Kathryn L. Fletcher

The Challenge of Adolescent Crowd Research: Defining the Crowd

As research on adolescent crowds has increased over the past several decades, researchers appear to be confident in their claims of the consequences of crowd membership, even suggesting targeted interventions. This review of the various methods used to identify adolescents’ crowd membership suggests that this confidence may be misplaced. There are diverse methodologies used in this research area that examine different samples of adolescents belonging to each crowd. Social-type rating methods, self-identification methods, grouping by adolescent behaviors or characteristics, and ethnographic or other qualitative methods should be accompanied by greater specificity in terminology to alert researchers to the various phenomena being studied (i.e., “reputational crowd,” “interactional crowd,” “behavioral crowd,” “affiliation crowd”). Additionally, studies comparing the various self-identification approaches and peer ratings are needed, along with reliability studies of peer ratings. More attention to specific methodology to determine crowd membership and its stability will aid the design of theoretical models of adolescent crowds and contribute to developmental outcome research.

Responsiveness and attention during picture‐book reading in 18‐month‐old to 24‐month‐old toddlers at risk

The purpose of this research was to examine the spontaneous responsiveness and attention during picture‐book reading in 18‐month‐old to 24‐month‐old children from at‐risk backgrounds. Twenty‐five, 18‐month‐old children in an early intervention program were randomly assigned to a read condition or play condition for six months. At each seventh session, all children, regardless of condition, were videotaped during reading. Videotapes were scored for children’s spontaneous responses such as pointing and labeling as well as mean duration of joint attention. Primary caregivers completed language measures for children at 18 and 24 months of age. Overall, there was large variability in the level of children’s spontaneous responses and attention during reading. Responsiveness increased from observation 3 to observation 4, whereas joint attention increased from observation 1 to observation 2. There were no differences in responsiveness and joint attention measures for the children in the read and play conditions. Measures of joint attention during reading from 18 to 24 months of age were related to language measures at 24 months. Implications for this research include a closer examination of individual differences in young children’s participation in picture‐book reading.

New Screening Tests to Identify Young Children at Risk for Mild Learning Problems

Each of 34 prekindergarten and 39 kindergarten children with mild learning problems, those with mild mental retardation or learning disabilities, was matched with a child without learning problems on the basis of age, gender, and race/ethnicity. All children were presented the same cognitive screening test, which consisted of eight tasks. For the prekindergarten group, 91% of the children with learning problems and 91% of those without problems were accurately classified using a subset of five tasks. Two of these were identification tasks, where the children had only to point to choices provided; the other three tasks required children to generate verbal responses. For the kindergarten sample, the highest level of classification accuracy achieved for the children with mild learning problems was 87% and for the children without learning problems, 77%. These levels were also based on a subset of five tasks, but this subset consisted of four identification tasks and one generating task. Levels of classification accuracy were higher for the children classified as having mild mental retardation than for the group classified as having learning disabilities. Females had slightly higher scores than males on the kindergarten test, and the White/non-Hispanic group had higher scores than the other ethnic/racial groups on the prekindergarten test.

Perfectionism and Achievement Motivation in High-Ability Students: An Examination of the 2 × 2 Model of Perfectionism

This study examined the relationship among subtypes of perfectionism and achievement goal orientations within the context of Gaudreau and Thompson’s quadripartite framework. The authors first sought to replicate Campbell and Di Paula’s factor analysis to identify subtypes of self-oriented perfectionism (SOP) and socially prescribed perfectionism (SPP) within a high-ability sample. Because they were unable to replicate the factor structure of Campbell and Di Paula’s factor analysis, the two full scales of SOP and SPP were used in all subsequent analyses. Results indicated partial support for Gaudreau and Thompson’s model for mastery-approach and performance-approach goals. Pure SOP was related to higher levels of approach goals compared with non-perfectionism, whereas mixed perfectionism (SOP and SPP) was related to higher levels of approach goals compared with pure SPP. Implications for using second-order factors compared with first-order facets of perfectionism in research are discussed.

The Role of Book Familiarity and Book Type on Mothers' Reading Strategies and Toddlers' Responsiveness.

The purpose of the current study was to examine how maternal reading strategies and book type would impact on toddlers’ responsiveness as they became familiar with three books. Eleven mothers and their 2- to 3-year-olds were recorded reading the same set of three different books (i.e. word book, narrative book and no narrative book) on four occasions. Toddlers were more likely to respond when mothers used positive feedback, positive motivating strategies and questions than labelling and reading text for the word book and the no narrative book. When they were read these two books, toddlers also increased their likelihood of responding across sessions. In later sessions, toddlers were more likely to respond when mothers used positive feedback, positive motivating and verbal questioning even though maternal reading strategies did not change across sessions. The implications of these findings for literacy programmes for families that help parents read to their children and/or provide books to families are discussed.

Social and emotional components of book reading between caregivers and their toddlers in a high-risk sample:

In this collective case study of caregiver behaviors with their toddlers, two-minute videotaped reading interactions were analyzed using a constant comparative method. Twenty-four caregiver—toddler dyads from a high-risk sample of children prenatally exposed to cocaine were selected from a larger sample because they represented the extremes of expressive language scores on the Reynell Expressive Language Quotient at 36 months, one year after the reading interactions. Caregivers in the high-scoring group shared control of the book and discourse, were ‘in tune’ with the child’s needs and abilities, and answered their own questions to the children. This was in contrast to the behaviors of caregivers of the low-scoring children, who appeared unaware of the child’s developmental needs in the interaction, particularly in their ability to respond to the questions posed. Implications of the results for future research on caregiver reading with young children are discussed.

Effects of Verbal and Physical Prompts on External Strategy Use in Children With and Without Mild Mental Retardation

Effects of type of prompt on the use of external strategies were examined. Participants were 7-, 9-, 11-, and 17-year-old children without mental retardation and 11- and 17-year-old children with mental retardation (N = 272). They were given a task requiring memory for object placement and assigned to one of four conditions: no prompt, verbal prompt, physical prompt, verbal and physical prompt. In the physical and verbal prompt condition, 17-year-old children with mental retardation used strategies at the same rate as 17-year-old children without mental retardation. Eleven-year-old children with mental retardation used similar types of strategies as the 7-year-old children without mental retardation. Thus, strategy use of older children with mental retardation may be activated to the same level of children without mental retardation with prompts.