Psychology Commons^™

Academic And Cerebrovascular Outcomes After Neurodevelopmental Screening In Sickle Cell Disease: A Longitudinal Cohort Study, Sarah E. Bills, Jeffrey Schatz, Elizabeth Gillooly, Julia D. Johnston, A. Lauren Waters, Alyssa M. Schlenz

Faculty Publications

Aim

To assess the predictive validity of neurodevelopmental screening in toddlers and preschool children with sickle cell disease (SCD) using the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ). We expected screening in preschool children to predict academic problems in elementary school and future stroke risk.

Method

Using a longitudinal cohort design, academic problems (e.g. grade retention, failing a subject) and increases in stroke risk (e.g. abnormal transcranial Doppler exam) were assessed for a 6-year period after neurodevelopmental screening in 2-year-olds (‘toddlers’) and 4-year-olds (‘preschool children’) using medical record review, which included annual information from parents about school functioning. Biopsychosocial variables were examined …

Social Groups And Development, Jason Jimenez, Lisa K. Lashley, Charles J. Golden

Essays in Developmental Psychology

Children spend an increasing amount of time in social groups as they age. Preschoolers begin to interact with their peers around playsets, though at this stage, these early social groups are loosely organized. It is not until they reach school age that children begin to feel as true members of a peer group. A peer group interacts on a regular basis, provides a sense of belonging, has implicit or explicit norms, and has a hierarchical order. Within these groups, social status becomes important, with some members being more popular and having a greater social impact than others.

Success And Intelligence, Halie B. Hamilton, Nathan C. Weed

Essays in Developmental Psychology

One of the most famous studies tracking the relationship between intelligence and success was conducted by Louis Terman. Terman’s Gifted Child Study began in the 1920s and followed nearly 1500 gifted children throughout their lives. To qualify, the children had to have an IQ of at least 140. The children were followed into adulthood to see how their intelligence was related to social and personal adjustment. Terman found that his sample showed not only positive academic outcomes, but also tended to be healthier, taller, and stronger than children with lower IQs. These positive effects persisted into adulthood. Two-thirds earned bachelor’s …

Types Of Play, Rebecca Mcmahon Giles

Essays in Developmental Psychology

Rather than using a universally agreed upon definition of play, the following list of characteristics, first presented in the widely cited Association of Childhood Education International position statement on play, "Play: A Necessity for All Children" (ACEI/Isenberg & Quisenberry, 1988), is used to distinguish play from non-play behaviors:  intrinsically motivated and self-initiated; process oriented; non-literal and pleasurable; exploratory and active; and rule-governed. Types of play have been categorized according to both the degree of social participation (Parten, 1932) and the level of cognitive functioning (Piaget, 1962; Vygotsky, 1967).

Uta Frith, Morgan Uberti, Heidi Kloos

Essays in Developmental Psychology

Uta Frith (born Aurnhammer on May 25, 1941) is a German psychologist best known for her work on autism. After graduating in experimental psychology from the University of Saarland, she pursued her PhD at the Institute of Psychiatry at the King’s College London, UK. It was during a course in abnormal psychology when she first encountered children diagnosed with autism. Experimental studies by Neil O’Connor and Beate Hermelin intrigued her, especially for applying an experimental perspective to the study of developmental disorders. Based on these experiences, Frith designed experiments that sought to shed light on atypical cognitive processes. Upon obtaining …

Wimmer And Perner 1983, Alexandra Daro, Jonathan B. Santo

Essays in Developmental Psychology

False beliefs occur when individuals are unaware of a change in a situation that makes their beliefs different from reality. Children developing a theory of mind learn to distinguish their own beliefs about a situation from other individuals’ beliefs about the same situation. Through this process, children move away from assuming their thoughts are shared by everyone in their day to day experiences (an egocentric perspective normal to this developmental stage), and toward an understanding of others as individuals with minds, thoughts, and beliefs separate from their own.

Learning (Communication), Talia Waltzer, Heidi Kloos

Essays in Developmental Psychology

Children are impressive learners. For instance, after a few years of exposure, they can utter sentences that resemble mature phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. They do so without formal instruction, and they do so seemingly effortlessly. What are the mechanisms by which children can accomplish such a feat? In this entry, we sketch out different perspectives on learning, focusing on language learning as an example.

