Showing papers in "Developmental Psychology in 2003"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the developmental course of physical aggression in childhood and analyzed its linkage to violent and nonviolent offending outcomes in adolescence and found that among boys there is continuity in problem behavior from childhood to adolescence.
Abstract: This study used data from 6 sites and 3 countries to examine the developmental course of physical aggression in childhood and to analyze its linkage to violent and nonviolent offending outcomes in adolescence The results indicate that among boys there is continuity in problem behavior from childhood to adolescence and that such continuity is especially acute when early problem behavior takes the form of physical aggression Chronic physical aggression during the elementary school years specifically increases the risk for continued physical violence as well as other nonviolent forms of delinquency during adolescence However, this conclusion is reserved primarily for boys, because the results indicate no clear linkage between childhood physical aggression and adolescent offending among female samples despite notable similarities across male and female samples in the developmental course of physical aggression in childhood
1,245Â citations
TL;DR: In this article, a biopsychosocial model of the development of adolescent chronic conduct problems is presented and supported through a review of empirical findings, which posits that biological dispositions and sociocultural contexts place certain children at risk in early life but that life experiences with parents, peers, and social institutions increment and mediate this risk.
Abstract: A biopsychosocial model of the development of adolescent chronic conduct problems is presented and supported through a review of empirical findings. This model posits that biological dispositions and sociocultural contexts place certain children at risk in early life but that life experiences with parents, peers, and social institutions increment and mediate this risk. A transactional developmental model is best equipped to describe the emergence of chronic antisocial behavior across time. Reciprocal influences among dispositions, contexts, and life experiences lead to recursive iterations across time that exacerbate or diminish antisocial development. Cognitive and emotional processes within the child, including the acquisition of knowledge and social-information-processing patterns, mediate the relation between life experiences and conduct problem outcomes. Implications for prevention research and public policy are noted.
956Â citations
TL;DR: This paper examined the longitudinal relations between TV-violence viewing at ages 6 to 10 and adult aggressive behavior about 15 years later for a sample growing up in the 1970s and 1980s.
Abstract: Although the relation between TV-violence viewing and aggression in childhood has been clearly demonstrated, only a few studies have examined this relation from childhood to adulthood, and these studies of children growing up in the 1960s reported significant relations only for boys. The current study examines the longitudinal relations between TV-violence viewing at ages 6 to 10 and adult aggressive behavior about 15 years later for a sample growing up in the 1970s and 1980s. Follow-up archival data (N = 450) and interview data (N = 329) reveal that childhood exposure to media violence predicts young adult aggressive behavior for both males and females. Identification with aggressive TV characters and perceived realism of TV violence also predict later aggression. These relations persist even when the effects of socioeconomic status, intellectual ability, and a variety of parenting factors are controlled.
689Â citations
TL;DR: Follow-up analyses indicated that initially high and low groups were differentiated in early childhood by high child fearlessness and elevated maternal depressive symptomatology, and the implications for early intervention research are discussed, with an emphasis on the identification of at-risk parent-child dyads.
Abstract: The present study applied a semiparametric mixture model to a sample of 284 low-income boys to model developmental trajectories of overt conduct problems from ages 2 to 8. As in research on older children, 4 developmental trajectories were identified: a persistent problem trajectory, a high-level desister trajectory, a moderate-level desister trajectory, and a persistent low trajectory. Follow-up analyses indicated that initially high and low groups were differentiated in early childhood by high child fearlessness and elevated maternal depressive symptomatology. Persistent problem and high desister trajectories were differentiated by high child fearlessness and maternal rejecting parenting. The implications of the results for early intervention research are discussed, with an emphasis on the identification of at-risk parent-child dyads.
633Â citations
TL;DR: This study merged two theoretical constructs: cumulative risk and allostatic load and physical and psychosocial aspects of the home environment and personal characteristics were modeled in a cumulative risk heuristic.
Abstract: This study merged two theoretical constructs: cumulative risk and allostatic load. Physical (crowding, noise, housing quality) and psychosocial (child separation, turmoil, violence) aspects of the home environment and personal characteristics (poverty, single parenthood, maternal highschool dropout status) were modeled in a cumulative risk heuristic. Elevated cumulative risk was associated with heightened cardiovascular and neuroendocrine parameters, increased deposition of body fat, and a higher summary index of total allostatic load. Previous findings that children who face more cumulative risk have greater psychological distress were replicated among a sample of rural children and shown to generalize to lower perceptions of self-worth. Prior cumulative risk research was further extended through demonstration of self-regulatory behavior problems and elevated learned helplessness.
