Development of verbal fluency abilities and strategies in elementary-school-age children.

This study of two experiments designed to examine children's abilities and strategies for completing tests of verbal fluency. In Experiment 1, 64 third graders and 71 sixth graders completed four fluency tasks constructed for the study as well as several tests of other verbal abilities. Subjects received two sets of scores for the fluency tasks: a fluency score and scores for strategies expected to distinguish more verbally fluent children from less fluent children. The results demonstrated that the two sets of scores were positively correlated. In Experiment 2, 40 third graders and 38 sixth graders completed expanded versions of two of the fluency tasks used in Experiment 1. The results revealed grade and gender differences in strategy use as well as in level of task performance. In addition, the results indicated that the children's scores for one of the two strategies were strong predictors of their performance on the verbal fluency tasks. The effects of strategy selection and implementation, grade, and gender (as well as their combined influence on children's verbal fluency skills) are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive abilities in Inuit and White children from similar environments.

Previous studies have emphasized the differential abilities of Inuit and White children, concluding that the Inuit have well developed spatial abilities and less well developed verbal-educational and inductive reasoning abilities when compared with White Ss. However, in many studies White and Inuit Ss have not been matched for either socioeconomic status or grade placement. The present study examined Inuit and White Ss from subsistence level fishing communities. Ss were 22 Inuit 1st graders with a mean age of 84.2 mo and White 1st graders as follows: 14 with a mean age of 89.4 mo, 16 with a mean of 83.1, and 22 with a mean of 86 mo. Vocabulary and arithmetic tests adapted from the Wechsler Pre-School and Primary Scale of Intelligence were utilized. There were no significant differences between Inuit and White Ss in spatial, verbal-educational, or inductive reasoning abilities. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neuropsychological abilities of young children with questionable brain disorders.

Neuropsychological test data, including the WISC, the Wide Range Achievement Test, and the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery, were collected on 31 6–8 yr olds with a history of serious illness or trauma suspected of causing brain injury. These Ss with questionable brain disorder were compared with a similar group of 31 Ss who had no history of possible brain disorder. Results show that 10 of the neuropsychological variables significantly differentiated Ss with questionable brain disorder from normals. Stepwise discriminant function analyses revealed that a select battery of 5 variables had a classification accuracy rate of 72.6%. The data show noteworthy deficits in Ss with questionable brain disorder, particularly in motor and visual-motor abilities and in functions involving the nondominant hand. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental analysis of the conditional reasoning abilities of primary-grade children.

Administered a conditional reasoning test to 36 1st-3rd graders. Each child was tested individually with a concrete and a verbal presentation of the test items. After his response to each test item, the child was asked to explain the reason for his response. An analysis of variance of the number of correct judgments showed significant main effects for Grade Level, Mode of Presentation, and Principle, and a significant Grade Level * Principle interaction. An examination of the explanations for correct judgments revealed that children's problem-solving behaviors varied according to both testing session and principle of inference. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differential calculation abilities in young children from middle- and low-income families.

Examined the performance of 42 middle- and 42 low-income kindergarten children on arithmetic calculations presented in a nonverbal format as well as in 3 different verbal formats. On the nonverbal task, the child was shown an initial set of disks, which was then hidden with a cover. The set was transformed by adding or removing disks. After the transformation, the child's task was to construct an array of disks that contained the same number of disks as in the final hidden set. A significant interaction between income level and task format was obtained. Although middle-income children performed better than low-income children on each of the verbal calculation tasks, the 2 income groups did not differ in performance on the nonverbal calculation task. The findings suggest that the nonverbal task format is less sensitive to socioeconomic variation than are the verbal task formats. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Structure of abilities in math-precocious young children: Gender similarities and differences.

For this study of the organization of cognitive abilities and gender differences in young children advanced in mathematical reasoning, parents identified 778 preschoolers and kindergartners. After screening with 2 arithmetic subtests of standard intelligence tests, 310 high scorers (55% boys) were given 15 additional measures. Mean performance of these high scorers on all standardized measures was 1 to 2 standard deviations above the mean of the norming samples. Boys scored higher on 8 of 11 quantitative measures, 0 of 3 verbal measures, and l of 3 spatial measures, including quantitative and spatial working memory span. Three factors (quantitative, verbal, and spatial) were modeled using confirmatory factor analysis; patterns of relationships were similar for older and younger groups and for girls and boys. Spatial and quantitative factors were highly correlated; the verbal factor correlated weakly with the others but showed a stronger relationship with the spatial factor for boys than girls. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Patterns of growth in verbal abilities among children with autism spectrum disorder.

