Characteristics of velocity profiles of speech movements.

Two experiments, in which the authors served as Ss, investigated the control of individual speech gestures by examining laryngeal and tongue movements during vowel and consonant production. A number of linguistic manipulations known to alter the durational characteristics of speech (speech rate, lexical stress, and phonemic identity) were tested. In all cases, a consistent pattern was observed in the kinematics of the laryngeal and tongue gestures. The ratio of maximum instantaneous velocity to movement amplitude, a kinematic index of mass-normalized stiffness, increased systematically as movement duration decreased. Specifically, the ratio of maximum velocity to movement amplitude varied as a function of a parameter serving as an index of velocity profile shape times the reciprocal of movement duration. The conformity of the data to this relation indicates that durational change was accomplished by scalar adjustment of a base velocity form. Findings are consistent with the idea that kinematic change is produced by the specification of articulator stiffness. (49 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Grammatical awareness in the spoken and written language of language-disabled children.

Two experiments examined judgment, revision, and error-identification deficits in relation to expressive language skills and morphemic errors in writing. 12 language-disabled (LND) children (aged 8 yrs 2 mo to 12 yrs 4 mo) and 11 controls (aged 6 yrs 3 mo to 6 yrs 11 mo) matched for language ability participated in Exp 1. 11 LND children (aged 9 yrs 1 mo to 12 yrs 2 mo), 11 age-matched children with no language disability, and 11 children (aged 6 yrs 2 mo to 8 yrs 0 mo) matched to LND Ss for language ability participated in Exp 2. LND Ss who did not lack expressive use of target morphemes also did not differ from language-matched Ss in their ability to (1) judge the grammaticality of spoken sentences, (2) revise them, and (3) identify errors. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Syntactic categories in the speech of young children.

Examined speech samples from 6 children (aged 2 yrs to 2 yrs 5 mo), with mean lengths of utterance (MLUs) ranging from 2.93 to 4.14, for evidence of 6 syntactic categories: determiner, adjective, noun, noun phrase, preposition, and prepositional phrase. Results indicate that all the Ss showed evidence of all categories, except for the lowest MLU S, whose performance was borderline on adjectives and prepositional phrases. It is suggested that children are sensitive early in life to abstract, formal properties of the speech they hear and must be credited with syntactic knowledge at an earlier point than heretofore generally thought. Results argue against various semantic hypotheses about the origin of syntactic knowledge. It is concluded that the methods and results may be applicable to future investigations of why children's early utterances are short, the nature of children's semantic categories, and the nature of the deviance in the speech of language-deviant children and adults. (41 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Verbal control of behavior: The effects of shouting.

Tested the implication of A. R. Luria's (1961, 1969) theory that children under 5 yrs of age would have more difficulty obeying instructions to inhibit a response the greater the intensity (loudness) of the instruction; this should not be true for children over 5 yrs of age. In the present study, 18 younger children (aged 3 yrs 6 mo to 4 yrs 9 mo) and 18 older children (aged 4 yrs 10 mo to 6 yrs 4 mo) played a game in which they were to follow instructions and either perform or refrain from performing simple acts. Instructions were loud, medium, or soft in intensity. Results for younger Ss were clear and significant in supporting Luria's theory. For older Ss, however, results do not neatly fit Luria's theory: Increased intensity facilitated compliance with instructions to inhibit a response. Data support the contention that an important aspect of language development is the decontextualization of meaning. (4 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Egocentrism, empathy, and altruistic behavior in young children.

In a study with 41 children aged 3 yrs 6 mo to 8 yrs 11 mo, Ss who exhibited altruistic behavior in an experimental situation with a peer had significantly higher scores on measures of perspective taking and empathy than did Ss who did not display altruistic behavior. Results suggest that there is a significant cognitive component of altruistic behavior, specifically the ability to understand another's perspective. (4 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social comparison, multiple reference groups, and the self-concepts of academically handicapped children before and after mainstreaming.

