Joanne M. Williams

Self-esteem, and physical development in early adolescence: pubertal timing and body image

Relations between self-esteem, pubertal timing, and body image were investigated with a representative sample of Scottish schoolgirls 11 (n = 1,012, X = 11.53 years, SD = 0.32) and 13 (n = 799, X = 13.53, SD = 0.32) years of age. Data were derived from the Health Behaviour in School Children: WHO Cross-National Survey, specifically the Scottish survey. Among 11-year-olds, early maturation and lower ratings of body image (body size and perceived appearance) were associated with lower reported levels of selfesteem. There also was evidence that body image mediated the relation of pubertal timing on self-esteem for this age group. Among 13-year-olds, reports of body size concerns and poorer perceived appearance were predictive of lower ratings of self-esteem, as was late maturation. In this case, there was no evidence of mediation. Results lend support to the contention that pubertal timing influences body image and self-esteem.

Socioeconomic status and adolescent injuries.

Injuries are the major cause of morbidity among children and adolescents in developed countries, but there is a lack of consensus on the relationship between socioeconomic status and risk of injuries. A self-complete questionnaire survey, to gather information on non-fatal injuries and sociodemographic details, was administered in schools during April-June 1994 to a national sample of 4710 Scottish adolescents aged 11, 13 and 15 years. Although there was no evidence of a socioeconomic gradient in the total incidence of medically attended injuries among adolescents, based on the Registrar Generals classifications of paternal occupation and a composite measure of family affluence, marked socioeconomic variation in the circumstances in which injuries occurred was observed. There were also socioeconomic differences in the extent and type of risk behaviours reported by adolescents, indicating differential rates of risk exposure. The finding that socioeconomic status affects the kinds of injury events adolescents experience and levels of risk behaviour has implications for the design of injury prevention strategies.

Children’s Concepts of Health and Illness: Understanding of Contagious Illnesses, Non-Contagious Illnesses and Injuries

This study was designed to provide a more comprehensive picture of children’s understanding of illness and injury than previous studies by interviewing 83 children from 4 age groups (4/5 years, 7/8 years, 9/10 years and 11/12 years). They were asked questions about how they defined illness and health as well as questions regarding different features of specific illnesses. First, it was found that definitions of health and illness became more polarized with age. Further, significant effects of age were detected for understanding of the specific illnesses with explanations becoming more sophisticated and accurate with development. This result held for almost every illness and illness feature. Lastly, cross-illness analyses showed that children hold differing levels of understanding for each ailment, e.g. understanding of injuries was higher than illnesses. These results contribute to health psychology literature on children’s understanding of specific illnesses.

Children's concepts of illness: An intervention to improve knowledge

OBJECTIVES This study aimed to explore childrens understanding of illness and attempted to improve their knowledge through the presentation of a factual story and group discussions. DESIGN Childrens responses to questions pertaining to three ailment types (contagious illness, non-contagious illness and injury), for three process variables (cause, time from cause to effect, and recovery factors), were recorded before and after a training intervention. METHOD Children aged 4 (N=30) and 7 years old (N=30) were initially individually interviewed about common ailments (contagious: chickenpox and cold; non-contagious: asthma and cancer; injury: scraped knee and broken arm). A week later half of the children in each age group (N=30) were included in a small group (N=5) intervention where factual information about three of the ailments was provided and children participated in guided group discussions. The remaining control children received no intervention. All children were subsequently individually interviewed a week later using the initial interview schedule. RESULTS The 7-year-olds exhibited more sophisticated knowledge of illness at pre-test than the 4-year-olds. Comparison of pre- to post-intervention changes showed that children who participated in the intervention condition improved overall in their understanding of the ailments significantly more than controls. However, detailed analyses revealed a large degree of variation across the sample in terms of post-test change for individual items. CONCLUSION Childrens understanding of illness is complex and undergoes developmental changes between the ages of 4 and 7. Educational interventions that provide age-appropriate factual information and peer group discussions regarding illness processes might be effective in improving knowledge of illness among young children.

Incidence and distribution of injury among schoolchildren aged 11-15.

