Short-term memory in deaf and hearing children in relation to stimulus characteristics

Experiment 1 examined short-term memory with a serial probe task in 20 younger (mean age: 6 years, 3 months) and 20 older (mean age: 8 years, 8 months) deaf children. Four sets of stimuli were used: familiar animals, unfamiliar nonsense forms, fingerspelled letters, and lower-case print. In contrast to earlier research with hearing children, strong primacy effects were found with all stimuli at both ages, with frequent gestural and/or oral labeling but little cumulative rehearsal evident. To determine whether results were uniquely tied to deafness, identical procedures were used in Experiment 2 with 20 younger (4 years, 9 months) and 20 older (5 years, 10 months) hearing children. Again, overt activity was common, with strong primacy effects on animals and nonsense forms in the older group and on animals in the younger group. Contrasts between present and earlier findings suggest the need to consider the degree to which stimulus labels are overlearned, the role of nonverbal mediators in rehearsal, and the effects of changing educational experiences.     

Race and the workforce: occupational status,aspirations, and stereotyping among African American children

This study examined whether African American children's perceptions of occupational status and their own vocational interests are affected by racial segregation of the workforce. Children (N = 92) rated familiar occupations with respect to status, desirability, and stereotyping. Children also rated novel jobs that had been depicted with African Americans, European Americans, or both African and European Americans. As predicted, for familiar jobs, children's judgments were linked to their knowledge of racial segregation of these jobs. In addition, novel occupations that had been depicted with African Americans were judged as lower in status than the identical occupations that had been depicted with European Americans, demonstrating a causal influence of workers' race on children's judgments. Children's age and socioeconomic background moderated their occupational judgments.     

Randall,Fiona and Downie,R.S. Palliative Care Ethics: A Good Companion

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics -     

Fostering geographic literacy from early childhood: The contributions of interdisciplinary research

A disturbing level of geographic ignorance in both children and adults has been well documented in recent years. We argue that educational programs to remedy this ignorance will be successful only if they draw upon an interdisciplinary approach combining the fields of geography and developmental psychology. After discussing the value of this approach in general, we describe some empirical data showing the links between children's developing projective spatial concepts and their ability to produce and use maps of familiar environments. We illustrate the value of this approach by discussing sample classroom activities, and urge the importance of developing pregeographic or premapping skills during the preschool years.     

Barrier effects in the cognitive maps of children and adults

To study spatial representation, Kosslyn, Pick, and Fariello (Child Development, 1974, 45, 707–716) asked preschoolers and adults to learn toy locations in a room divided into quadrants. When asked to rank order the closeness of toys, preschoolers exaggerated distances between objects separated by opaque or transparent barriers; adults distorted across opaque barriers only. The findings were interpreted as showing that children's spatial representations may rely more than adults' on functional distance and/or that children may have more difficulty than adults keeping many objects in mind simultaneously (integrative processing capacity). The Kosslyn et al. procedure was repeated here with first graders and adults, using either rank ordering techniques or direct distance estimations. Interactions of age and barrier appeared for the rank ordering measure only. Children showed a greater tendency than adults to group their rankings by quadrant. With the distance estimation measure, adults were quantitatively more accurate than children, at least among males; barrier effects interacted with sex and distance, but not age. These findings suggest the importance of integrative processing capacity, and that different dependent measures may tap different processes.     

The effects of sex steroids on spatial performance: a review and an experimental clinical investigation

Males typically surpass females in spatial performance, an outcome that may be linked to testosterone and estrogen. The authors (a) review physiological mechanisms, developmental periods, and past empirical work relevant to sex steroids' effects on human spatial performance and (b) report an experimental study of the role of actively circulating sex steroids in adolescents being treated for delayed puberty (N = 55; mean age = 13.70 years). Sex steroids (simulating early, middle, and late puberty) and placebos were given alternately over 21 months and spatial tests were given every 3 months. Spatial performance showed traditional sex differences but did not vary with levels of actively circulating sex steroids.