Charlene Hendricks

Contributors to self-perceived competence, satisfaction, investment, and role balance in maternal parenting: A multivariate ecological analysis.

Objective. This study employed an ecological framework to examine the roles of multiple contributors to variations in key maternal perceptions of their own parenting. Design. Maternal socioeconomic status (SES), employment, and parenting support; child gender, language, social competence, and temperament; and maternal intelligence, personality, and parenting knowledge and style were explored in separate predictions of self-perceived competence, satisfaction, investment, and role balance in 234 European American mothers of firstborn, 20-month-old children. Results. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated highly differentiated patterns of unique predictive relations to each domain of self-perceived parenting. Nonetheless, some predictors consistently contributed to individual parenting self-perceptions, most prominently, parenting knowledge and dissonance between actual and ideal maternal and paternal parenting styles. SES, maternal employment, community support, and maternal personality also contributed to self-perceptions, as did child temperament. Conclusions. Although the potential contributors to parenting self-perceptions may be many, prominent contributors to any one self-perception are few, and constellations of contributors differ for different parenting self-perceptions, conclusions that articulate with the modular view of parenting.

Screening for developmental disabilities in developing countries

Despite waxing international interest in child disability, little information exists about the situation of children with disabilities in developing countries. Using a culture-free screen for child disability from the 2005-2007 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, this study reports percentages of children in 16 developing countries who screened positive for cognitive, language, sensory, and motor disabilities, covariation among disabilities, deviation contrasts that compare each country to the overall effect of country (including effects of age and gender and their interactions), and associations of disabilities with the Human Development Index. Developmental disabilities vary by child age and country, and younger children in developing countries with lower standards of living are more likely to screen positive for disabilities. The discussion of these findings revolves around research and policy implications.

Basic language comprehension and production in >100,000 young children from sixteen developing nations

Using the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, language comprehension and production were compared in a sample of 101,250 children aged 2 ; 00 to 9 ; 11 and a focus subsample of 38,845 children aged 2 ; 00 to 4 ; 11 from sixteen under-researched developing nations. In the whole sample, comprehension slightly exceeded production; correlations between comprehension and production by country were positive and significant, but varied in size, and the average correlation was positive, significant, and small to medium. Mean comprehension and production varied with child age, reaching an asymptote at 5 ; 00, and correlations between comprehension and production by age were positive, significant, and similar at each age. In the focus subsample, comprehension exceeded production; correlations between comprehension and production by country were positive and significant, but varied in size, and the average correlation was positive, significant, and medium in size. Children in countries with lower standards of living were less likely to demonstrate basic language comprehension or production.

Enhancing Academic Performance by Strengthening Class-Inclusion Reasoning

Class inclusion is an early form of abstract thought that requires logical rather than perceptually based inferences plus an appreciation of part-whole relationships (B. Inhelder & J. Piaget, 1959/1964). The authors randomly assigned 2 groups of first graders who were having academic difficulties to be instructed on either class inclusion or phonics. Results showed a significant linear relation between individual childrens mastery of class inclusion and their scores on the Cognitive Abilities Test Form 6 (D. F. Lohman & E. P. Hagen, 2001) verbal and quantitative measures of reasoning. The authors also found a significant linear relation between mastery of class inclusion and improvement in report card marks issued by teachers who were blind to the childrens group assignment.

Adolescent-Peer Relationships, Separation and Detachment From Parents, and Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors Linkages and Interactions

Most research exploring the interplay between context and adolescent separation and detachment has focused on the family; in contrast, this investigation directs its attention outside of the family to peers. Utilizing a latent variable approach for modeling interactions and incorporating reports of behavioral adjustment from 14-year-old adolescents (N = 190) and their mothers, we examine how separation and detachment relate to adolescent-peer relationships, and whether peer relationships moderate how separation and detachment relate to adolescent internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Positive peer relationships were both associated with lower detachment and sharply attenuated relations between detachment and higher adolescent internalizing and externalizing. Separation from parents was unrelated to peer relationships, and regardless of whether peer relationships were positive, separation was not related to adolescent internalizing and externalizing. We integrate these findings with those from family-focused investigations and discuss their substantive and clinical implications.

Cognitive Abilities, Social Adaptation, and Externalizing Behavior Problems in Childhood and Adolescence: Specific Cascade Effects Across Development

Children’s and adolescents’ cognitive abilities, social adaptation, and externalizing behaviors are broadly associated with each other at the bivariate level; however, the direction, ordering, and uniqueness of these associations have yet to be identified. Developmental cascade models are particularly well-suited to (1) discern unique pathways among psychological domains and (2) model stability in and covariation among constructs, allowing for conservative tests of longitudinal associations. The current study aimed to identify specific cascade effects among children’s cognitive abilities, social adaptation, and externalizing behaviors, beginning in preschool and extending through adolescence. Children (46.2 % female) and mothers (N = 351 families) provided data when children were 4, 10, and 14 years old. Cascade effects highlighted significant stability in these domains. Unique longitudinal associations were identified between (1) age-10 cognitive abilities and age-14 social adaptation, (2) age-4 social adaptation and age-10 externalizing behavior, and (3) age-10 externalizing behavior and age-14 social adaptation. These findings suggest that children’s social adaptation in preschool and externalizing behavior in middle childhood may be ideal intervention targets to enhance adolescent well-being.

Mother–infant socioemotional contingent responding in families by adoption and birth

Contingencies of three maternal and two infant socioemotional behaviors that are universal components of mother-infant interaction were investigated at 5 months in 62 mothers (31 who had adopted domestically and 31 who had given birth) and their first children (16 males in each group). Patterns of contingent responding were largely comparable in dyads by adoption and birth, although the two groups of mothers responded differentially to the two types of infant signals. Mothers in both groups were more responsive than infants in social and vocal interactions, but infants were more responsive in maternal speech-infant attention interactions. Family type × gender statistical interactions suggested a possible differential role of infant gender in establishing mother-infant contingencies in families by adoption and birth.

Families by Adoption and Birth: II. Mother-Infant Cognitive Interactions

ABSTRACT Adopted children are more likely to develop learning and school adjustment problems than are their nonadopted peers, despite that learning potential appears to be comparable in the two groups. In an effort to explain this phenomenon, the present study examined cognitive behavior repertoires in mothers and their healthy 5-month-old first infants during their normal daily routine in families by adoption and by birth. Two areas of functioning, vocal/verbal communication and exploration, were examined. Infants and mothers in both groups were similar in the frequency and ranking of a full array of age-appropriate cognitive behaviors. Both groups of babies experienced rich and comparable opportunities for the development of language competence. In the exploratory realm, group differences emerged for some infant measures; infants by birth were in an alert state and mouthed objects more than infants by adoption. Examination of the linkages among infant behaviors and between mothers and infants suggested that while mothers by birth and adoption provided comparable opportunities for exploration, infants by birth were engaging in exploratory behavior to a somewhat greater extent.