John G. Borkowski

Word fluency and brain damage

Abstract A group of sixty-six adult subjects was given the task of producing as many words as possible beginning with specified letters of the alphabet. The number of words produced during a period of 60 sec correlated highly both with a frequency count derived from the Thorndike-Lorge norms and with estimates derived from the dictionary of the number of words in the English language beginning with each letter. In a second experiment, eight letters representing three levels of difficulty as found in normal subjects were given to thirty brain-damaged and thirty hospitalized control patients. Results in terms of verbal productivity indicated that, for patients of high intelligence, difficult letters (i.e. J and U) showed the greatest discrimination. On the other hand, for patients of low intelligence, easy letters (i.e. F, S, P and T) were more effective in differentiating the brain-damage and control groups. The findings also indicated that difficult letters may be particularly effective in distinguishing between patients with right and left hemisphere damage. An analysis of order of presentation indicated that practice and fatigue effects were not related to verbal fluency when as many as eight letters were administered. It is suggested that the addition of difficult letters to standard word fluency tests may yield more precise discriminations between brain-damaged and control patients when overall level of intellectual functioning is taken into account.

“Spontaneous” strategy use: Perspectives from metacognitive theory ☆

Abstract A metacognitive model was proposed as an explanatory framework for spontaneous strategy use. Interactive components of the model, including specific strategy knowledge, metamemory acquisition procedures, general strategy knowledge, and attributional beliefs, were shown to account, in part, for unprompted strategy use. A study in which hyperactive children transferred newly acquired strategies following self-control training and attributional retraining served as an illustration of how components in the metacognitive model can be used to better understand “spontaneity.” Finally, relationships among domain-specific knowledge, automaticity, general intelligence, and metacognitive knowledge were discussed.

Parenting and the child's world : influences on academic, intellectual, and social-emotional development

Contents: Series Foreword. Preface. Part I: Parenting Research: Conceptual and Methodological Foundations. J.R. Harris, Beyond the Nurture Assumption: Testing Hypotheses About the Childs Environment. D.C. Rowe, What Twin and Adoption Studies Reveal About Parenting. E.E. Maccoby, Parenting Effects: Issues and Controversies. S.L. Ramey, The Science and Art of Parenting. Part II: Early Influences of Parenting on Achievement and Competence. P.A. Cowan, C.P. Cowan, What an Intervention Design Reveals About How Parents Affect Their Childrens Academic Achievement and Behavior Problems. NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, Parenting and Family Influences When Children Are in Child Care: Results From the NICHD Study of Early Child Care. C.T. Ramey, S.L. Ramey, R.G. Lanzi, J.N. Cotton, Early Educational Interventions for High-Risk Children: How Center-Based Treatment Can Augment and Improve Parenting Effectiveness. F.J. Morrison, R.R. Cooney, Parenting and Academic Achievement: Multiple Paths to Early Literacy. J.G. Borkowski, T. Bisconti, K. Weed, C. Willard, D.A. Keogh, T.L. Whitman, The Adolescent as Parent: Influences on Childrens Intellectual, Academic, and Socioemotional Development. Part III: Parenting Influences on Emotional Development and Socialization. L.A. Sroufe, From Infant Attachment to Promotion of Adolescent Autonomy: Prospective, Longitudinal Data on the Role of Parents in Development. L. Embry, G. Dawson, Disruptions in Parenting Behavior Related to Maternal Depression: Influences on Childrens Behavioral and Psychobiological Development. K.A. Dodge, Mediation, Moderation, and Mechanisms in How Parenting Affects Childrens Aggressive Behavior. T.J. Dishion, B.M. Bullock, Parenting and Adolescent Problem Behavior: An Ecological Analysis of the Nurturance Hypothesis. E.M. Cummings, M.C. Goeke-Morey, M.A. Graham, Interparental Relations as a Dimension of Parenting. S.J. Suomi, Parents, Peers, and the Process of Socialization in Primates. Part IV: Contextual-Cultural Influences on Parenting Nondisabled and Disabled Children. S.M. McGroder, M.J. Zaslow, K.A. Moore, E.C. Hair, S.K. Ahluwalia, The Role of Parenting in Shaping the Impacts of Welfare-to-Work Programs on Children. D.P. Hogan, M.E. Msall, Family Structure and Resources and the Parenting of Children With Disabilities and Functional Limitations. L.M. Glidden, Parenting Children With Developmental Disabilities: A Ladder of Influence. Part V: Future Research Directions and Translations to Parenting Practices. M.M. Feerick, M. Bristol-Power, D. Bynum, The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Research on Parenting: Past, Present, and Future Directions. J.G. Borkowski, S.L. Ramey, C. Stile, Parenting Research: Translations to Parenting Practices.

Cognitive Readiness and Adolescent Parenting.

