Mother–Child Conversation and Children's Social Understanding During Middle Childhood

The authors investigated the relationship between mother–child conversation and children's social understanding during middle childhood. Thirty-eight mother–child pairs participated, including a younger group (5–7 years old) and an older group (8–10 years old). Children completed 2 measures of social understanding and mothers and children discussed 4 stories involving social dilemmas. Results indicated that compared to the younger group, the older group (a) performed better on both measures of social understanding and (b) produced more basic mental talk (i.e., talk about beliefs, emotions, personality traits, and desires), and more advanced mental talk (i.e., talk about contrasting perspectives, recursion and relationship between mental states, and advanced emotions). Mothers of older children also produced more basic and advanced mental talk. Mothers' advanced mental talk predicted both children's social understanding and children's advanced mental talk.     

The Long Arm of Religion: Childhood Adversity,Religion, and Self‐perception Among Black Americans

Significant associations between childhood adversity and adult mental health have been documented in epidemiological and social science research. However, there is a dearth of research examining this relationship among black Americans, as well as into what cultural institutions and practices may help individuals in dealing with childhood adversity. This study suggests that religion may be an important resource for black Americans in the face of early‐life socioeconomic and health disadvantage. Using data from the National Survey of American Life, a nationally representative sample of both African Americans and black Caribbeans (n = 5,191), this study outlines a series of arguments linking childhood adversity, religiosity, and self‐perception among black Americans. The results suggest some support for religious involvement in moderating—or buffering—the harmful effects of childhood adversity on the self‐esteem and mastery among black Americans, specifically religious service attendance and religious coping. In addition, the results reveal that religion may also amplify the deleterious effects of childhood disadvantage on adult mental health. Study limitations are identified and several promising directions for future research are discussed.     

Observing Christian faith during the childhood years

This paper presents the treasure and cultivate model as a research tool for observing Christian faith in the childhood years. The model seeks to treasure and preserve the natural and innate aspects of a child’s faith and spirituality, whilst simultaneously seeking to develop and cultivate other facets. It is proposed that this balanced approach leads to a childhood faith that is both wholesome and a resource to the child. Observation and logging of a child’s faith in this way provides a tool that allows surveying of characteristics that may influence faith. In the future, this research tool may be used to inform those who seek to foster a child’s religious faith in order that such nurture may be both healthy and resourceful. The paper describes a research project of 61 children aged three to thirteen years old, from six Christian denominations in North West England.     

Circling a memory: a layered reflective method for generating subjective knowledge about childhood and teacher identity

This paper describes a memory and life story process engaged in by three former early childhood teachers. The reflective process was based in interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) and proceeded in a recursive and layered manner, circling around the participants’ memory narratives. The aims of the study were: (1) to develop a critical approach to generating knowledge about childhood, and (2) to consider a teaching strategy for memory work in teacher education programs.     

Predictive model for early math skills based on structural equations

Early math skills are determined by higher cognitive processes that are particularly important for acquiring and developing skills during a child's early education. Such processes could be a critical target for identifying students at risk for math learning difficulties. Few studies have considered the use of a structural equation method to rationalize these relations. Participating in this study were 207 preschool students ages 59 to 72 months, 108 boys and 99 girls. Performance with respect to early math skills, early literacy, general intelligence, working memory, and short‐term memory was assessed. A structural equation model explaining 64.3% of the variance in early math skills was applied. Early literacy exhibited the highest statistical significance (β = 0.443, p < 0.05), followed by intelligence (β = 0.286, p < 0.05), working memory (β = 0.220, p < 0.05), and short‐term memory (β = 0.213, p < 0.05). Correlations between the independent variables were also significant (p < 0.05). According to the results, cognitive variables should be included in remedial intervention programs.     

The relationship between childhood adversity,psychiatric disorder and clinical severity: results from a multi-centre study

Although several studies have shown a clear association between childhood adversities and later development of a number of psychiatric disorders, a number of recent reports have cast doubts regarding the aetiological role played by abuse, neglect and loss, arguing that they are neither necessary nor sufficient to account for the development of subsequent psychopathology. In this study, we aimed to investigate the associations and predictive power of childhood adversities on later onset of Axis-I &-II psychiatric conditions and the impact on severity of psychiatric presentation in a large sample of patients. This cross-sectional multi-centre study evaluated patients (N = 1136) recruited in fourteen NHS psychotherapy departments in the UK. Patients were assessed using a number of rater-based questionnaires and self-rated measures. Multiple regression analyses showed that childhood experiences of loss and physical abuse were predictive of severe personality disorder and borderline personality disorder, but not of other less severe PD and Axis-I diagnoses. Sexual abuse predicted later onset of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. In addition, we found that childhood abusive experiences were strongly associated with severity of psychiatric distress, interpersonal problems and global functioning. Having experienced two or more childhood adversities significantly increased severity of psychiatric distress, interpersonal malfunctioning and CORE scores.     

Predicting remembering and forgetting of autobiographical memories in children and adults: a 4-year prospective study

Preservation and loss to forgetting of autobiographical memories is a focus in both the adult and developmental literatures. In both, there are comparative arguments regarding rates of forgetting. Children are assumed to forget autobiographical memories more rapidly than adults, and younger children are assumed to forget more rapidly than older children. Yet few studies can directly inform these comparisons: few feature children and adults, and few prospectively track the survival of specific autobiographical memories over time. In a 4-year prospective study, we obtained autobiographical memories from children 4, 6, and 8 years, and adults. We tested recall of different subsets of the events after 1, 2, and 3 years. Accelerated rates of forgetting were apparent among all child groups relative to adults; within the child groups, 4- and 6-year-olds had accelerated forgetting relative to 8-year-olds. The differences were especially pronounced in open-ended recall. The thematic coherence of initial memory reports also was a significant predictor of the survival of specific memories. The pattern of findings is consistent with suggestions that the adult distribution of autobiographical memories is achieved as the quality of memory traces increases (here measured by thematic coherence) and the rate of forgetting decreases.     

Associations between parental gendered attitudes and behaviours and children’s gender development across middle childhood

The present study used a longitudinal, multi-informant approach to examine which specific elements of parents’ gendered attitudes and behaviours were predictive of multiple dimensions of children’s gender development. One hundred and six families with two children (older sibling M = 7.45 years and younger sibling M = 5.19 years at Time 1) were assessed at two time points four to five years apart. At Time 1, parents reported on division of household labour, their own gender-role attitudes (GRAs), and children’s gendered preferences. At Time 2, children reported on their gendered preferences, GRAs and gendered personality traits. Results from multilevel modelling showed that fathers’ egalitarian GRA and egalitarian division of household tasks were predictive of egalitarian child GRA and outcomes, but child sex did not moderate these relationships. As some gender measures were more strongly correlated than others, these findings highlight the importance of examining multiple dimensions of both children’s and parents’ gendered attitudes and behaviours.     

Issues in the treatment of depressed children

Basic research into the cognitive, behavioral, familial, and physiological disturbances associated with depressive disorders during childhood is reviewed. Implications for the development of a treatment program are discussed and a comprehensive treatment model is proposed. The proposed model includes intervention strategies for the child, parents, family, and school. The child component consists of intervention strategies for the affective, cognitive, behavioral, and physiological disturbances that are evident from the existing research. The parent training component is designed to address disturbances in parenting due to cognitive disturbances and skills deficits. The family therapy component emphasizes changing interaction patterns that communicate schema-consistent maladaptive interactions. A school consultation component is proposed in which school personnel support the skills training through prompting use of the skills and reinforcement of the use of the coping skills.