Childhood Peer Relationship Problems and Young People's Involvement with Deviant Peers in Adolescence

Using prospective longitudinal data from the Christchurch Health and Development Study, this article examined the relationship between children's peer relationship problems in middle childhood and their subsequent risk of forming deviant peer affiliations in adolescence. The analysis proceeded in three steps. First, a structural equation model demonstrated a moderate association between early peer relationship problems and later deviant peer affiliations (r = .27). Second, the model was extended to include a latent variable measure of early conduct problems. This analysis revealed that when the confounding effects of concurrently measured conduct problems were taken into account, peer relationship problems in middle childhood were no longer significantly related to young people's choice of deviant peers in adolescence. Third, the model was further extended to include lagged variables, permitting an examination of possible reciprocal relationships between early conduct problems and peer relationship problems. Results suggested that both early peer relationship problems and adolescent deviant peer involvement are symptomatic of early child behavioral adjustment. The implications of these findings for explanations of deviant peer selection are discussed.     

A grouping interpretation of the modality effect in immediate probed recognition

In a series of experiments on immediate probed recognition for eight 3-digit numbers, it was shown that if the target modality involved auditory components and the effect of the similarity of the modality of the probe to that of the targets was controlled, unequivocal evidence was obtained for an auditory superiority effect (modality effect) for hit rates for the final items of the list. Moreover, false-alarm rates were significantly lower following targets with an auditory component than they were following silently seen targets. It is argued that this pattern of hits and false alarms is consistent with the idea that targets that have an auditory component yield memory representations that are better grouped as units than are those for targets that are only silently seen; in particular, if a new probe has a first digit that accidentally matches the first digit of a target item, it is more likely that the subject will mistakenly identify this new probe as old (give a false alarm) if the target has only been partially encoded because it was only silently seen.     

The impact of perceptual, cognitive and motor factors on bimanual coordination

Bimanual coordination is governed by constraints that permit congruent movements to be performed more easily than incongruent movements. Theories concerning the origin of these constraints range from low level motor-muscle explanations to high level perceptual–cognitive ones. To elucidate the processes underlying coordinative constraints, we asked subjects to use a pair of left–right joysticks to acquire corresponding pairs of congruent and incongruent targets presented on a video monitor under task conditions designed to systematically modulate the impact of several perceptual–cognitive processes commonly required for bimanual task performance. These processes included decoding symbolic cues, detecting goal targets, conceptualizing movements in terms of goal target configuration, planning movement trajectories, producing saccades and perceiving visual feedback. Results demonstrate that constraints arise from target detection and trajectory planning processes that can occur prior to movement initiation as well as from inherent muscle properties that emerge during movement execution, and that the manifestation of these constraints can be significantly altered by the ability to visually monitor movement progress.     

Parent,child, and contextual predictors of childhood physical punishment

Data gathered over the course of an 18‐year longitudinal study of 1025 New Zealand children were used to: (a) develop a profile of the maternal, child, and contextual factors associated with differing levels of exposure to maternal physical punishment, and (b) identify the key predictors of maternal physical punishment as reported by young people at age 18. Results revealed the presence of clear linear associations between the extent of young people's reported exposure to physical punishment and a wide range of maternal, child, and contextual factors. The key predictors of physical punishment suggested that the psychosocial profile of those mothers at greatest risk of physically punishing or mistreating their child was that of a young woman with a personal history of strict parenting who entered motherhood at an early age, and who was attempting to parent a behaviourally difficult child within a dysfunctional family environment characterized by elevated rates of inter‐parental violence and childhood sexual abuse. These findings were consistent with a cumulative risk factor model in which increasing risk factor exposure is associated with increasing levels of child physical punishment/maltreatment. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reference and Natural Kind Termas: The Real Essence of Locke's View

J. L. Mackie's famous claim that Locke 'anticipates' Kripke's Causal Theory of Reference (CTR) rests, I suggest, upon a pair of important misunderstandings. Contra Mackie, as well as the more recent accounts of Paul Guyer and Michael Ayers, Lockean Real Essences consist of those features of an entity from which all of its experienceable properties can be logically deduced; thus a substantival Real Essence consists of features of a Real Constitution plus logically necessary objective connections between them and features of some particular Nominal Essence. Furthermore, what Locke actually anticipates is the most significant contemporary challenge to the CTR: the qua -problem.     

An analysis of confusion errors in many-to-one matching with temporal and nontemporal samples

In experiment 1, pigeons were trained to match temporal (2, 8, and 10 s of houselight) and location (feeder light, left key, center key illumination) samples to color comparison stimuli. Red choices were correct following the 2-s and feeder light, orange choices were correct following the 8-s and center key, and green choices were correct following the 10-s and left key. Samples that were harder to discriminate (8- vs 10-s, and left vs center key) were mapped onto comparisons that were easy to discriminate (orange vs green), while samples that were easier to discriminate (2- vs 8-s, and feeder light vs left key) were mapped onto comparisons that were hard to discriminate(red vs orange). The pattern of errors for temporal and location samples indicated that these samples were not represented by a common code even though they were associated with the same comparison stimuli. In experiment 2, the same pigeons were trained with visual samples in which samples that were hard to discriminate (triangle vs circle) were mapped onto comparisons that were easy to discriminate (orange vs green), while samples that were easy to discriminate(plus vs triangle) were mapped onto comparisons that were hard to discriminate (red vs orange). Following acquisition of the visual discrimination, the temporal samples were re-introduced and many-to-one training was continued. During delay testing, the pattern of errors for temporal and visual samples was equivalent and consistent with the hypothesis that visual samples were being coded in terms of the duration appropriate for the temporal sample with which it shared a common comparison response. Data from no-sample test sessions ruled out a simple response bias explanation of the data. The properties of common codes for temporal and nontemporal events can be somewhat flexible and more complicated than previously envisaged. Received: 21 January 1998 / Accepted after revision: 5 April 1998     

Clinical Correlates of Co-occurring Psychiatric and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Symptom-Induced Impairment in Children with ASD

Although psychiatric symptom severity and impairment are overlapping but nevertheless distinct illness parameters, little research has examined whether variables found to be associated with the severity are also correlated with symptom-induced impairment. Parents and teachers completed ratings of symptom-induced impairment for DSM-IV-referenced syndromes, and parents completed a background questionnaire for a consecutively referred sample of primarily male (81 %) 6-to-12 year olds with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (N?=?221). Some clinical correlates (e.g., IQ?<?70, maternal level of education, pregnancy complications, current use of psychotropic medication, season of birth) were associated with impairment for several disorders, whereas others were correlated with only a few syndromes (e.g., gender, co-morbid medical conditions) or were not related to impairment in any disorder (e.g., family psychopathology). There was little convergence in findings for parents’ versus teachers’ ratings. Some clinical correlates (e.g., season of birth, current psychotropic medication, maternal education) were unique predictors of three or more disorders. Pregnancy complications were uniquely associated with social anxiety and schizoid personality symptom-induced impairment. IQ was a unique predictor of schizophrenia, ASD, oppositional defiant disorder symptom-induced impairment. Children whose mothers had relatively fewer years of education had greater odds for symptom-induced impairment in social anxiety, depression, aggression, and mania and greater number of impairing conditions. Season of birth was the most robust correlate of symptom-induced impairment as rated by teachers but not by parents. Children born in fall evidenced higher rates of co-occurring psychiatric and ASD symptom-induced impairment and total number of impairing conditions. Many variables previously linked with symptom severity are also correlated with impairment.