589Â citations
TL;DR: The results of this series of experiments raise the possibility that infants use their statistical learning abilities to locate words in speech and use those words to discover the regular pattern of stress cues in English.
Abstract: Prior research suggests that stress cues are particularly important for English-hearing infants' detection of word boundaries. It is unclear, though, how infants learn to attend to stress as a cue to word segmentation. This series of experiments was designed to explore infants' attention to conflicting cues at different ages. Experiment 1 replicated previous findings: When stress and statistical cues indicated different word boundaries, 9-month-old infants used syllable stress as a cue to segmentation while ignoring statistical cues. However, in Experiment 2, 7-month-old infants attended more to statistical cues than to stress cues. These results raise the possibility that infants use their statistical learning abilities to locate words in speech and use those words to discover the regular pattern of stress cues in English. Infants at different ages may deploy different segmentation strategies as a function of their current linguistic experience.
502Â citations
TL;DR: The findings demonstrate that a model of early identification and intervention for children at risk is beneficial for ESL speakers and suggest that the effects of bilingualism on the acquisition of early reading skills are not negative and may be positive.
Abstract: Patterns of reading development were examined in native English-speaking (L1) children and children who spoke English as a second language (ESL). Participants were 978 (790 L1 speakers and 188 ESL speakers) Grade 2 children involved in a longitudinal study that began in kindergarten. In kindergarten and Grade 2, participants completed standardized and experimental measures including reading, spelling, phonological processing, and memory. All children received phonological awareness instruction in kindergarten and phonics instruction in Grade 1. By the end of Grade 2, the ESL speakers' reading skills were comparable to those of L1 speakers, and ESL speakers even outperformed L1 speakers on several measures. The findings demonstrate that a model of early identification and intervention for children at risk is beneficial for ESL speakers and also suggest that the effects of bilingualism on the acquisition of early reading skills are not negative and may be positive.
499Â citations
TL;DR: In-group favoritism did not appear until 5 years of age but then reached significant levels; it was strongly related to developing social cognitions and its targets suffer from comparison with the high favoritism accorded in-group members.
Abstract: Although standardized measures of prejudice reveal high levels of ethnocentric bias in the preschool years, it may reflect in-group favoritism or out-group prejudice. A measure that partially decouples the two attitudes was given to White children between 4 and 7 years of age to examine the reciprocal relation between and the acquisition and correlates of in-group and out-group attitudes. The two attitudes were reciprocally correlated in 1 sample from a racially homogeneous school but not in a 2nd sample from a mixed-race school. In-group favoritism did not appear until 5 years of age but then reached significant levels; it was strongly related to developing social cognitions. Out-group prejudice was weaker, but its targets suffer from comparison with the high favoritism accorded in-group members.
446Â citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated potential differences between nonreferred children (mean age = 12.36 years; SD = 1.73) with and without callous-unemotional (CU) traits (n = 98).
Abstract: One method for defining pathways through which children develop severe conduct problems is based on the presence or absence of callous-unemotional (CU) traits. This study investigated potential differences between nonreferred children (mean age = 12.36 years; SD = 1.73) with and without CU traits (n = 98). Children with conduct problems, irrespective of the presence of CU traits, tended to have significant problems in emotional and behavioral regulation. In contrast, CU traits, irespective of the presence of conduct problems, were associated with a lack of behavioral inhibition. Hostile attributional biases were associated with conduct problems but only in boys and in the absence of CU traits. These findings suggest that the processes underlying deficits in emotional and behavioral regulation in children with conduct problems may be different for children with CU traits.
424Â citations
TL;DR: Significant interactions between risk and child factors for students' grade point average (GPA) revealed that child factors had significant effects only for low-risk students and higher IQ and better mental health improved the GPA trajectories of low- risk children but did not influence the GPA trajectory of high-risk children.
Abstract: This study examined the main and interactive effects of multiple social risk factors and the preschool child factors of IQ and mental health on students' academic trajectories from 1st grade to 12th grade. A multiple risk score summarizing 10 environmental risk factors was calculated at 4 years of age for 145 families. Hierarchical linear modeling showed that high-risk students had lower grades and more absences from 1st grade to 12th grade than did low-risk students. Significant interactions between risk and child factors for students' grade point average (GPA) revealed that child factors had significant effects only for low-risk students. Higher IQ and better mental health improved the GPA trajectories of low-risk children but did not influence the GPA trajectories of high-risk children.
