ASKING AND INSISTING AFTER A REFUSAL: HOW DO 6- TO 7-YEAR-OLDS PROCEED?*

What changes take place in request production between the ages of 6 and 7? In other words, what do children ask for, whom do they ask, and how do they formulate their requests? Twenty children, native French-speaking children divided into 2 age groups (6 and 7 year old) were asked to complete 2-character comic-strip stories where the hero either made a request to a friend or an enemy. Requests were for action or for information. In both age groups, children tend to use the direct form and embedded imperatives more often when the hero addressed a friend. Hints were employed more frequently when addressing an enemy. Requests for action were expressed primarily in both groups through direct requests, embedded imperatives and hints, whereas requests for information tended to take form of question directives. Surprisingly, 6-year-olds produced more indirect requests than the 7-year-olds, and particularly produced more question directives and hints. Reformulations in the 6-year-old group consisted of repeating the first request, whereas the 7-year-old group evidenced clear ability to produce a variety of reformulations. These results form the basis for a psychological interpretation of earlier findings. Discussion enters on children's ability to link linguistic form of request to the social features of production situation.     

Young children's use of a delayed video representation to solve a retrieval problem pertaining to self

The experiments reported here were concerned with the development of delayed self-recognition. Children were videotaped playing a game and were marked covertly with a sticker on their forehead while doing so. The findings, of both a cross-sectional sample and a prospective longitudinal one, revealed that 3- but not 2.5-year-old children reached to remove this sticker reliably during video playback only after they had been trained to use the video to guide their search for an object that was not directly visible to the unaided eye. It appears that by 3 years of age children understand that their briefly delayed self video-representation is related to their present self. In contrast, while 2.5-year-olds can use delayed video information to locate objects in space that cannot be seen by the unaided eye, they cannot use this type of information to locate an object that pertains to a part of self that is not directly visible, such as a sticker on one's hair. The findings are discussed in terms of the emergence of an extended sense of self.     

Parenting Wisely: Parent Training via CD-ROM with an Australian Sample

The effectiveness of a parenting program was examined with an Australian sample regarding improved parent knowledge, parental sense of competence, and child behavior. One hundred and sixteen parents and their children were randomly assigned to three conditions: a two-session group based intervention, a two-session self-administered individual intervention, or to a waitlist control group. Across both treatment modalities results reveal a significant increase in parental satisfaction, efficacy, and a reduction in child problem behavior. Improvements were maintained at 3-months follow-up. Results indicate the individual self-administered format enhanced treatment gains relative to the group format.     

Deficits in verbal long-term memory and learning in children with poor phonological short-term memory skills

Possible links between phonological short-term memory and both longer term memory and learning in 8-year-old children were investigated in this study. Performance on a range of tests of long-term memory and learning was compared for a group of 16 children with poor phonological short-term memory skills and a comparison group of children of the same age with matched nonverbal reasoning abilities but memory scores in the average range. The low-phonological-memory group were impaired on longer term memory and learning tasks that taxed memory for arbitrary verbal material such as names and nonwords. However, the two groups performed at comparable levels on tasks requiring the retention of visuo-spatial information and of meaningful material and at carrying out prospective memory tasks in which the children were asked to carry out actions at a future point in time. The results are consistent with the view that poor short-term memory function impairs the longer term retention and ease of learning of novel verbal material.     

How French Speaking Children Understand Promises: The Role of the Future Tense

The purpose of this study was to gain insight into one of the textual characteristics of promises: the future tense as a temporal marker of utterances. More specifically, our aim was to determine the role of the future tense in the comprehension of promises by native French-speaking children between the ages of 3 and 9. In line with speech act theory, a promise is defined here as a commitment on the part of a speaker to perform a future act. Promise comprehension is assumed to be dependent upon textual characteristics (the linguistic form of the utterance, temporal markers in the utterance, etc.) as well as contextual characteristics (listener's desire, social implications of the promise, etc.). Children performed a story-completion task from two-character stories presented in comic strip form. The stories varied in two ways: the verb tense (immediate future, simple future, or past) and the utterance production context (specific or neutral). The main results can be summarized as follows: (1) The 3- and 6-year-olds based their interpretation of the promises primarily on the contextual characteristics of the communication situation; (2) after the age of 6, the children began to rely on temporal markers in the utterances whenever the immediate future tense was used and promise-specific contextual information was lacking; and (3) the 9-year-olds always based their interpretation of the promises on temporal cues in the utterance. The results are discussed in the framework of interactionist theories of development and models of language functioning.     

La demande prélinguistique et linguistique: qu'apporte le langage?

This study deals with the adjustment of requests to the communication situation at two stages of development: the end of the prelinguistic period (18 months) and the beginning of the linguistic period (30 months). The main objective is to point out how language acquisition introduces new modalities of adjustment. The production of two groups of 12 children (18 and 30 months) were compared in three situations of object requesting: (a) the adult complies with the request (satisfaction), (b) the adult asks a clarification question (clarification), (c) the adult refuses to comply with the request (refusal). The similarities observed suggest a continuity between the two ages with respect to the functional aspects of requests. As for the structural aspects, the results reveal a partial continuity between the prelinguistic children (18 months) and the linguistic children (30 months): at the age of 18 months, children use vocalizations as they use words at 30 months and gestures are used similarly at both ages. The differences observed between both age groups suggest that, at the age of 30 months, language is used in order to find a solution to the request situation, yet without any major changes in the communicative strategies. The results of this study relativize the revolution brought about by language in the child's behaviours and specify its contribution to the adjustment of messages as a function of the communication situation.     

Making plans for future success: a timeline tool feasibility study

Many adolescents have hopes of college graduation, independent living, and satisfying careers. Career preparation is an important component that can facilitate these desires. However, many adolescents do not achieve these hopes in their desired timeframes due to interruptions, such as unplanned pregnancies. As illustrated by the Theory of Adolescent Sexual Decision-Making Influencing Teen Pregnancy (Weiss, 2012. Who will listen? Rural teen pregnancy reflections. The Journal for Nurse Practitioners, 8, 804–809. doi:10.1016/j.nurpra.2012.02.028), desiring future success can promote low-risk decision-making. Based on this theory, a Getting Plans Started (GPS) Timeline Tool (GPS Timeline©) was developed to help adolescents plan for future success by using a time perspective and, thereby, avoid interruptions. The purpose of this paper is to describe the GPS Tool©, how it might be used, and a study to determine the feasibility of using the GPS Tool©. Thirty adolescents found the tool easy to use and effective in helping them plan for the future. Their responses indicated almost unanimous desires for college graduation and independence with strong confidence in achieving their plans, but their responses also indicated a need for more effective planning to achieve their desired goals.     

Childhood Cancer and Brain Tumor Late Effects: Relationships with Family Burden and Survivor Psychological Outcomes

This study examines illness-specific family burden as a mediator of the association between late effects of childhood cancer and survivors’ emotional and behavioral outcomes. Childhood cancer survivors (n?=?65; ages 10–17) two or more years off-treatment completed measures assessing internalizing and PTSD symptoms. Parents reported on illness-specific family burden, late effects severity, and survivor internalizing/externalizing problems. Providers documented the number of late effects. Illness-specific family burden was correlated with provider-reported late effects (r?=?.29, p?<?.05) and parent report of severe late effects (r?=?.56, p?<?.01). Results supported an indirect effect of illness-specific family burden on number of late effects and parent-reported survivor internalizing problems, p?<?.05. Indirect effects were not found in models predicting PTSD and externalizing problems. Illness-specific family burden is an important intervention target for reducing internalizing problems in childhood cancer survivors with late effects.