小学傣汉双语者汉语词汇形音的语义通达特点

采用语义启动研究范式,探讨傣族小学2、4、6年级汉语词汇和语音的语义通达特点。结果表明：1）对图片语义的提取存在学习年龄效应,2年级的反应时显著长于4、6年级;2）汉语词汇和语音都能显著促进图片语义的提取,但语音促进作用更明显;3）汉语词汇对图片语义提取的促进作用随年级的升高而增加,汉语语音的促进作用随年级的升高而减少。     

方言经验对早期沪语儿童汉语语音意识的影响

已有研究对汉语儿童的英语语音意识进行研究,且取得了很多有价值的研究成果,但对方言儿童的汉语语音意识的研究很少。汉语是一种具有众多方言的独特语言,许多方言和标准语的语言体系有着显著差异。具有方言和普通话早期经验的双语儿童在汉语语音意识上是否存在优势,有两种不同的看法：一是从心理语言学层面上,母语学习中获得的语言能力或普遍语法能促进第二语言的学习;二是从语言学层面上来讲,母语对第二语言的学习存在干扰作用。那么双语儿童在汉语语音意识上比单一普通话儿童是否存在优势呢？本研究将进行调查。实验选取72名4岁、5岁和6岁学前儿童为被试,每个年龄组各24人,其中沪语儿童和单一普通话儿童各12名。采用听觉呈现方法对所选被试进行汉语语音意识水平的测试,包括声调意识、声母意识和韵母意识三部分,并收集儿童的口语资料。结果表明: 虽然沪语儿童声母意识和韵母意识主效应不显著,但沪语儿童语音意识总成绩和声调意识成绩均比单一普通话儿童高;沪语儿童汉语语音意识优势不受年龄的影响。本研究启示是,上海地区学前儿童学习标准语（普通话）之外应鼓励使用沪语。     

Emotional Expressiveness during Peer Conflicts: A Predictor of Social Maladjustment among High-Risk Preschoolers

Preschool boys' emotional displays during conflicts with mixed-sex peers were related to individual differences in peer sociometric status and teacher ratings of disruptive behavior. Participants were 60 4- to 5-year old boys from low-income families who were videotaped with a small group of classmates in a Head Start preschool classroom. Conflicts were identified and emotional displays were coded from videotape. Results indicated that conflicts were more negative in emotional tone at the end than at the beginning of the year. Furthermore, children tended to mirror each others' emotional displays at the end but not the beginning of the preschool year. In addition, gleeful taunting, a form of emotional aggression, more strongly predicted negative peer nominations and teacher ratings than anger, suggesting that anger may be a more socially accepted form of emotional expression during conflicts among preschool-age children. Implications and directions for future research and interventions are discussed.     

Pilocarpine seizures cause age-dependent impairment in auditory location discrimination

Children who have status epilepticus have continuous or rapidly repeating seizures that may be life-threatening and may cause life-long changes in brain and behavior. The extent to which status epilepticus causes deficits in auditory discrimination is unknown. A naturalistic auditory location discrimination method was used to evaluate this question using an animal model of status epilepticus. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were injected with saline on postnatal day (P) 20, or a convulsant dose of pilocarpine on P20 or P45. Pilocarpine on either day induced status epilepticus; status epilepticus at P45 resulted in CA3 cell loss and spontaneous seizures, whereas P20 rats had no cell loss or spontaneous seizures. Mature rats were trained with sound-source location and sound-silence discriminations. Control (saline P20) rats acquired both discriminations immediately. In status epilepticus (P20) rats, acquisition of the sound-source location discrimination was moderately impaired. Status epilepticus (P45) rats failed to acquire either sound-source location or sound-silence discriminations. Status epilepticus in rat causes an age-dependent, long-term impairment in auditory discrimination. This impairment may explain one cause of impaired auditory location discrimination in humans.     

Relation of Age of Onset to the Type and Severity of Child and Adolescent Conduct Problems

In a cross-sectional household sample of 9-through 17-year-old youths from 4 U.S. communities, youths with earlier ages of onset of conduct problems engaged in more conduct problems than youths with later ages of onset when current age and gender were controlled. Specifically, youths with earlier ages of onset were more likely to engage in several types of physical aggression, frequent lying, theft, and vandalism and were less likely to engage in only truancy. There also was an inverse relation between age of onset and level of functional impairment, mental health service use, and meeting diagnostic criteria for conduct disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and oppositional defiant disorder. Within the limits of cross-sectional data, these results support the hypothesis that key aspects of the heterogeneity of conduct problems among youths are related to the age of onset of conduct problems.     