422Â citations
TL;DR: The authors addressed the issue of whether individual differences in attachment organization are more consistent with a continuous or a categorical model by applying P. E. Meehl's taxometric techniques for distinguishing latent types from latent continua to Strange Situation data on 1,139 fifteen-month-old children from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care.
Abstract: Contemporary attachment research is based on the assumption that at least three types of infant attachment patterns exist: secure, avoidant, and resistant. It is not known, however, whether individual differences in attachment organization are more consistent with a continuous or a categorical model. The authors addressed this issue by applying P. E. Meehl's (1973, 1992) taxometric techniques for distinguishing latent types (i.e., classes, natural kinds) from latent continua (i.e., dimensions) to Strange Situation data on 1,139 fifteen-month-old children from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care. The results indicate that variation in attachment patterns is largely continuous, not categorical. The discussion focuses on the implications of dimensional models of individual differences for attachment theory and research.
TL;DR: Structural equation models showed that articulatory skills and syllable and rime awareness predicted later phoneme awareness, and children's rime skills developed earlier than their phoneme skills.
Abstract: A short-term longitudinal study was carried out on a group of 67 preschool children. At three points in time over a 12-month period, the children were given tests measuring their syllable, rime, and phoneme awareness, speech and language skills, and letter knowledge. In general, children's rime skills developed earlier than their phoneme skills. Structural equation models showed that articulatory skills and syllable and rime awareness predicted later phoneme awareness.
TL;DR: Children's performance on free labeling of prototypical facial expressions of basic emotions is modest and improves only gradually, and children's use of emotion labels increased with age in a systematic order.
Abstract: Children's performance on free labeling of prototypical facial expressions of basic emotions is modest and improves only gradually. In 3 data sets (N = 80, ages 4 or 5 years; N = 160, ages 2 to 5 years; N = 80, ages 3 to 4 years), errors remained even when method factors (poor stimuli, unavailability of an appropriate label, or the difficulty of a production task) were controlled. Children's use of emotion labels increased with age in a systematic order: Happy, angry, and sad emerged early and in that order, were more accessible, and were applied broadly (overgeneralized) but systematically. Scared, surprised, and disgusted emerged later and often in that order, were less accessible, and were applied narrowly.
TL;DR: Analyses of data from 240 members of a community-based longitudinal study investigated the association of trajectories in these domains with family socioeconomic status, parental divorce, gender, and race, and indicated that subgroup differences were not generally attributable to educational enrollment.
Abstract: The assumption of adult roles has largely been examined as status changes in school attendance, leaving the parental home, and marriage. Nevertheless, levels of autonomy and individuation vary considerably within these states. This study obtained such information through narrative behavioral descriptions within financial, residential, romantic, and family formation domains covering ages 17 to 27 years. Analyses of data from 240 members of a community-based longitudinal study investigated the association of trajectories in these domains with family socioeconomic status, parental divorce, gender, and race. Findings indicated that subgroup differences were not generally attributable to educational enrollment. Both within and between domains, many individuals showed dramatic changes in the assumption of adult roles, returning to more dependent, other-determined roles for short or even extended periods.
TL;DR: In this paper, the early childhood precursors of externalizing behaviors for boys and girls from a normative sample were elucidated, and the relation between conflict-aggressive initiations at age 2 and externalizing problems at age 4 was strongest for dysregulated toddlers.
Abstract: Rarely have researchers elucidated early childhood precursors of externalizing behaviors for boys and girls from a normative sample. Toddlers (N = 104; 52 girls) were observed interacting with a same-sex peer and their mothers, and indices of conflict-aggression, emotion and behavior dysregulation, parenting, and child externalizing problems were obtained. Results indicated that boys initiated more conflictual-aggressive interactions as toddlers and had more externalizing difficulties 2 years later, yet girls' (not boys') conflict-aggressive initiations at age 2 were related to subsequent externalizing problems. When such initiations were controlled for, emotional-behavioral undercontrol at age 2 also independently predicted externalizing problems at age 4. Moreover, the relation between conflict-aggressive initiations at age 2 and externalizing problems at age 4 was strongest for dysregulated toddlers. Finally, the relation between age 2 conflict-aggressive initiations and age 4 externalizing problems was strongest for those toddlers who incurred high levels of maternal negativity. These findings illustrate temperament by parenting connections in the development of externalizing problems.
TL;DR: Parents' beliefs significantly predicted children's interest and self-efficacy in science and when parents' teaching language was examined, fathers tended to use more cognitively demanding speech with sons than with daughters during one of the science tasks.