Social Rejection, Jason Jimenez, Lisa K. Lashley, Charles J. Golden

Essays in Developmental Psychology

People conform to gain social acceptance and avoid rejection. It is believed that people carry a strong, instinctive need to form social bonds and avoid the consequences of rejection. Even individuals who prefer to be alone still tend to have a few close friends. Rejection is one of the main obstacles faced by many individuals in their attempts to fulfill this need. Being rejected by social groups can be distressing to the individual, as the consequences of rejection can be catastrophic. However, those who feel rejected can also behave in a manner that can either strengthen their remaining social bonds …

Word Learning Styles, Diana Hincapie, Lisa K. Lashley, Charles J. Golden

Essays in Developmental Psychology

Language acquisition is the way that humans learn and attain their spoken language. Infants are biologically equipped to attain four aspects of language. These include phonology, semantics, grammar, and pragmatics. The earliest acquired language begins with phonology, attained as early as three months and make rapid progressions to conversational language by four years of age.

Mental Models: How Children Learn The Earth Isn’T Flat, Leila Hosseini, Lisa K. Lashley, Charles J. Golden

Essays in Developmental Psychology

Researchers in the area of child psychology have taken an interest in how children revise their understanding of the world. Stella Vosniadou and William Brewer (1991) postulated a theory called mental models, which provides insight into how genuine understanding is attained. The postulated mental models are created and then tested to build up one’s understanding of how the world works. Additionally, this theory implies there may be points in time where there is some understanding of a concept, yet it is still incomplete. Vosniadou and Brewer wanted to explore these intermediate mental models and develop evidence of understanding in progress.

The Concrete Operational Period Of Development, Rebecca Olson, Kelsey Eackles, Cassandra Kepple, Cheryl B. Mcneil

Essays in Developmental Psychology

Jean Piaget was one of the first psychologists to systematically investigate the cognitive development of children. He believed that intelligence develops as a result of both biological and environmental reactions rather than being an unchangeable, inherited trait. He believed cognition develops in distinct stages from infancy to adulthood, which became the basis of Piaget’s Cognitive-Developmental Theory.

Friendship Among Children, Caitlin F. Herman, Lisa K. Lashley, Charles J. Golden

Essays in Developmental Psychology

Friendships in childhood are essential to overall development, beyond having someone to socialize with. Research suggests that friendships in children can help mitigate psychopathology, can be considered protective factors against being bullied and acting as a bully, and help with developing strong cultural competence. Aspects of friendships such as quality and intimacy of the relationship, as well as quantity of friends have been investigated for their importance in moderating many of these factors. Lack of friendships can lead to both short-term and long-term challenges for children, such as loneliness and feeling isolated from peers, anxiety and other internalizing disorders, and …

Formal Operational Period, Katie Cunningham, Heidi Kloos

Essays in Developmental Psychology

Consider the following prompt: “If you hit a glass with a feather, the glass will break. Ann hit a glass with the feather. What will happen to the glass?” To answer correctly, one would have to first learn the rule about how the feather will affect the glass. The second step then is to apply the learned rule in a logical fashion. The mental activity needed to carry out these steps is known as hypothetico-deductive reasoning. It is required for counter-factual thinking, transitive inferences, and hypothesis testing. Jean Piaget postulated that this type of mental activity is characteristic of children …

Groups And Development, Jason Jimenez, Lisa K. Lashley, Charles J. Golden

Essays in Developmental Psychology

Peer interactions often occur in groups. Children spend an increasing amount of time in these groups as they age. Preschoolers begin to interact with each other around playsets, although these early social groups are loosely organized. It is not until they reach school age that children begin to feel as though they are true members of a peer group. A peer group interacts on a regular basis, provides a sense of belonging, has implicit or explicit norms, and has a hierarchical order. Within these groups, social status becomes important, with some members being more popular and having a greater social …

Gifted Children, Justin Burgess, Lisa K. Lashley, Charles J. Golden

Essays in Developmental Psychology

Children can be gifted in a variety of different areas, including musical talent, athleticism, and artistic ability among others. The focus of this entry will be solely on those children who are gifted in intellectual ability and academic achievement. Identification of intellectual giftedness usually requires an individually administered intelligence test, achieving a Full-Scale Intelligence Quotient (FSIQ) of 130 or higher, which is a threshold that dates back to Lewis Terman’s research at Stanford in the early to mid 20th century. Although this seems like an arbitrary score, an IQ score of 130 and above is where an individual scores two …