An analysis of choice making in the assessment of young children with severe behavior problems

We examined how positive and negative reinforcement influenced time allocation, occurrence of problem behavior, and completion of parent instructions during a concurrent choice assessment with 2 preschool-aged children who displayed severe problem behavior in their homes. The children were given a series of concurrent choice options that varied availability of parent attention, access to preferred toys, and presentation of parent instructions. The results showed that both children consistently allocated their time to choice areas that included parent attention when no instructions were presented. When parent attention choice areas included the presentation of instructions, the children displayed differential patterns of behavior that appeared to be influenced by the presence or absence of preferred toys. The results extended previous applications of reinforcer assessment procedures by analyzing the relative influence of both positive and negative reinforcement within a concurrent-operants paradigm.     

Sex differences in 1-, 3-, and 5-year-olds' toy-choice in a structured play-session

This cross-sectional study investigated toy-choice in 38 one-year-old, 33 three-year-old, and 35 five-year-old children, who could choose between 10 different toys (four feminine, four masculine, and two neutral) in a structured play-session. The children played alone for 7 minutes and together with their accompanying parent for another 7 minutes (play-status). The results showed that girls and boys chose different toys from as early as the age of one year (Mdn = 12 months). These sex differences were found at all three ages. In contradiction to earlier studies, our results showed that feminine toys became less interesting for both girls and boys with increasing age. The present study showed no consistent effects of play-status. This study contributes to the knowledge of how early behavioral sex differences can be observed, how these differences develop, and it also raises questions concerning what sex differences stem from.     

Reminiscence Functions Across Adulthood: A Replication and Extension

Reminiscence, a naturally occurring process of recalling personally experienced events from our past, has been investigated primarily from a clinical, gerontological perspective. A total of 268 participants (100 male, 168 female) ranging in age from 17 to 88 years (M age = 40.02, SD = 20.32) completed the Reminiscence Functions Scale (RFS), the Memorial University of Newfoundland Scale of Happiness (MUNSH), and a single-item question assessing the perceived importance of shared family memories. Results indicated neither age nor gender differences on the total RFS score, indicating that men and women of all ages reminisce equally frequently. However, there were gender and age differences on specific dimensions of reminiscence. Specifically, women scored higher on the RFS factor of Identity (Idn) and lower on Bitterness Revival (BiR). Younger adults tended to score higher on the RFS factors of Boredom Reduction (BoR), BiR, Problem-Solving (PS), and Idn compared to older adults. In contrast, older adults tended to score higher on the RFS factors of Teach/Inform (T/I) and Death Preparation (DP). BoR, BiR, and PS correlated negatively with happiness, whereas Conversation (C) and T/I correlated positively with happiness. Finally, T/I, Intimacy Maintenance (IM), Idn, and C all correlated positively with the measure of the perceived importance of shared family memories. The results replicate earlier work with the RFS and suggest that examining reminiscence from a contextual, lifespan perspective is an important research area.     

Evidence for the Continuity of Early Problem Behaviors: Application of a Developmental Model

Evidence of the continuity of early problem behaviors in young girls and boys was examined developmentally. Data were gathered on 104 mother-child dyads from low-income families when children were between 1 and 5 years of age. Difficult temperament, aggression, and noncompliance from 12 to 24 months, and externalizing and internalizing problems at 36 and 60 months, were assessed. The results provide evidence for the continuity of early behavioral and emotional problems and support for the early differentiation between internalizing and externalizing problems. Implications of the current findings for prevention efforts are presented.     

表情判别能力的发展特点与影响因素

本实验通过不同年龄学生对各类表情的判别之研究,探讨了表情判别能力的发展特点及其与个体情绪发展间的关系。结果表明：①身段表情判别能力是导致表情判别年龄差异的核心因素;②面部表情判别能力发展较早,在小学阶段已相当完善,身段表情判别能力发展较晚,到大学阶段才达到与前者相同的水平;③身段表情判别能力的发展与个体情绪发展的阶段性特点及其主要社会适应问题相关联。