Predictions adduced from social comparison theory and group reference theory were tested in 2 experiments that assessed the impact of half-day integration into the educational mainstream on the self-concepts of academically handicapped children. In Exp I (50 Ss, 6 yrs 2 mo to 10 yrs 10 mo old), mainstreamed Ss exhibited significantly augmented self-concepts, a result attributed to the availability of multiple comparative reference groups. In Exp II (20 Ss, 8 yrs 3 mo to 11 yrs), a manipulation designed to restrict self-concept-relevant social comparisons to Ss in the academic mainstream produced decreased self-regard, while unrestricted utilization of multiple comparative reference groups produced increased self-regard. Results are interpreted as supportive of the theoretical viability of social comparison theory and group reference theory in educational settings. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Motivating autistic children.

A major problem encountered in the field of autism is the children's characteristic lack of motivation. This problem is especially apparent when autistic children attempt to complete learning tasks. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of correct vs incorrect task completion on children's motivation to respond to such tasks. Ss were 3 autistic children aged 6 yrs 1 mo, 11 yrs 11 mo, and 12 yrs 3 mo. Results demonstrate that when Ss worked on tasks at which they were typically incorrect, their motivation for those tasks decreased to extremely low levels. However, designing treatment procedures to prompt Ss to keep responding until they completed the tasks correctly served to increase Ss' motivation to respond to those tasks. The implications of these findings are that (a) autistic children's learning handicaps (which typically lead to low levels of correct responding) may result in few or inconsistent rewards for attempting to respond at all, thus decreasing the children's motivation; and (b) treatment procedures designed to keep the children responding until they complete a task correctly may result in coincidental reinforcement for perseverance, increasing the children's motivation to respond to those tasks. Results are discussed in relation to the literature on learned helplessness. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's concepts of volume and flotation.

Conducted a pilot study in which children (aged 7–9 yrs and 11–13 yrs) were asked to judge which 1 out of 3 wooden blocks would float (or sink), given weight and volume information for each block relative to a block that was known to float (or sink). Analysis of explanations indicated that judgments may have been based on the size–weight illusion. An experiment exploring the basis of flotation judgments was conducted with 14 children aged 7 yrs 1 mo to 9 yrs 6 mo and 16 children aged 11 yrs 4 mo to 14 yrs 11 mo that involved a test for judgment of volume based on information integration theory. Results show that Ss aged 7–24 yrs accurately judged volume by integrating 3 dimensions—width, depth, and height—according to the multiplicative rule. A rule assessment of their flotation judgments showed no age differences in initial rule, with weight rules being most popular. However, after feedback there were marked age effects; the 7–9 yr olds abandoned their initial rule without finding an alternative, and the 11–24 yr olds were generally able to find the correct flotation rule. It is concluded that children aged 7–24 yrs can judge volume but 7–9 yr olds have difficulty with the concept of flotation, possibly because it requires mental comparison of 2 ratios, a task known to be difficult for 7–9 yr olds. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Semantic priming between spoken words in adults and children.

Used an auditory lexical decision paradigm to determine occurrence of semantic priming between spoken words and to investigate the organization of the mental lexicon in preliterate children. 30 undergraduates and 24 1st-grade children (aged 6 yrs 2 mo to 7 yrs) were tested on a lexical decision task in which Ss had to decide whether pairs of spoken items were words. In both groups, significant facilitation was found for semantically related words compared with unrelated ones. Results indicate that semantic priming occurred in the auditory modality. The fact that children benefited at least as much from and often more than adults from an appropriate semantic context suggests that the lexicon of the child is organized in the same way as the adult's as early as 6 to 7 yrs of age. (French abstract) (41 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The feeling of knowing experience in educable retarded children.

Required 50 educable retarded children to predict their recognition accuracy when recall failed. Ss were divided into 3 ability levels: (a) old Ss (mean CA 13.25 yrs, mean MA 10.5 yrs), (b) medium Ss (mean CA 11.25 yrs, mean MA 8.75 yrs), and (c) young Ss (mean CA 9 yrs 5 mo, mean MA 6 yrs 9 mo). Results indicate that old and medium Ss could reliably predict their recognition accuracy, suggesting sensitivity to their own feeling of knowing experience, but that the young Ss showed no evidence of this sensitivity. Even though the young Ss had difficulty predicting their recognition accuracy in advance they were able to estimate the success or failure of their responses after they had occurred. Results are discussed in terms of the complexity of the metamemory judgment required, and the advisability of evaluating metamemorial knowledge across several situations is emphasized. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cross-modal and intramodal transfer as predictors of mental development in full-term and preterm infants.

