Linking marital conflict and children’s adjustment: The role of young children’s perceptions.

Young children’s (n = 96) perceptions and appraisals of their parents’ marital conflict were evaluated at age 5 and again at age 6. Concurrent reports of marital conflict by each parent and teachers’ reports of children’s classroom adjustment served as criteria against which to evaluate the validity of young children’s perceptions. Children’s perceptions of their parents’ marital relationship were significantly correlated with spouses’ reports at ages 5 and 6, as well as correlated with teacher reports of internalizing and externalizing problems. Consistent with the cognitive–contextual theory, children’s tendency to blame themselves for their parents’ conflict partially mediated the link between marital conflict and children’s internalizing symptoms. In contrast, children’s reports that they become involved in their parents’ conflict partially mediated the effect of marital conflict on externalizing problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship between preschool teachers’ reports of children’s behavior and their behavior toward those children.

The relationships between preschool children and their teachers are an important component of the quality of the preschool experience. This study used attribution theory as a framework to better understand these relationships, examining the connection between teachers’ perceptions of children’s behavior and teachers’ behavior toward those children. One hundred seven preschool children and 24 preschool teachers participated in this study. Two teachers reported on each child’s behavior using the Teacher Report Form of the Child Behavior Checklist. Commands and praise directed toward children by the teachers in the study were coded from classroom videotapes. Teachers gave more commands to children that they perceived as having greater general behavior problems, even after controlling for the shared variance in the other classroom teacher’s report of the child’s behavior. Implications for school psychologists, teachers, and researchers are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cue competition effects and young children’s causal and counterfactual inferences.

The authors examined cue competition effects in young children using the blicket detector paradigm, in which objects are placed either singly or in pairs on a novel machine and children must judge which objects have the causal power to make the machine work. Cue competition effects were found in a 5- to 6-year-old group but not in a 4-year-old group. Equivalent levels of forward and backward blocking were found in the former group. Children’s counterfactual judgments were subsequently examined by asking whether or not the machine would have gone off in the absence of 1 of 2 objects that had been placed on it as a pair. Cue competition effects were demonstrated only in 5- to 6-year-olds using this mode of assessing causal reasoning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Home numeracy experiences and children’s math performance in the early school years.

Children’s numerical competence in kindergarten is highly predictive of their acquisition of mathematics in Grade 1 and Grade 2, suggesting that experiences at home before schooling are important in understanding how numeracy develops. In this study, the mathematical skills of 146 children in Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2 were correlated with the frequency with which parents reported informal activities that have quantitative components such as board and card games, shopping, or cooking. Effect sizes were consistent with research relating home literacy experiences to children’s vocabulary. The present research supports claims about the importance of home experiences in children’s acquisition of mathematics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relational victimization predicts children’s social-cognitive and self-regulatory responses in a challenging peer context.

In this study, the authors examined whether exposure to relational victimization was associated with children’s thoughts, emotions, and behavior in an unfamiliar, challenging peer context. Children (110 girls, 96 boys; mean age = 10.13 years, SD = 1.16) reported on their exposure to relational victimization by peers. Following a challenging interaction with an unfamiliar peer, children reported on their beliefs about their interaction partners and their social goals (i.e., focus on getting to know their partner vs. impressing their partner) during the interaction. Coders rated children’s emotion and behavior regulation and the quality of the dyadic context. Results from hierarchical linear modeling analyses reveal that relational victimization predicted maladaptive social-cognitive processes (i.e., more negative peer beliefs and a heightened performance goal orientation) and heightened emotion and behavior dysregulation. Several of these effects were particularly salient in the context of a conflictual dyadic interaction. This research provides insight into impairments associated with relational victimization that may contribute to the emergence and/or perpetuation of peer difficulties. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Teacher–child interactions and children’s achievement trajectories across kindergarten and first grade.

This study examined the extent to which the quality of teacher–child interactions and children’s achievement levels at kindergarten entry were associated with children’s achievement trajectories. Rural students (n = 147) were enrolled in a longitudinal study from kindergarten through first grade. Growth trajectories (initial level and slope) were modeled with hierarchical linear modeling for 3 areas of achievement: word reading, phonological awareness, and mathematics. Cross-classified analyses examined the extent to which quality of teacher–child interactions and children’s starting level predicted achievement growth rates over 2 years, and they also accounted for the changing nesting structure of the data. Results indicated that achievement at kindergarten entry predicted children’s growth for all 3 outcomes. Further, first-grade teachers’ strong emotional support related to greater growth in students’ phonological awareness. Emotional and instructional support in first grade moderated the relationship between initial achievement and growth in word reading. Kindergarten classroom organization moderated the relationship between initial achievement and growth in mathematics. The implications of schooling for early growth trajectories are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Campbell’s and Rubin’s perspectives on causal inference.

