Dymphna C. van den Boom

Child Adjustment and Parenting in Planned Lesbian-Parent Families

One hundred planned lesbian-parent families (i.e., two-mother families in which the child was born to the lesbian relationship) were compared with 100 heterosexual-parent families on child adjustment, parental characteristics, and child rearing. Questionnaires, observations, and a diary of activities were used to collect the data. The results show that especially lesbian social mothers (i.e., nonbiological mothers) differ from heterosexual fathers on parental characteristics (e.g., more parental justification and more satisfaction with the partner as coparent) and child rearing (e.g., more parental concern and less power assertion). Child adjustment is not associated with family type (lesbian-parent families vs. heterosexual-parent families), but is predicted by power assertion, parental concern, and satisfaction with the partner as coparent.

Effects of quantity and quality of home proximal processes on Dutch, Surinamese–Dutch and Turkish–Dutch pre‐schoolers’ cognitive development

This study examines the effects of mother–child literacy and problem solving interactions on 3–4-year-old childrens cognitive development in a sample of Dutch middle-class, Dutch lower-class, Surinamese and Turkish immigrant families (n=130). Following the bioecological model of Bronfenbrenner and Ceci, mother–child book reading and problem solving interactions are viewed as proximal processes actualizing genetic cognitive potential. Interactions are studied from a quantitative perspective, based on questionnaire data, concerning frequency of exposure to these interactions, and a qualitative perspective, based on observational data, concerning affective quality and cognitive content. The study was designed as a 1 year longitudinal study. It was found that effects of mother–child interactions on cognitive development differed across the groups, controlling for earlier cognitive competence and familys SES. The findings are interpreted within the frame of the bioecological model and the behavioral genetic research paradigm. Copyright

Detecting bimodality in the analogical reasoning performance of elementary schoolchildren

This paper reports on modelling six frequency distributions representing the analogical reasoning performance of four different samples of elementary schoolchildren. A two-component model outperformed a one-component model in all investigated data sets, discriminating accurate performers with high success probabilities and inaccurate performers with low success probabilities, whereas for two data sets a three-component model provided the best fit. In a treatment-control group data set, the treatment group comprised a larger proportion of accurate performers than the control group, whereas the success probabilities of the two latent classes were nearly identical in both groups. In a repeated-measures data set, both the success probabilities of the two latent classes and the proportion of accurate performers increased from the first to the second test session. The results provided a first indication of a transition in the development of analogical reasoning in elementary schoolchildren.