25 full-term (FT) and 33 preterm (PT) infants who had participated in studies of cross-modal (CM) and intramodal (IM) transfer at 12 mo of age were seen at older ages to assess the predictive validity of these early measures for later cognition. FT Ss were administered the Bayley Scales of Infant Development at 24 mo of age; PT Ss were administered these scales at 12 and 24 mo of age, the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (Form L-M) at 34 and 40 mo of age, and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children—Revised and the Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration at 6 yrs of age. For FT Ss, both 12-mo measures were significantly related to 24-mo Bayley Mental Development Index (MDI) scores; for PT Ss, both 12-mo measures were related not only to 24-mo Bayley MDI but to each subsequent measure of cognitive outcome through 6 yrs. 12-mo IM scores were highly correlated with the 6-yr assessment of visual–motor integration. A measure of object permanence obtained at 12 mo was also related to cognitive outcome, but not so consistently as were the other 2 12-mo measures. Although parental education was a significant predictor beginning at 24 mo, multiple regression analyses indicated that the CM and the IM measures substantially increased the percentage of variance in outcome that could be accounted for by parental education alone. (61 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The development of imitation in nonimitative, severely retarded children: Contribution of reinforcement and instruction.

Determined the relative contribution of instruction and reinforcement to the development of simple motoric imitation in 12 nonimitative, severely retarded children (CAs 9 yrs 5 mo to 20 yrs 2 mo). Reinforcement was varied across 3 conditions (contingent reinforcement, noncontingent reinforcement, and no reinforcement), and instructions were varied across 2 conditions (presence and absence). Two Ss were assigned to each of the conditions, and an ABAB experimental design was employed. Results indicate that the most effective procedures were those that contingently reinforced Ss for each correct imitation with or without instructions to imitate. Ss who received various combinations of noncontingent reinforcement and/or instructions did not show any consistent increase in their imitative behavior. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recognition memory development in two- to four-year-olds.

Tested 32 preschool children on 2 36-item recognition lists. 8 boys and 8 girls were in each of 2 age groups; mean ages of the 2 groups were 4 yrs and 2 yrs 11 mo. No sex differences were observed. The younger Ss responded correctly 81% of the time, and the older Ss 92% of the time. A signal detection analysis revealed that this developmental difference was due to retention components, not decision components. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of directed attention on cerebral asymmetries in normal and learning-disabled children.

Using a dichotic listening task employing both undirected and directed attention conditions, cerebral asymmetries were examined in matched populations of 32 normal and 32 learning-disabled (LD) children (ages 7 yrs 6 mo–13 yrs 2 mo). The analysis of recall performance indicated that development was not a significant factor in either group; both the normal and LD Ss showed a right-ear effect, although the LD Ss performed at a degraded level and were unable to demonstrate a right-ear advantage (REA) when attention was directed to the left ear, unlike normal Ss, who produced the REA despite the directed attention conditions. Results suggest that LD children probably do not suffer from developmental delays but rather from a defect in callosal functioning that interferes with their ability to process verbal information simultaneously. (41 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cross-cultural differences in the perception of the emotional content of speech: A study of the development of sensitivity in Canadian and Mexican children.

Examined and compared the ability of Canadian and Mexican children to identify the emotional content of vocal expressions. Ss were 10 males from each country at each age 6-11 yrs. 10 male Canadian and 10 male Mexican undergraduates also served as Ss. Canadian and Mexican actresses, speaking any words they wished in their respective languages, simulated the emotions of happiness, sadness, love, and anger. After the initial recording, speech samples were arranged in random order and then rendered unintelligible by means of an electronic filtering device (which removed semantic content while leaving intact the tonal qualities of speech). When the filtered vocal expressions were played to Ss, a progressive increase with age in ability to identify correctly the emotions expressed was found. Further, the Mexican Ss overall were significantly more sensitive than the Canadian Ss. However, Ss from both countries judged the speech samples from Mexican actresses more accurately than those from Canadian actresses. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotions, defenses, coping mechanisms, and symptoms.