Abstract: This study investigated the family as a context for the gender typing of science achievement. Adolescents (N = 52) from 2 age levels (mean ages = 11 and 13 years) participated with their mothers and fathers on separate occasions; families were from predominantly middle-income European American backgrounds. Questionnaires measured the parents' and the child's attitudes. Each parent also engaged his or her child in 4 structured teaching activities (including science and nonscience tasks). There were no child gender or grade-level differences in children's science-related grades, self-efficacy, or interest. However, parents were more likely to believe that science was less interesting and more difficult for daughters than sons. In addition, parents' beliefs significantly predicted children's interest and self-efficacy in science. When parents' teaching language was examined, fathers tended to use more cognitively demanding speech with sons than with daughters during one of the science tasks.
TL;DR: The role of regulation as a mediator of the relations between maternal emotional expressivity and children's adjustment and social competence was examined when children were 4.5 to just 8 years old and 2 years later, and at T2, regulation mediated the relation between positive maternal emotionalexpressivity andChildren's functioning.
Abstract: The role of regulation as a mediator of the relations between maternal emotional expressivity and children's adjustment and social competence was examined when children (N = 208) were 4.5 to just 8 years old (Time 1, T1) and 2 years later (Time 2, T2). At T2, as at T1, regulation mediated the relation between positive maternal emotional expressivity and children's functioning. When T1 relations and the stability of variables over time were controlled for in a structural equation model, T2 relations generally were nonsignificant, although parents' dominant negative expressivity predicted high regulation. In contrast, in regressions, the findings for parent positive expressivity, but not negative expressivity, held at T2 when T1 variables were controlled. Thus, relations for negative expressivity, but not positive expressivity, changed with age.
TL;DR: Infants at 12 and 18 months of age played with 2 adults and 2 new toys, and lent support to the hypothesis that 1-year-old infants possess a genuine understanding of other persons as intentional and attentional agents.
Abstract: Infants at 12 and 18 months of age played with 2 adults and 2 new toys. For a 3rd toy, however, 1 of the adults left the room while the child and the other adult played with it. This adult then returned, looked at all 3 toys aligned on a tray, showed great excitement ("Wow! Cool!"), and then asked, "Can you give it to me?' To retrieve the toy the adult wanted, infants had to (a) know that people attend to and get excited about new things and (b) identify what was new for the adult even though it was not new for them. Infants at both ages did this successfully, lending support to the hypothesis that 1-year-old infants possess a genuine understanding of other persons as intentional and attentional agents.
TL;DR: The present study used general growth mixture modeling to identify pathways of antisocial behavior development within an epidemiological sample of urban, primarily African American boys and differentiated boys with increasing aggression from boys with stable low aggression.
Abstract: The present study used general growth mixture modeling to identify pathways of antisocial behavior development within an epidemiological sample of urban, primarily African American boys. Teacher-rated aggression, measured longitudinally from 1st to 7th grade, was used to define growth trajectories. Three high-risk trajectories (chronic high, moderate, and increasing aggression) and one low-risk trajectory (stable low aggression) were found. Boys with chronic high and increasing trajectories were at increased risk for conduct disorder, juvenile and adult arrest, and antisocial personality disorder. Concentration problems were highest among boys with a chronic high trajectory and also differentiated boys with increasing aggression from boys with stable low aggression. Peer rejection was highest among boys with chronic high aggression. Interventions with boys with distinct patterns of aggression are discussed.
TL;DR: The quality of parent-child relationships and the socioemotional and gender development of a community sample of 7-year-old children with lesbian parents is examined and findings are in line with those of earlier investigations showing positive mother-child relationship and well-adjusted children.
Abstract: Existing research on children with lesbian parents is limited by reliance on volunteer or convenience samples. The present study examined the quality of parent-child relationships and the socioemotional and gender development of a community sample of 7-year-old children with lesbian parents. Families were recruited through the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, a geographic population study of 14,000 mothers and their children. Thirty-nine lesbian-mother families, 74 two-parent heterosexual families, and 60 families headed by single heterosexual mothers were compared on standardized interview and questionnaire measures administered to mothers, co-mothers/fathers, children, and teachers. Findings are in line with those of earlier investigations showing positive mother-child relationships and well-adjusted children.
TL;DR: Although the overall set of relations does not satisfy mediation requirements fully in all instances, the model was validated for the most part, supporting a focus on a multilevel ecological model of influences on risk development.
