Cecilia Shore

Quality of Parent/Adolescent Attachment and Aggression in Young Adolescents.

A model of the association between adolescents’ perception of the quality of parent/adolescent attachment and adolescent aggression was examined, with social cognition and self-esteem as mediators. A total of 68 sixth graders, their parents, and their language arts teachers participated. Adolescents completed measures of attachment with mother and with father, self-esteem, social cognition, and aggressive tendencies. Mothers, fathers, and teachers each completed measures of adolescent aggressive and prosocial behavior. Evidence was obtained for social cognition and self-esteem both as mediators between adolescents’ perceived quality of mother/adolescent attachment and adolescent selfreport of aggression. Controlling for mother/adolescent and father/adolescent attachment and adolescent self-esteem, adolescent higher social cognition was associated with adolescent lower self-report of aggression. Controlling mother/adolescent and father/adolescent attachment and adolescent social cognition, adolescent higher self-esteem was associated with father-reported lower adolescent aggression and father-reported higher adolescent prosocial behavior. Implications for further research are discussed.

Temperamental predictors of linguistic style during multiword acquisition

Abstract To investigate temperamental predictors of linguistic style, parents of 29 13-month-olds completed the Rothbart Infant Behavior Questionnaire and were later interviewed about their childrens language. Three temperamental dimensions predicted analytic/referential language. Temperament may contribute to parent–child relationships conductive to acquisition of nominals.

The Effect of Contextual Variation on Symbolic Play Development from 20 to 28 Months

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the effect of contextual variation on symbolic play development from 20 to 28 months. Studies of early symbolic play have singled out four areas of development: (1) the capacity to act as if or perform actions outside their usual context, (2) the capacity to use a placeholder as stand-in for a realistic object, (3) the ability to represent roles other than ones own, and (4) the ability to combine pretend schemes into meaningful, ordered sequences. In the short-term longitudinal study described in the chapter, the effect of contextual variations was tested against spontaneous play within the same sample of children at 20–28 months of age. Three scenarios were demonstrated after giving the child an opportunity to engage in free play with each of the toy sets. The modeled scenarios contained an approximately equal number of schemes or actions, but the level of role representation was designed to become increasingly difficult, beginning with self as agent, followed by doll as active recipient in the second scenario, and doll as agent vis-a-vis another doll in the third scenario. All three scenarios were demonstrated with a set of realistic toys and two types of object substitution. It was found that modeling enhances and object substitution depresses performance.Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the effect of contextual variation on symbolic play development from 20 to 28 months. Studies of early symbolic play have singled out four areas of development: (1) the capacity to act as if or perform actions outside their usual context, (2) the capacity to use a placeholder as stand-in for a realistic object, (3) the ability to represent roles other than ones own, and (4) the ability to combine pretend schemes into meaningful, ordered sequences. In the short-term longitudinal study described in the chapter, the effect of contextual variations was tested against spontaneous play within the same sample of children at 20–28 months of age. Three scenarios were demonstrated after giving the child an opportunity to engage in free play with each of the toy sets. The modeled scenarios contained an approximately equal number of schemes or actions, but the level of role representation was designed to become increasingly difficult, beginning with self as agent, followed by doll as active recipient in the second scenario, and doll as agent vis-a-vis another doll in the third scenario. All three scenarios were demonstrated with a set of realistic toys and two types of object substitution. It was found that modeling enhances and object substitution depresses performance.

Vocal and Gestural Symbols: Similarities and Differences from 13 to 28 Months

In this paper, we will describe some of the work we have conducted investigating the similarities and differences between symbol use in the vocal and gestural modalities by normal hearing children between 13 and 28 months of age. Interest in the relationship between vocal and gestural symbols follows from the hypothesis put forward by Piaget (1962) and Werner and Kaplan (1963) that symbols have their origins in actions with objects. Consequently, symbols can be either gestural or vocal in nature, and the processes which allow the discovery that things have names can be manifested in either modality.

Children's Understanding of Dreams as Mental States

Childrens understanding of dreams as mental states was examined as an instance of their development of a “theory of mind.” Thirty-five children between the ages of three and seven were interviewed to determine how well they understood the reality, location, privacy, and origin of their own dream, versus that of a fictional character, matched for emotional valence. Theory of mind developments in understanding appearance vs. reality and perspective-taking were evaluated as predictors of dream understanding. Results revealed significant age increases in dream understanding that occur in a logical sequence predicted by Kohlberg. Theory of mind developments were correlated with childrens understanding of the reality and the privacy of dreams. These findings suggest that children as young as five, although their own dreams may be rare, are beginning to understand that Western culture deems dreams to be non-real, private, psychological occurrences.

What shall we play? play content as a vehicle for parent-infant interactions*

Twenty-four toddlers were observed in unstructured free play with their parents at 13 and 20 months. Child play actions and parental verbal and gestural play suggestions were coded for three play content scenarios. Results revealed significant interactions between play content and age for all three measures. Additionally, parents and toddlers were more attuned in terms of play content at 20 months than at 13 months. Last, verbal-only suggestions increased from 13 to 20 months. These results highlight the importance of considering play content in future studies of childrens symbolic play.

Measuring symbolic play style in infancy : a methodological approach

Researchers have examined symbolic play style as a qualitative variable distinguishing two groups of children: patterners and dramatists. We have conceptualized style not as a typology of children but as reflecting dimensions of difference between children which are amenable to quantitative analysis. For the construct of style to be invoked, it must be measurable by many variables, it must be observable over time, and it ought to be demonstrably independent of general developmental level. Fifteen boys and 15 girls were each seen twice, once at 21 months of age and again 6 weeks later. The Session 2 pattern of correlations among hypothesized dramatist measures was not entirely consistent with that observed at Session 1; however, three measures, narrative vocalizations, spontaneous play, and elicited-appropriate play were primary dramatist measures at both sessions.

CHILDREN'S ACQUISITION OF LANGUAGE: GENERAL LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE OR DIMENSIONS OF STYLE?

Previous studies have described children’s acquisition of language as reflecting either a referential or an expressive style. A multivariate approach, characterizing “referentiality” and “expressivity” as partially dissociable dimensions, is advantageous because it allows children to vary along one dimension as they vary along another, allowing children to have high or low degrees of both characteristics simultaneously. The present study applies multivariate techniques to an “exploratory” sample of 87 children, all of whom were 20 months old, and by subsequently validating the exploratory phase with 56 of the original children seen one month later. Using parental reports to assess children’s multiword productions, exploratory factor analyses revealed two correlated dimensions of language style which indeed reflected referential and expressive characteristics. Confirmatory factor analyses “confirmed” these factors in the test sample. This two-dimensional model of language acquisition was superior to a unidimensional, general linguistic competence model. There is also strong short-term stability for both dimensions across the one-month period.