Empty Nest Syndrome, Kelsey Grodner, Lisa K. Lashley, Charles J. Golden

Essays in Developmental Psychology

Empty nest is a stage in development when children leave the parental home, thus leaving it “empty.” This stage occurs when children are at the age or point in life where they are ready to become independent and create a life of their own. Parents have various reactions to this change.  Many parents look forward to this transition and view it as a highly positive event, while others have a more difficult time and deal with what is commonly called the “empty nest syndrome.” Empty syndrome is typically considered a maladaptive reaction to this transition, however this significant phase of …

The Missing Child Experiment, Philip J. Hudson, Michelle P. D'Amico, Betty S. Lai

Essays in Developmental Psychology

“The missing child experiment” refers to a popular, non-academic, social experiment that was first conducted in 2008 by a Local 6, a news station in Orlando, Florida. The “experiment” has since been replicated and adapted in popular culture and by psychological researchers. In the “experiment,” the news crew arranged for a child actor to sit on a bench inside the entrance of a local shopping mall. Mock missing child posters featuring the child actor’s face were posted at the mall’s entrance. The child was observed by the news crew and security personnel, with her father seated in a nearby café …

Naïve Theories, Ethan Fleuchaus, Heidi Kloos

Essays in Developmental Psychology

While the idea of the mind as a blank slate has long been abandoned, the question of what exactly a “non-blank slate” might look like is still debated. In this entry we discuss the claim that children are equipped with naïve theories—primitive, incomplete, or otherwise ill-formed, but nevertheless systematic, mental representations of cause-effect relations. Other terms that reflect this idea include ‘misconceptions’, ‘naïve beliefs’, ‘prior theories’, ‘alternative conceptions’, or ‘intuitive theories’. Their main characteristic is that they interfere with an open-minded exploration of the surrounding. The unfortunate result of such biased exploration is that children ignore evidence that conflicts with …

Preoperational Period, Huda Abu-Suwa, Lisa K. Lashley, Charles J. Golden

Essays in Developmental Psychology

The preoperational period is part of Jean Piaget’s four stages of cognitive development (Lally & Valentine-French, 2019). Piaget was a cognitive psychology, who in 1936 created a model to explain how children understand the world and develop cognitively. While other contemporary theorists believed that intelligence was a fixed trait, Piaget believed that cognitive development was a process that occurred in distinct stages, and that maturation brings about changes and growth in development, rather than training (Lally & Valentine-French, 2019). Piaget posited that each stage occurred at a specific time and in a specific sequential order, such every child goes through …

Sensorimotor Period, Maria Munoz, Heidi Kloos

Essays in Developmental Psychology

The developing mind does not merely follow a linear trajectory—say from knowing little to knowing more. Instead, the mind appears to actively organize information into coherent structures. According to Jean Piaget, these mental organizations – referred to as schemas – go through qualitatively distinct stages, the first of which is the sensorimotor period. Cognition at this stage is characterized by a reliance on reflexes and primary sense, rather than on symbolic or abstract thought. The argument is that children younger than 2 years base their cognition on immediate actions-perception loops, making distinctive mistakes when the task requires an ability to …

Nursing Homes, Julian Garcia, Lisa K. Lashley, Charles J. Golden

Essays in Developmental Psychology

Nursing homes are a type of residential care that typically provide continual nursing care for elderly people. Residential care refers to long-term care given to either adults or children who stay in a residential setting rather than their own home. Individuals who benefit most from nursing homes are those who do not need to be in a hospital but cannot live independently or be cared for at home. While nursing homes are most typically associated with the elderly, younger adults with different physical or mental disabilities may also benefit from them. The services at nursing homes often vary depending on …

Obesity, Sara D. Mcmullin, Eric A. Goedereis

Essays in Developmental Psychology

Obesity is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) greater than 30 in adults and above the 95th percentile for children based on age and sex norms. The prevalence of obesity across the lifespan has increased over the last several decades in the United States. Currently, 17% of children and 36% of adults in the United States meet these criteria, with higher prevalence among racial and ethnic minority groups. Childhood and adult obesity are associated with immediate and long-term medical, psychological, and cognitive consequences. Therefore, the United States Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends all children and adults are …

Parental Influence, Justin Burgess, Lisa K. Lashley, Charles J. Golden

Essays in Developmental Psychology

An adequate level of parenting—providing enough nutrition, shelter, exposure to language and peers, or not harshly punishing children (punching, kicking, striking with a weapon)—seems to not have a long-term effect on cognitive development in children. Twin and adoption studies have found that intelligence is accounted for almost entirely by genes and nonshared environment, which includes peers, teachers, and unique experiences. However, there are parenting styles and types of home environments that are correlated with better school performance, stronger school engagement, and more words spoken at certain ages.