Abstract: Data from a longitudinal study of 294 African American and Latino adolescent boys and their caregivers living in poor urban communities were used to test a developmental-ecological model of violence. Six annual waves of data were applied to evaluate the relations between microsystem influences of parenting and peer deviance (peer violence and gang membership), macrosystem influences of community structural characteristics and neighborhood social organization, and individual involvement in violence (level and growth). Structural equation modeling analyses showed that community structural characteristics significantly predicted neighborhood social processes. Parenting practices partially mediated the relation between neighborhood social processes and gang membership. Parenting practices was fully mediated in its relation to peer violence by gang membership. Gang membership was partially mediated by peer violence level in its relation to individual violence level. Although the overall set of relations does not satisfy mediation requirements fully in all instances, the model was validated for the most part, supporting a focus on a multilevel ecological model of influences on risk development.
TL;DR: The usefulness of self-defining memories for illuminating contexts of relationship development in late adolescence and for understanding the emergence of identity and the life story are discussed.
Abstract: This study examined late adolescents' self-defining memories about relationships. Participants were 88 European Americans (mean age = 19 years) who reported 3 self-defining memories of their choosing and were selected for the study because they reported a memory about parents and/or peers. Memory narratives were coded for themes of separation, closeness, and conflict and for 2 kinds of meaning: learning lessons and gaining insight. Parent memories emphasized separation more so than peer memories, which emphasized closeness. Within parent memories, however, separation and closeness were equally prevalent. Parent separation was exemplified by experiences of parental divorce, parent closeness by comforting a grieving parent, and peer closeness by episodes of first-time romance. Conflict was more prevalent in parent than peer memories and was associated with meaning-making. Findings are discussed in terms of the usefulness of self-defining memories for illuminating contexts of relationship development in late adolescence and for understanding the emergence of identity and the life story.
TL;DR: 9-month-old infants were given the opportunity to induce specific phonological patterns in 3 experiments in which syllable structure, consonant voicing position, and segmental position were manipulated and revealed that infants rapidly extracted new phonological regularities.
Abstract: How do infants learn the sound patterns of their native language? By the end of the 1 st year, infants have acquired detailed aspects of the phonology and phonotactics of their input language. However, the structure of the learning mechanisms underlying this process is largely unknown. In this study, 9-month-old infants were given the opportunity to induce specific phonological patterns in 3 experiments in which syllable structure, consonant voicing position, and segmental position were manipulated. Infants were then familiarized with fluent speech containing words that either fit or violated these patterns. Subsequent testing revealed that infants rapidly extracted new phonological regularities and that this process was constrained such that some regularities were easier to acquire than others.
TL;DR: Children whose teachers taught a high number of lessons in the conflict resolution curriculum demonstrated positive changes in their social-emotional developmental trajectories and deflections from a path toward future aggression and violence.
Abstract: The present study addressed 3 questions concerning (a) the course of developmental trajectories toward violence over middle childhood, (b) whether and how the course of these trajectories differed by demographic subgroups of children, and (c) how responsive these trajectories were to a universal, school-based preventive intervention. Four waves of data on features of children's social-emotional development known to forecast aggression/violence were collected in the fall and spring over 2 years for a highly representative sample of 1st to 6th grade children from New York City public elementary schools (N = 11,160). Using hierarchical linear modeling techniques, synthetic growth curves were estimated for the entire sample and were conditioned on child demographic characteristics (gender, family economic resources, race/ethnicity) and amount of exposure to components of the preventive intervention. Three patterns of growth--positive linear, late acceleration, and gradual deceleration--characterized the children's trajectories, and these trajectories varied meaningfully by child demographic characteristics. Most important, children whose teachers taught a high number of lessons in the conflict resolution curriculum demonstrated positive changes in their social-emotional developmental trajectories and deflections from a path toward future aggression and violence.
TL;DR: Self-regulated compliance to mothers and caregivers--an early form of internalization--in 90 toddlers, half of whom were also observed with fathers, are examined, consistent with theoretical positions on the generalization of socialization from the mother to nonmaternal agents.
Abstract: To compare children's socialized behavior to parents and nonparental agents, this study examined self-regulated compliance to mothers and caregivers--an early form of internalization--in 90 toddlers, half of whom were also observed with fathers. Adults were observed in play, teaching, and discipline sessions with the child and were interviewed on child-rearing philosophies. Child cognition and emotion regulation were assessed, and naturalistic observations were conducted at child-care locations. Mean-level and rank-order stability were found in child compliance to the 3 adults. Child emotion regulation and adult warm control in a discipline situation were related to self-regulated compliance to the mother, caregiver, and father. Compliance to parents correlated with parental sensitivity and philosophies, and compliance to the caregiver correlated with child cognition and social involvement when child-care quality was controlled. Maternal sensitivity and warm control discipline predicted compliance to the caregiver but not vice versa. Results are consistent with theoretical positions on the generalization of socialization from the mother to nonmaternal agents.