OBJECTIVES: To measure the incidence and age and sex distribution of self reported experience of injuries in the preceding 12 month period among a representative national sample of Scottish schoolchildren and to validate the findings against other data sources. DESIGN: Self completed questionnaire administered in schools, April-June 1994. SUBJECTS: 4710 pupils aged 11, 13, and 15 years drawn from a representative sample of 270 classes with returns from 224 classes (83.2% completion rate). OUTCOME MEASURES: Number, type, site, and severity of injuries reported. RESULTS: 41.9% of pupils reported a medically attended injury, with injury incidence significantly higher in boys than in girls. Using the abbreviated injury scale (maximum abbreviated injury score) one third of injuries were either moderate or severe. CONCLUSION: The incidence and distribution of self reported injury is consistent with estimates based on other data sources thus confirming the utility of this method of injury surveillance in this age group.

Measures of injury severity in childhood: a critical overview

Many different methods for assessing injury severity have appeared in the literature. This paper discusses the commonly used measures, many of which are subjective and depend on clinical practice or sociological factors. Even if apparently objective measures are used their appropriateness for use in children is questionable. Particular problems occur with scoring or categorising events such as poisoning, choking, and near drowning. Researchers need to reach a consensus on injury severity reporting to ensure comparability between studies and programs for injury prevention.

Children's Understanding of the Causal Origins of Disability

This study explores childrens understanding of the causal origins of disabilities. Using a forced-choice explanation task, childrens understanding of social-psychological, physical, and biological causal explanations of disabilities was considered. We presented 79 children (26 4- to 5-year-olds, 26 6- to 7-year-olds, and 27 10- to 11-year-olds) with 4 vignettes describing a child with a particular disability (physical disability, blindness, learning disability, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). Participants rated their agreement with a variety of causal explanations of disability. Results showed significant age, disability, and causal explanation differences in childrens causal understandings of disability. Children of all ages showed a preference for physical and biological causes of disability and rejected social-psychological causal explanations. These findings highlight the usefulness of employing a forced-choice methodology to examine young childrens concepts of the causal origins of disabilities.

Implicit learning and reading: insights from typical children and children with developmental dyslexia using the artificial grammar learning (AGL) paradigm.

We examined implicit learning in school-aged children with and without developmental dyslexia based on the proposal that implicit learning plays a significant role in mastering fluent reading. We ran two experiments with 16 typically developing children (9 to 11-years-old) and 16 age-matched children with developmental dyslexia using the artificial grammar learning (AGL) paradigm. In Experiment 1 (non-transfer task), children were trained on stimuli that followed patterns (rules) unknown to them. Subsequently, they were asked to decide from a novel set which stimuli follow the same rules (grammaticality judgments). In Experiment 2 (transfer task), training and testing stimuli differed in their superficial characteristics but followed the same rules. Again, children were asked to make grammaticality judgments. Our findings expand upon previous research by showing that children with developmental dyslexia show difficulties in implicit learning that are most likely specific to higher-order rule-like learning. These findings are discussed in relation to current theories of developmental dyslexia and of implicit learning.

Intuitive psychological, physical and biological knowledge in typically developing preschoolers, children with autism and children with Down's syndrome

This study investigated intuitive concepts of biology, physics and psychology in typical preschoolers (N = 23), children with autism (N = 20) and children with Downs syndrome (DS; N = 18). Three tasks from Peterson and Siegal (1997) (false belief (Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith, 1985), false photo (Zaitchik, 1990) and innate potential (Gelman & Wellman, 1991)) were employed. A further three tasks (perception (Slaughter & Gopnik, 1996), balance (Siegler, 1976) and illness (Kalish, 1998)) were included to gain insight into the similarities and differences in understanding across groups of children and within each domain. Preschoolers performed well on both the intuitive psychology tasks, children with autism performed poorly on these tasks, and children with DS performed well on the perception task but poorly on the false belief task. By contrast, performance on the physics and biology tasks was not significantly different across groups. These findings support the argument that cognitive development is domain-specific and highlight the need for further research in this area.

Social and Experiential Influences on the Development of Inheritance Concepts.

This study explored social and experiential differences in childrens (aged 4 to 14 years) concepts of inheritance. The study utilized semi-structured interviews including four tasks that were designed to elicit judgements and explanations about different aspects of inheritance understanding. A variety of social and experiential factors were examined including, gender of participant, family composition, pet ownership, socio-economic status and urban/rural locale. The results indicated strong developmental changes and several social and environmental variations in childrens knowledge of inheritance. Children from rural areas and from a higher socio-economic group showed a more sophisticated understanding of inheritance. Other variables including gender, owning a pet and having siblings had less impact on childrens understanding of inheritance. Overall, children showed small variations in their inheritance concepts based on differences in experience and background. The precise causes of these differences remains an issue for future research.