Parten's Play Experiment, C. Nathalie Yuen, Jonathan B. Santo

Essays in Developmental Psychology

Mildred Parten (1902-1970) observed 34 children playing in a preschool setting (Parten, 1933).  The children's ages ranged from 2 to 4.5 years old.  Parten observed the children for one minute each day to develop a greater understanding of play behaviors.  The observations focused on type of group, activity, and play.  The types of play were solitary, onlooker, parallel, associative, and cooperative.

Play And Gender, Mithra H. Pirooz, Jonathan B. Santo

Essays in Developmental Psychology

While children vary greatly in their play preferences, research has shown that gender differences in play tend to emerge fairly young.  These gender differences may be influenced by a variety of sources.  Parents, peers, teachers, and media all impact on children’s play.  Such gender differences have been documented in North American and European countries, including those that are fairly gender-egalitarian, including Sweden.

Mental Wellness Of The Saintly, Spiritual, And Secular: Who Has The Edge?, Addison Clevenger, Justin Dyer, Sam Hardy

FHSS Mentored Research Conference

This study examines the relationship between religious/spiritual identity and depression and anxiety levels at comparative baseline levels, and then longitudinally. Gathered from The Family Foundations of Youth Development Project, this study samples parent-child dyads from highly religious parts of the Western United States to determine how the mental health of these individuals is affected by the conjunction of spirituality and religiosity, the lack of either, or one divorced from the other. Results revealed that at baseline levels, participants across all groups who identified as “Spiritual but not Religious” had the highest levels of anxiety and depression, and children who identified …

A Systematic Review Of The Outcomes And Efficacy Of Complementary And Alternative Non-Pharmacological Interventions In Youth With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Kelly M. Kohler

Theses and Dissertations

A number of behavioral and pharmacological treatments have been widely accepted as evidenced-based approaches to treating symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children and adolescents. While pharmacological approaches are safe and effective at managing symptoms, a large subset of caregivers do not have access to medication, refuse it, or find it ineffective, necessitating the need for non-pharmacological treatments. Such behavioral interventions are also generally effective approaches to symptom management and reducing the functional impairment of ADHD and may even demonstrate better parent satisfaction than medication alone. However, these interventions are often difficult to access and burdensome to implement, especially …

What About The Children? An Exploration Of Family Counselors' Play Therapy Training And Preparedness To Integrate Children Into Family Counseling, Patricia J. Walker Monical

Dissertations

Children are an important part of families, yet family counselor education programs often do not incorporate training for including children in family counseling. At some point in their careers, family counselors and therapists will encounter clients who have children 3–12 years old. The problem is that since these professionals often receive little to no training in play therapy and thus do not typically include young children in family therapy, these younger family members are often overlooked. Research has confirmed that, due to a lack of sufficient training and supervision in play therapy, many family therapists report feeling unprepared to work …

Childhood Prosocial Behavior And Body Mass Index: Longitudinal Findings In The Millennium Cohort Study, Farah Qureshi, Krista Woodward, Laura D. Kubzansky, Julia K. Boehm

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Objective: Childhood obesity affects millions worldwide but is challenging to treat. Prosocial or helping behavior may help mitigate childhood obesity. We investigated whether prosocial behavior at ages 5–11 was associated with body mass index (BMI) and reduced obesity risk through age 17. Method: Data were from 8,894 participants in the Millennium Cohort Study. Parents reported children’s prosocial behavior using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire at ages 5, 7, and 11. BMI scores (kg/m2) were calculated from children’s height and weight at ages 5, 7, 11, 14, and 17, which were then standardized by sex (M = 0, SD = 1) …

Children's Interpretation Of Others' Faces Covered With Medical Masks, Sevval Cinar

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

How we recognize and regulate emotions is fundamental to overall health and wellbeing. Emotional recognition and understanding are key to proper communication and emotion regulation. Barriers, such as masks, might have an impact on the way children recognize and interpret others' emotions, and therefore the way they learn, communicate, and regulate their own. The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated widespread mask-wearing, raising questions about its impact on children’s emotional development. Using a sample of children with varying levels of exposure to mask wearing adults (N= 13, ages 4 to 6), we investigated how prolonged mask wearing predicts emotion recognition, particularly …