Hayes has written that about one million young women aged 15-19 become pregnant annually resulting in 500000 live births. The adverse long-term consequences associated with adolescent pregnancy include significant loss of education higher fertility rates the increased probability of single parenthood and increased dependence upon welfare assistance. Early parenthood also has critical implications for the children of young mothers who often suffer more developmental problems than children of older parents. The authors posit that due to their youth and relative inexperience adolescents knowledge of children and appropriate parenting practices is in general likely to be more limited than older mothers. Cognitive readiness for parenthood implies that mothers should be attitudinally predisposed to being a parent know how children develop and understand what constitutes appropriate parenting practices. Deficits in cognitive readiness among adolescents is thus hypothesized to predispose teen mothers to greater parenting stress as well as to less responsive parenting. The authors tested this hypothesis by comparing cognitive readiness for parenting in 171 pregnant adolescents 48 nonpregnant adolescents and 38 pregnant adults. They also assessed the relations between cognitive readiness and parenting stress and behavior to indeed find adolescents to be less cognitively prepared experiencing more stress in the parenting role and less adaptive in their parenting style than adult mothers. Relations between cognitive readiness and parenting stress and maternal interactional style were found. Additional analyses controlling for multiple demographic factors suggested that demographic variables played a role in explaining age-related differences in cognitive readiness as well as the relations between the readiness to parent and parenting behavior. Cognitive readiness however had unique and differential explanatory power in predicting parenting stress.

Memory strategy instruction is made of this: Metamemory and durable strategy use

Although the use of task‐appropriate strategies facilitate memory, newly acquired strategies often have two negative characteristics: They are neither durable nor generalizable. The present article considers an alternative approach to strategy instructions that leads to skills that are more general and better maintained after instruction has ceased. This approach focuses on the role of knowledge about strategies (metamemory) as a precursor of effective strategy deployment. Three perspectives on the role of metamemory in improving strategy use are considered: (a) occasions when metamemory develops simply as a function of using a strategy (the Laissez‐Faire approach); (b) situations in which Explicit Provision of metamemorial information increases strategy use; and (c) the production of higher‐level strategies that operate on other strategies, thus enhancing metamemorial knowledge about them (Metamemory Acquisition Procedures). Future research directions and educational implications associated with each app...

General Problem-Solving Skills: Relations between Metacognition and Strategic Processing

This paper presents a metacognition model that has relevance for understanding general problem-solving deficits in LD students. Two components of metacognition are highlighted - executive processes and attributional beliefs. An educational package that combines these components with specific strategy training (such as instruction in summarization) is illustrated as an approach to solving the problem of skill generalization in LD students.

Children's metacognition: Exploring relations among knowledge, process, and motivational variables

Abstract Following a metamemory pretest, 60 first and third grade children (6 and 8 years of age, respectively) were divided into three treatment groups which received task-specific strategy instructions appropriate for three memory problems, general metacognitive information about subordinate and superordinate processing, or both strategy and metacognitive training. Maintenance and generalization versions of the memory tasks were given, followed by an attributional assessment of childrens perceptions of the causes for specific success and failure outcomes. Post-training scores on the memory tasks showed that strategy training was highly successful. Metacognitive training appeared to have no effect on the metameory or strategy scores with one exception: metamemory and strategy use on the generalization task were significantly correlated only for children who received both metacognitive and strategy training. Apparently, children who were initially high in metamemory skills profited more from the comprehensive training package, using new metacognitive insights to aid the generalization of acquired strategies to the transfer tasks. Among strategy-trained children those who attributed success to effort were both more strategic and higher in metamemory than those who attributed task outcomes to noncontrollable factors such as ability or task characteristics. Results were discussed in terms of the interactive nature of knowledge, process, and motivational variables as determinants of strategy transfer.

Adolescent mothers and child abuse potential: an evaluation of risk factors

This research examines maternal and child factors that place adolescent mothers at risk for abusing their children. Using a longitudinal design, relationships among four risk factors (social supports, maternal psychological adjustment, maternal preparation for parenting, and child temperament), maternal psychological predisposition for aggressive coping (perceptions of stress and endorsements of punitive parenting), and maternal abuse potential were examined in a sample of 75 primiparous adolescent mothers and their children. Preparation for parenting, a construct which included knowledge and attitudes about childrens development, was the strongest direct predictor of abuse potential; however, its effects were also partially mediated by the mothers psychological predisposition for aggressive coping. Similarly, the effects of child temperament on abuse were mediated by the mothers psychological predisposition for aggressive coping. Implications for designing intervention programs, and identifying at-risk adolescents, were also discussed.

Strategy Acquisition and Transfer among American and German Children: Environmental Influences on Metacognitive Development.

This study explored the differential effects of strategy training on German and American elementaryschool children and assessed the role of parents in the development of their childrens strategic behavior and metacognition. 184 German and 161 American children were pretested on memory and metamemory tasks. Children were then assigned to either an organizational strategy training condition or a control condition. All children were tested on the maintenance and far-transfer of the strategy and task-related metamemory 1 week following training. Parents completed questionnaires about strategy instruction in the home. Strategy maintenance and metacognition were reassessed 6 months following training. German children were more strategic than American children. Instructed children performed better than control children. German parents reported more instruction of strategies in the home. These data suggest that formal education is responsible for aspects of cognitive development that have sometimes been viewed as a function of age.

Fathers' influence in the lives of children with adolescent mothers.

Little is known about the extent, nature, and impact of fathers of children with adolescent mothers. The current study measured father involvement with 134 children of adolescent mothers over the first 10 years of life. Overall, 59% had consistent father contact across the first 8 years. This contact was associated with better socioemotional and academic functioning at 8 and 10 years of age, particularly in school related areas. Children with greater levels of father contact had fewer behavioral problems and had higher scores on reading achievement; these results held after controlling for maternal risk. The findings showed the important role that fathers play in the lives of at-risk children, even if the father does not reside with the child.