Donald Campbell’s approach to causal inference (D. T. Campbell, 1957; W. R. Shadish, T. D. Cook, & D. T. Campbell, 2002) is widely used in psychology and education, whereas Donald Rubin’s causal model (P. W. Holland, 1986; D. B. Rubin, 1974, 2005) is widely used in economics, statistics, medicine, and public health. Campbell’s approach focuses on the identification of threats to validity and the inclusion of design features that may prevent those threats from occurring or render them implausible. Rubin’s approach focuses on the precise specification of both the possible outcomes for each participant and assumptions that are mathematically sufficient to estimate the causal effect. In this article, the authors compare the perspectives provided by the 2 approaches on randomized experiments, broken randomized experiments in which treatment nonadherence or attrition occurs, and observational studies in which participants are assigned to treatments on an unknown basis. The authors highlight dimensions on which the 2 approaches have different emphases, including the roles of constructs versus operations, threats to validity versus assumptions, methods of addressing threats to internal validity and violations of assumptions, direction versus magnitude of causal effects, role of measurement, and causal generalization. The authors conclude that investigators can benefit from drawing on the strengths of both approaches in designing research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Habitual size and projective size: The logic of spatial systems in children’s drawings.

The current study analyzed figure size modification in different types of spatial context (C. Lange-Küttner, 1997, Lange-Küttner, 2004) for sequence and practice effects. Children of 7, 9, and 11 years of age, as well as 17-year-olds, drew figures in a series of ready-made spatial axes systems, which (a) logically increased in dimensional complexity as in child development, (b) were randomized in sequence, or (c) were absent, as a control condition for figure size reduction through practice. Already 7-year-olds could subtly adapt figure size in the logical sequence, but the amount of size reduction stayed within the same size range as in the other two conditions. Only at 9 years of age did children show sensitivity to spatial constraints, with smaller figures in both the logical and random sequence than in the control condition. At 11 years of age, the spatial scale of figure size was maximized, particularly so in children who could change perspective and construct a bird’s-eye view, whereas this effect was attenuated in the 17-year-olds. Implications of the results for domain-specific conceptual development are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Editor’s choices.

Reviews the books, Mind regained by Edward Pols (see record 1998-06466-000); Manifesto of a passionate moderate by Susan Haack (1998); and Mind, meaning and mental disorder: The nature of causal explanation in psychology and psychiatry by Derek Bolton and Jonathan Hill (see record 1996-98296-000). In different but equally compelling ways, these three books address central problems in philosophical psychology and offer telling replies to more complacent perspectives on the nature of mind and mental life. The first two of the volumes are by philosophers, the third by authors trained in clinical psychology and psychiatry. In different ways, each of the volumes is at war with simplistic conceptions of explanation; each is also careful to distinguish between the correctives needed and a lapse into relativistic and ultimately skeptical positions on the nature of knowledge itself. All three of these volumes would serve as useful, even essential, texts in advanced courses in theory and philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, philosophy of mind. But so would they serve in interesting ways the larger aims of courses in Personality and Abnormal Psychology. Together, these books present encouraging reminders of the importance of conceptual analysis to the development and refinement of Psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Editor’s choices.

Reviews the books, Emotion and peace of mind: From stoic agitation to Christian temptation by Richard Sorabji (2000) and Other minds by Anita Avramides (2001). The two works considered here are deeply serious and composed by scholars who have executed their projects with undeviating integrity. In Emotion and Peace of Mind, based on his Gifford Lectures, Richard Sorabji moves the reader through a veritable course of study on a subject as notoriously protean as it is central to the lived life. The twenty-six chapters range over whole realms of thought on the subject of emotion, beginning with ancient philosophy and reaching the research and theory advanced right now in that congeries of specialties dubbed the brain sciences. Between the covers of this truly estimable work one meets not just the subtle and instructive thought of Seneca and Augustine, Iamblichlus and Epictetus, but insightful commentaries on the work of Damasio, Le Doux, Maclean and others. In all, Emotion and Peace of Mind is a benchmark- volume, an outstanding contribution to the philosophy and psychology of emotion; surely a required work for anyone prepared to approach the subject with the seriousness it demands. The second book of this review, Other Minds, is a work of philosophical rigor and originality, composed by an Oxford tutor who has skillfully shaped other minds with the sharp and sharpening instrument of conceptual analysis. Do computers have minds? Do animals have minds? Are there minds other than my own? And if I know of my own mind in that most basic first-person sense, then clearly there is no other mind that I can thus know. If there is something epistemologically amiss about first-person achievements, then there is surely something suspect about claims to the effect that I know of my mind. If there is nothing less than a required first-person account of minds, then there is something epistemologically suspect about any statement of any other mind. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Associating supplemental case management activities with ethnic minority children’s reduced use of psychiatric emergency services.

