,and the CIP hypothesis

The role of comprehension training in the selective imitation of indirect-direct object sentences was assessed for six preschool children. A modeling condition resulted in normal usage of indirect-direct object sentences for five of six subjects, but reversed usage was not obtained when modeling was reversed. Subsequent receptive comprehension training on normal and reversed forms of indirect-direct object sentences resulted in generalization to the productive mode. These results were related to an hypothesis about language acquisition in which selective imitation is a function of comprehension.     

Learning to form relationships in infancy: Parallel attainments with parents and peers

Freud's assertion notwithstanding, the attachment relationship is not “without parallel” in social life. Children's attainments in forming attachments to parents parallel the steps they take in relating to their peers. During the first 3 years of life, in both domains, infants come to recognize prospective social partners, communicate with them, engage them in patterned interaction, including both cooperation and conflict, learn from their presence and actions, and interact in idiosyncratic ways with particular companions. Toward the end of this period, children show signs of acquiring generalized concepts of the social relationships in which they engage. It is proposed that biological constraints on learning promote human infants' interest in and rudimentary abilities to interact with other members of their species. Subsequent incidental and intentional learning processes shape both the child's attachments and less intense relationships with other persons.     

Social competence as a developmental construct

The concept of social competence presents problems for conceptualization and assessment. At times researchers have tried to circumvent these problems by defining competence in terms of specific capacities or skills, with the consequence that the integrative potential of the concept is lost. On the other hand, more molar definitions (e.g., “effectiveness”), while being true to the integrative nature of the construct, provide little guidance for assessment. In this paper a developmental perspective on competence is presented which is congruent with a molar definition of competence while still guiding assessment efforts. In addition to this developmental viewpoint, certain practical guidelines are presented for assessment of competence across ages. These include the use of broadband assessments, which are tied to real-life adaptational problems, call for the coordination of affect, cognition, and behavior, and tax the integrative capacities of the child. Initial validation of the developmental competence construct and this approach to assessment is presented.     

Interrater agreement for reviews for Developmental Review

Reviewer reliability is examined for the first 2 years of operation of Developmental Review. Using the statistic, Finn's r, summary recommendations on publishability are shown to be higher in reliability than previously reported for other journals. Separate rating scales are shown to be less reliable than summary recommendations. Finn's r is compared with the intraclass correlation coefficient and shown to be a better method for examining reviewer agreement across different journals. Potential causes of high reviewer agreement for Developmental Review are discussed, and the importance of the distinction between reliability and validity of reviews is noted.