Verbal skills were assessed at approximately ages 2, 3, 5, and 9 years for 206 children with a clinical diagnosis of autism (n = 98), pervasive developmental disorders-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS; n = 58), or nonspectrum developmental disabilities (n = 50). Growth curve analyses were used to analyze verbal skills trajectories over time. Nonverbal IQ and joint attention emerged as strong positive predictors of verbal outcome. The gap between the autism and other 2 groups widened with time as the latter improved at a higher rate. However, there was considerable variability within diagnostic groups. Children with autism most at risk for more serious language impairments later in life can be identified with considerable accuracy at a very young age, while improvement can range from minimal to dramatic. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hierarchical planning abilities in children with specific language impairments

The present study examined Cromer's (1983) claim that children with language impairments have a hierarchical planning deficit that affects language as well as performance on complex construction tasks. Subjects were 30 boys (ages 5-7 years), 15 with specific language impairments (SLI) and 15 with normally developing language. Children were asked to build four hierarchical structures: a block construction, a puzzle construction, a simple straw construction, and a complex straw construction. Children who failed to complete the complex straw construction were taught how to construct the model using a sequential strategy. The two groups tended to perform comparably on the block and complex straw construction, the easiest and hardest of the four constructions. The two groups performed least comparably on the puzzle, simple straw construction, and the training task. On the basis of these findings and recent work by Greenfield (1991), we concluded that it is time to reject the notion that a central hierarchical planning mechanism underlies language and non-language structures that contain hierarchical components. The possible exception is early in development before language and manual actions become more autonomous and modular in nature.     

Thurstone's primary mental abilities and structure-of-intellect abilities.

Attempted to find in the factor-analytic investigations of L. L. Thurstone some information concerning factorial intellectual abilities that have unique places in the structure-of-intellect (SI) model, and to determine which SI abilities are represented in Thurstone's Primary Mental Abilities Test (PMA). Although a number of his factors can be cited as probable forecasts of SI abilities, in only 1 or 2 instances was a Thurstone factor clearly representative of a single SI ability, unconfounded with other abilities. This general outcome was largely due to the fact that his analyzed batteries involved too many different SI abilities for which the number and varieties of tests were not adequate. In successive analyses, some of his factors tended to converge in the direction of SI abilities, so that his PMA tests represent 1 SI ability each, with the exception of the Reasoning and Number tests. (28 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

People versus object orientation, social behavior, and intellectual abilities in preschool children.

Relative preference for interacting with people vs objects (i.e., orientation) was observed in 38 4-5 yr olds during nursery-school free play. As expected, Ss who showed greater orientation to objects performed better on tests assessing ability to organize and classify physical objects. Contrary to expectations, greater orientation toward people was unrelated to tests assessing social knowledge (e.g., role-taking ability and moral judgment). Degree of social knowledge was found instead to relate to sociometric popularity with peers and to ratings of several aspects of social competence (e.g., peer leadership). Results suggest that interest in and knowledge of the physical environment form a mutually facilitating interactive system. A similar but separate interactive system may be formed between the effectiveness of social functioning and social knowledge. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Visual-spatial abilities of pilots.

US Air Force pilots and control Ss participated in 5 experiments, each of which assessed a different type of visual-spatial ability. Although pilots judged metric spatial relations better than did nonpilots, they did not judge categorical spatial relations better than did nonpilots. Pilots mentally rotated objects better than did nonpilots, but pilots did not extrapolate motion, scan images, or extract visual features from objects obscured by visual noise better than did nonpilots. The results imply that efficient use of specific processing subsystems is especially important for, and characteristic of, pilots. The possible neuropsychological bases for the enhanced abilities and their susceptibility to change are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

WISC, Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities, and Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test performance of Spanish-American kindergarten and first-grade school children.

Tested 84 kindergarten and 1st grade anglo-americans, spanish-american "monolinguals," and spanish-american "bilinguals," matched on school achievement, with the wisc, illinois test of psycholinguistic abilities, and bender visual motor gestalt test. Specific cognitive deficits which might account for the poor school performance of spanish-american schoolchildren were examined. Expected global differences were found, but in 10 of 18 subtests there were no group differences. Results suggest that spanish-american children are deficient on the input side of communicative skills, especially in understanding sentences and pictures. Bilingualism per se did not appear to be as important a variable as is commonly assumed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Verbal abilities in young aggressive boys.

Academic failure and poor verbal abilities are commonplace in older children with aggressive behavior problems. The present study addressed the question of whether a similar pattern would be observed in young aggressive boys. A variety of verbal and nonverbal abilities were examined in 71 pairs of aggressive and normal boys in kindergarten-2nd grade. Significant differences favoring normals were observed on the WISC Information, Similarities, Block Design, Mazes, Performance IQ, and Full Scale IQ subscales; Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities Auditory Reception and Grammatic Closure subscales; and the Wide Range Achievement Test Reading subscale. Results do not indicate a generalized deficit in verbal development among young aggressive boys; however, findings support the interpretation that some deficit in mediational use of verbal ability may be present in aggressive boys. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Using local research to change 100 communities for children and families.

