中国和澳大利亚父母报告的儿童社会性发展

采用作者编制的《３－９岁儿童社会性发展量表》的英译本,在２８４名澳大利亚儿童中进行测试。结果表明,对于社会文化背景差异巨大的中国和澳大利亚,本量表具有较好的稳定性和跨文化适用性。儿童社会性发展的各个方面,在中澳父母心目中占有不同地位：中国父母重视自我意识、社会技能、意志品质,而澳大利亚父母更重视社会技能和社会情绪的发展。在中澳两个样本中,女孩的社会性发展量表得分均高于男孩。     

Concurrent validity of the WISC-R factor scores

This study investigated the efficacy of predicting academic achievement as measured by the Wide Range Achievement Test using the factor scores of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised as potential predictors. Both instruments were administered to 200 school children referred for psychological evaluations. Factor scores for the WISC-R were computed according to equations provided by Gutkin (1978). These factor scores then were regressed in a stepwise manner on the Reading, Spelling, and Arithmetic standard scores from the Wide Range Achievement Test. Stepwise regressions also were performed using the traditional Verbal and Performance IQs as the potential predictors. A comparison was made between the results obtained by use of the factors or the more common scores. The results indicated that the Freedom From Distractibility factor score significantly aided in the prediction of Reading and Spelling achievement and was of primary importance in predicting Arithmetic achievement. When the stepwise results using the different scores were contrasted, the factor scores accounted for appreaciably more variance in Arithmetic than did the traditional Verbal and Performance IQs. Derived regression equations are reported along with a discussion of the interpretability of the Freedom From Distractibility factor.     

Children's attention to stimulus components with variation in relative salience of components and degree of stimulus integration

A total of 400 children at ages 5, 9, and 12 years were given a component selection task with stimuli differing in color and shape. Relative salience of these two stimulus components was manipulated across subjects in two ways: the standard shapes and colors from previous studies were compared with standard shapes in fluorescent colors, and the latter materials were compared with nonsense shapes in fluorescent colors. While fluorescence of color had little effect, the replacement of standard shapes with nonsense figures caused attention to be redirected from shape to color as the primary cue for learning. This effect was more pronounced at age 9 than at age 5. Apparently there is a greater tendency for older than for younger children to withdraw attention from a normally dominant component such as shape, when it is advantageous to adopt another feature such as color as the primary functional cue. An additional variable was integration of components (color within shape vs color as background for shape). Integration produced generally greater attention to color but did not affect the general pattern of salience effects.     

Children's component selection with varying degrees of training

With the component selection measure developed by Hale and Morgan (1973), children's use of selective attention was assessed at six levels of learning, ranging from undertraining to overtraining, and this function was examined at each of ages 4, 8, and 12. It was found that, as the children learned the task, they maintained a relatively wide focus of attention, acquiring information about both features of the stimuli, color and shape. Thus, contrary to the model under investigation, the children did not exercise a high degree of selectivity as they approached mastery of the task; nor did overtraining produce the expected “broadening” of attention, as the children acquired little stimulus information beyond the point at which criterion had been reached. The data were interpreted to be more consistent with a model that assumes the bulk of stimulus learning to occur prior to task mastery.     

Developmental trends in children's component selection

A new method is introduced for assessing children's component selection—i.e., the disposition to attend to a single feature of multifaceted stimuli. Eight-year-old children were found to exercise component selection to a lesser degree than 4-year-olds; while children at both age levels attended primarily to one stimulus component (shape), the older children showed a moderate amount of attention to a secondary redundant feature (color) as well. However, a comparable age difference in attention deployment was not observed when a single stimulus dimension (shape) was “relevant” in two variant tasks. These results imply a developmentally increasing ability to distinguish between conditions in which attending to redundant stimulus information can and cannot be useful. That this ability undergoes little further development beyond age 8 was suggested in a second experiment with 8- and 12-year-olds in which the three tasks produced relatively similar developmental trends in performance.     

Evaluating socioeconomic status bias in the WISC-R

The use of intelligence tests in making special education placement decisions for children has come under repeated scrutiny in recent years. Arguments for and against the use of IQs have centered around the issue of test bias. In California a permanent moratorium on the use of intelligence tests in placing minority group children into classes for the educable retarded has been handed down by the court. One defense proposed by advocates of mental testing has been that the tests are biased against socially and economically disadvantaged groups irrespective of race. According to Clarizio (1978), if a test predicts equally well for two groups it can not legitimately be described as biased. The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the test bias of the Verbal IQ as measured by the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised in relation to predictions of academic achievement in two different socioeconomic status groups. The results indicated that Verbal IQs are not biased with respect to socioeconomic status. Derived regression equations are presented along with an analysis to inspect the statistical power of the original tests.     

Children's selective attention with variation in amount of stimulus exposure

Selective attention in children was measured by means of a central-incidental learning paradigm. Children performed a central task requiring attention to one element in each of several stimuli, after which their incidental learning was assessed by a combination of two tests measuring: (a) recognition of the second, or incidental, element in each stimulus, and (b) association between the incidental and central elements. Principal independent variables were the age of the children (9 vs 12 years) and the amount of exposure time per trial in the central task (6 vs 12 sec). Douling the exposure time increased the incidental as well as the central scores for 9-year-olds, while it increased only the central scores for 12-year-olds. It would appear that younger children maintain a relatively nonselective orientation during an extended exposure period, distributing attention between both relevant and irrelevant stimulus elements, whereas adolescents adopt a more selective approach and concentrate exclusively on task-relevant information. The results are discussed in relation to hypotheses regarding development of selective attention.     

Cluster analysis in school psychology: An example

This investigation demonstrates the use of Ward's method of cluster analysis to uncover the underlying classification structure in a group of children (N = 200) referred for psychological evaluations by their public school teachers. Data were acquired on children's intellectual development, academic achievement, and social adjustment. The cluster solution identifies six groups of children which are statistically distinct. All three measurement areas are important in distinguishing among the different groups. The six-group solution accounted for appreciable amounts (95%) of the variability in the three measurement areas. Implications for psychologists working in the schools are discussed.     

Distraction effects in tasks of varying difficulty: Methodological issues in measuring development of distractibility

Effects of distraction on 5- and 8-year-old children's performance on a short-term memory task were examined. Tasks at three difficulty levels were employed to determine whether a floor effect could account for the lack of an age difference reported in an earlier study. A floor effect does not appear to be a key factor; the absolute amount of performance decrement was roughly equal for the two ages here regardless of task difficulty, and performance was well above chance under all conditions. The children adapted somewhat to the presence of distraction as shown in greater performance impairment for the first trial under distraction than for remaining trials. Use of a proportional, rather than an absolute, decrement index was considered, and the relevance of the present data to this issue was discussed.