TL;DR: Structural equation modeling revealed that the child's violence was predicted by the mother's postnatal depression even when her depression during pregnancy, her later history of depression, and family characteristics were taken into account.
Abstract: The impact of postnatal depression on a child's risk for violent behavior was evaluated in an urban British community sample (N = 122 families). Mothers were interviewed during pregnancy, at 3 months postpartum, and when the child was 1, 4, and 11 years of age. Mothers, teachers, and children reported on violent symptoms at age 11. Structural equation modeling revealed that the child's violence was predicted by the mother's postnatal depression even when her depression during pregnancy, her later history of depression, and family characteristics were taken into account. Violence was associated with symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and problems with anger management. Children were most violent if mothers had been depressed at 3 months and at least once thereafter.
TL;DR: Examination of adolescent sexual risk taking in a multiethnic sample of National Longitudinal Survey of Youth participants indicated that self-regulation may affect choices made after becoming sexually active rather than the initiation of sexual activity.
Abstract: Precursors of adolescent sexual risk taking were examined in a multiethnic sample consisting of 443 children (51% girls) of National Longitudinal Survey of Youth participants. Respondents were 12-13 years old in 1994 and 16-17 in 1998. Controlling for demographic and contextual factors, self-regulation--but not risk proneness--was significantly (modestly) associated with overall sexual risk taking 4 years later. Analyses of individual sexual behaviors indicated that self-regulation may affect choices made after becoming sexually active (e.g., number of partners) rather than the initiation of sexual activity. Measures of parent and peer influence had independent effects on sexual risk taking but did not moderate the effects of self-regulation and risk proneness. Findings add to the growing literature on implications of self-regulation for individual development.
TL;DR: The results point to a developmental transition in the processes underlying attention during play, with 10-month-olds more distractible than the other children, even during focused attention.
Abstract: This observational study describes the early development of attention and discractibility. Under several conditions of distraction, 172 children at 10, 26, and 42 months of age played with toys. Attention to the toys was coded as casual, settled, or focused. All 3 levels of attention changed with age, withcasual attention decreasing and focused attention increasing. The 10-month-olds were more distractible than the other children, even during focused attention. The infants were most distracted by the auditory-visual distractor, whereas the oldest children were most distracted by the visual distractor. Some 42-month-olds showed evidence of being more focused in the presence of distractors. Overall, the results point to a developmental transition in the processes underlying attention during play.
TL;DR: Effects of high participation in the Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP), an 8-site randomized trial that targeted low-birth-weight premature infants, were estimated with a new methodology that found a matched comparison group within the follow-up group for those with high participation rates.
Abstract: Effects of high participation in the Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP), an 8-site randomized trial that targeted low-birth-weight (LBW) premature infants (N=1,082), were estimated Children in the treatment group were offered high-quality center-based care in their 2nd and 3rd years of life (full-day care, 50 weeks per year) High-dosage effects were estimated with a new methodology that found a matched comparison group within the follow-up group for those with high participation rates; these estimates were compared with traditional intention-to-treat (ITT) estimates At age 8, effects on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children Full and Verbal scales for children who attended > 400 days ranged from 7 to 10 points For the heavier LBW infants (2,001-2,500 g), the effects were about 14 points for > 400 days; for the lighter LBW infants ( 350 days
TL;DR: Both popular and unpopular aggressive youths tended to associate with others who had similar levels of peer-perceived popularity and were identified by teachers as highly involved in extracurricular activities.
Abstract: Teacher assessments of interpersonal characteristics were used to identify subtypes of rural African American early adolescents (161 boys and 258 girls). Teacher ratings of interpersonal characteristics were used to identify popular and unpopular aggressive subtypes for both boys and girls. Unpopular aggressive youths did not have elevated levels of rejected sociometric status but were more likely to have lower levels of peer-perceived social prominence and social skills. Conversely, popular aggressive youths were more likely to be disliked by peers even though they were perceived by peers as socially prominent and socially skilled and were identified by teachers as highly involved in extracurricular activities. Both popular and unpopular aggressive youths tended to associate with others who had similar levels of peer-perceived popularity.