Used L. A. Gottschalk and G. C. Gleser's (1969) method of content analysis to examine 5-min samples of speech elicited from 6 different groups of Ss: 30 young normal men (mean age 25.7 yrs), 30 normative adults (aged 20–50 yrs), 30 normative schoolchildren (aged 6–26 yrs), 20 adults with psychoneuroses, 44 emotionally disturbed criminal offenders (mean age 25.6 yrs), and 22 acute schizophrenics (aged 21–55 yrs). Ss were given purposely ambiguous standardized instructions simulating the request to free-associate. Findings indicate that displacements and denials in mentally healthy individuals are more likely to function as coping mechanisms in contrast to their function as defenses or symptoms in mentally disordered people. No significant effects of sex, age, intelligence, or state of consciousness were found. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The preschool child witness: Errors in accounts of traumatic injury.

Because errors in recall are an important contributor to assessments of children's credibility as witnesses, the author explored children's errors when recounting details of trauma injuries that resulted in hospital Emergency Room treatment. 37 preschool aged children (aged 2–5 yrs) and 11 9-yr-olds (comparison Ss) were recruited in the emergency room and interviewed at home both within a few days of the injury and after 6 mo. Adult witnesses were also interviewed to corroborate children's accounts. Although 2-yr-old Ss made more errors than did older children, the information provided was accurate, even 6 mo after their injuries. The errors were not random; rather, information that was likely to be important in real-world cases was retained quite accurately, while some other categories of information (e.g., the 1st person to respond to their injury) were more error-prone. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of ocular dominance.

Tested sighting dominance in the eyes of 68 infants (mean age = 44.5 wks), 62 elementary school children (mean age = 9.0 yrs), and 86 adults (mean age = 25.2 yrs), using a green point of light brought toward the median plane. 3 trials were administered to each S. In each group more Ss were right-eye than left-eye dominant, values not differing significantly from the adult norm of 65% right-eye dominant. Eye preference was consistent in all 3 trials for adults and children, but only about half the infants consistently chose the same eye in all trials. The implications of the data are methodological, indicating that optical dominance can be measured in preverbal Ss, and developmental, indicating no significant changes in sighting dominance with age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Media differences in children's story synopses: Radio and television contrasted.

Evaluated the relative effectiveness of 2 media for conveying narrative information by presenting 44 young children (aged 3–6 yrs) and 44 adults with the same story via either TV or radio. Ss then retold the story to an adult from memory. Media differences were found, with children in the radio condition showing significantly more errors in comprehension and memory than children in the TV condition. Both the inclusion of inaccurate story content and the distortion of actual story characteristics occurred more frequently for the purely aural than for the aural and visual. Although Ss in the radio condition showed greater recall of dialog and sound effects than did Ss in the TV condition, the actual events recalled with dialog or other auditory features tended not to be highly important to the overall theme. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prevention of child injury: An overview of targets, methods, and tactics for psychologists.

Uses an epidemiological model of host, agent, and environment to describe areas of child accident risk and proposes a conceptual model of prevention intervention that was tested with 8 children (aged 7 yrs 7 mo to 9 yrs 7 mo). The model describes prevention's targets (harmful agent, caretaker, and child), methods (legislative/mandated or educational/persuasive), and tactics (populationwide, milestone, and high-risk group). Ss (6 of whom were children of single mothers) were trained weekly at home by 8 undergraduates using a safe-at-home game or similar material presented in the problem-solving approach of P. C. Kendall (1981). Ss were also assessed weekly at home by 1 of 6 undergraduate observers. Results show that Ss in both groups acquired a large variety of safe responses. The program, utilizing paraprofessional volunteers, was cost effective. However, training did not generalize to untrained areas. (43 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)