Two projects aimed at improving child development are described. In each, a research project was replicated over 50 times as a means of moving over 100 communities to action on their own behalf. The projects produced meaningful changes in the local social institutions serving families, including 92 new school-age child care programs for one project and, for the other, 80 community distribution systems reaching 40,000 families with a parenting intervention. Comparing initial failures with later successes in the projects, a contrast is drawn between giving away the knowledge of psychology (the diffusion or expert model of outreach) versus giving away the knowledge-generation process through collaborative research with community groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Patterns of memory abilities in two cultures.

Presents evidence that patterns of abilities, rather than absolute differences along a single dimension, are the best cross-cultural evidence for the effects of environment and culture upon memory development. An object and place recall task was administered to 96 5- and 7-yr-old Ss in the US and in a village in Guatemala. Actual vs verbal presentation of the objects and places to be remembered was varied. Place recall was better than object recall in the Guatemalan but not in the American children. Results suggest that environment and culture can contribute to the differential development of various mnemonic abilities. Soviet suggestions regarding the role of external mediators were also supported. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Processes by which verbal-educational abilities are affected when mothers encourage preschool children to verbalize.

Devised a measure of mothers' (20–36 yrs old) encouragement of child-generated verbal responses from videotapes of 66 mothers teaching a block-sorting task to their children. Mothers were administered the WAIS, and children received the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence at 3–6 yrs of age. Correlations and partial correlations of mothers' encouragement of verbalization with children's knowledge of letters and numbers were significantly stronger than those with Verbal and Performance IQ, which were nonsignificant. It is concluded that this pattern of correlations is consistent with a specific verbalization-helps-memory-of-content mechanism and inconsistent with a more global verbalization-generally-helps-thinking mechanism. (57 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The nature of mental abilities.

Presents a theory that organizes mental abilities into four levels—composite tasks, subtasks, information-processing components, and information-processing metacomponents. Composite tasks can be decomposed into subtasks, and subtasks into components. Metacomponents control the use of components in composite tasks and subtasks. The article describes each of these levels of mental abilities, poses the fundamental theoretical questions relevant at each level, and proposes answers to these questions. The role of factors in the theory is described and is shown to be quite different from the role of factors in traditional theories of mental abilities. Full understanding of mental abilities requires understanding of all four levels. (46 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On sex differences in spatial abilities.

The present author agrees with the suggestions by P. J. Caplan et al (see record 1986-10956-001) that sex differences in average performance on spatial tasks are often modest in magnitude and inconsistent from one task to another and that spatial ability is not a unitary construct; however, their contentions that sex differences in spatial abilities are nonexistent and that the concept of spatial abilities is not sufficiently valid as to allow meaningful investigation of sex differences are challenged. (5 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The organization of human abilities.

There are "two unfortunate tendencies in recent work on human abilities: the proliferation of factors and the tendency to think of only the first-order factors as the primary ones. An alternative model is to place factors in hierarchical order as advocated by the British psychometricians, especially Vernon. The application of the hierarchical model to a logical hierarchy of possible tests of mechanical information is presented, some hypothetical correlations are factored in several orders, and the Schmid-Leiman transformation is used to convert the factors back into a single orthogonal matrix manifesting the hierarchical principle. Facet analysis would enable one to define a population of tests… [and] helps restate the need for homogeneity in a test." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Earthquakes and children: The role of psychologists with families and communities.

The 2008 Sichuan Province earthquake and 2005 Pakistan earthquake are examples of natural disasters that took an unimaginable toll on children. In such disaster management contexts, family members as well as health care and school personnel are the first-line responders and are natural sources of continued social support as children recover. Although psychologists have increasingly sophisticated understandings of post-disaster reactions and strategies for helping children and adolescents cope with trauma, models for responding to mass catastrophes are limited, particularly in geographically remote communities and in regions in which mental health services are stigmatizing. With children’s well-being subsequent to earthquakes inextricably linked to family and community, psychologists can make important contributions in 3 spheres: (a) coordinating and activating collaborations within children’s existing social contexts to develop post-earthquake interventions; (b) designing prevention and preparedness programs focused on the emotional needs of children in earthquake-prone communities; and (c) conducting research on interventions and recovery with particular attention to developmental stage, sociocultural-economic contexts, and the similarities versus differences across various types of disasters. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)