Studying children and adolescents receiving publicly financed outpatient treatment, the authors investigated whether receipt of supplemental case management was associated with reduced odds of ethnic minority children’s and adolescent’s receipt of crisis care, and whether the minority’s reduction was greater than the reduction for Whites. The data were 97,618 Medicaid records of mental health services provided to children and adolescents ages 0–18 years in California’s public mental health system. The study’s quasi-experimental research capitalized on a large, multisystem, and multiyear data set to address key challenges to internal and external validity. Results indicated that receiving case management along with outpatient treatment was associated with significantly reduced odds of crisis service use for Blacks, Asian Americans, and Latinos especially. The results provide preliminary evidence that supplementing outpatient care with case management helps to close a troubling disparity in mental health treatment access. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental and individual differences in young children’s use and maintenance of a selective memory strategy.

Children who were 4 to 8 years of age were asked to perform a sort-recall task where only half of the items had to be studied and remembered. Following a baseline trial, children were assigned to 1 of 3 groups and were prompted to use either a sorting or a clustering strategy (experimental groups) or were not prompted at all (control group). Children were seen 2 weeks later and given a new set of items for the transfer-of-training sort–recall phases. Levels of recall and strategy use (sorting, clustering, multiple strategy use) were higher for older children, typical items, sorting prompts, and trials with repeated presentations of test materials. Older children used more strategies than younger children, although even 4-year-olds used more than one strategy when performing the memory tasks. Results of multivariate cluster analyses revealed systematic individual differences, separating low performers from production-deficient children and high performers. Overall, findings show that clustering appears to be an early developing, but less effective strategy, with multiple-strategy use and especially sorting being used more frequently and effectively by older children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of play therapists in children’s transitions: From residential care to foster care.

Permanency planning operates on the belief that all children have the right to stable housing. This approach to child welfare has been implemented as a way to protect children from the negative outcomes associated with long-term residential care and multiple foster home placements. When a child is ready to leave residential care and return to a family living environment, there are multiple steps involved in the selection of a family and a child’s preparation for discharge. Play therapists perform many roles in these cases, all of which are critically important to children’s success in their new environments. This article’s aims are to (a) describe the various roles of play therapists in the residential-to-foster care transition process, (b) highlight several therapeutic techniques play therapists can use in their work with children preparing to leave residential care and enter a new foster home, and (c) discuss some of conflicting feelings that accompanies such sensitive work. A case study will further illustrate the ways in which play therapists can advocate for children who are ready to leave residential care. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Setting goals to switch between tasks: Effect of cue transparency on children’s cognitive flexibility.

Three experiments examined the difficulty of translating cues into verbal representations of task goals by varying the degree of cue transparency (auditory transparent cues, visual transparent cues, visual arbitrary cues) in the Advanced Dimensional Change Card Sort, which requires switching between color- and shape-sorting rules on the basis of cues. Experiment 1 showed that 5- and 6-year-old children’s performance improved as a function of cue transparency. Experiment 2 yielded the same pattern of results and showed that cue transparency effects cannot be accounted for by cue format only. Finally, Experiment 3 examined the effect of cue transparency in 7- and 9-year-olds and adults. The effect decreased over age for accuracy performance but not for latencies, suggesting that under some conditions, the difficulty of cue translation can still be observed in individuals whose inner speech is efficient. Overall, these findings showed that goal setting substantially contributes to children’s flexible behaviors and continues to influence adults’ performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relations among parental acceptance and control and children’s social adjustment in Chinese American and European American families.

Parental acceptance and control are the 2 dimensions of parenting that have been investigated most; however, little is known about their cross-cultural expressions. This longitudinal study examined acceptance, control, and R. Chao’s indigenous Chinese notion of control—chiao shun (training)—in 35 immigrant Chinese American (CA) and 38 European American (EA) families. Data were collected when children were in preschool and kindergarten (T1); first and second grades (T2); and third and fourth grades (T3). Within couples, CA mothers and fathers reported similar levels of acceptance and control, whereas EA mothers and fathers did not. CA fathers’ and mothers’ and EA mothers’ acceptance and control exerted a positive influence on their children’s psychological adjustment. CA fathers’ training negatively predicted their children’s problem behaviors 4 years later. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

China’s Major Non-ferrous Metals Imports&Exports

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Taylor’s Slope Stability Charts Revisited

Two design charts for computing the safety factor of soil slopes are presented here. The first one is for an undrained (?u = 0) soil slope, similar to the one proposed by Taylor, but with significant differences. Taylor’s work is based on three types of failure circles: toe circle, slope circle, and midpoint circle. It appears that there can also be compound circles that are made of two circular arcs separated by a straight line at the interface with the stiff stratum. These are incorporated in the proposed design chart. The second chart is for drained (c′-?′) soil slope that enables the users to compute the safety factor of the slope without any iterative procedures that are required with the Taylor’s chart. In c′-?′ soils, Taylor assumed that the failure occurs along toe circles. The analysis presented herein shows that when the slope is very shallow, it is possible to have midpoint circles. Both charts are quite simple and straightforward to use in engineering analysis of homogeneous slopes. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the use of the two design charts.