Children's Cognitive Capacities Research Articles

Predictors of psychological distress and positive resources among Palestinian adolescents: Trauma, child, and mothering characteristics

Objective The aim was to examine how traumatic and stressful events, responses to violence, child characteristics, and mothering quality, as measured in middle childhood predict psychological distress and positive resources in adolescence. Method The participants were 65 Palestinian adolescents (17 ± .85 years; 52% girls), who had been studied during the First Intifada (T1), during the Palestinian Authority rule (T2) and before the Second Al Aqsa Intifada (T3) in Gaza. Psychological distress was indicated by PTSD, and depressive symptoms and positive resources by resilient attitudes and satisfaction with quality of life, all measured at T3. The predictors that were measured at T1 were exposure to military violence, active coping with violence and children's intelligence, cognitive capacity, and neuroticism. Mothering quality and stressful life-events were measured at T2, the former reported by both the mother and the child, and the latter by the mother. Results Adolescents’ PTSD symptoms were most likely if they had been exposed to high levels of traumatic and stressful experiences and had poor cognitive capacity and high neuroticism in middle childhood. Only high levels of childhood military violence and stressful life-events predicted high depressive symptoms and low satisfaction with quality of life in adolescence. Conclusions Military violence in childhood forms risks for both increased psychological distress and decreased positive resources. However, child characteristics such as cognitive capacity and personality are important determinants of psychological vulnerability in military trauma.

Intraoperative awareness in children: myth or reality?

This review will outline old and recent data about the prevalence, causes and potential consequences of intraoperative awareness in children and give details on its detection. Recent studies have confirmed the higher incidence of intraoperative awareness in children than in adults while using modern anaesthetic techniques. To detect this complication in children, the Brice interview, commonly used in adults, has to be adapted to children's cognitive capacities, with an extended follow-up. Neither the old nor the recent studies clearly identify predictive risk factors. Children describe the same perceptions as adults during their awareness period (mainly auditory and tactile sensations), but with fewer negative thoughts. Moreover, they do not seem to be affected by this experience, as they do not have long-term psychological sequelae. The prevention of intraoperative awareness in children is the same as in adults, the major factor being awareness of this complication. Intraoperative awareness is a reality in school-aged children. A larger multicentre study and large-scale follow-up is required in order to confirm the higher incidence of awareness and identify the risk factors and long-term psychological sequelae of this complication in the paediatric population.

The relationships among social cognition, peer acceptance, and social behavior in Israeli kindergarteners

The present study investigated the relationships among Israeli kindergarten children's social cognitive capacities, their popularity, and their social behavior. We found that children's understanding of others' behavioral motives was positively related to their popularity, that children's false-belief understanding was positively related to peers' positive behavioral and teachers' prosocial evaluations of them, and that children's understanding of emotions was positively related to teachers' prosocial ratings but negatively related to both peers' negative behavioral and teachers' aggressiveness evaluations of them. Moreover, we found that Israeli kindergarten children value the same kinds of social behaviors in their peers as do children from other cultures. The findings substantiate the importance of assessing the implications of a variety of socio-cognitive capacities to the social functioning of young children from diverse cultures.

Children's Cognitive Capacities: The Foundation for Creative Healing.

This article articulates a model of children's cognition as creative healing. It integrates the fields of creativity and therapeutic techniques developed within self psychology, narrative therapy, and Ericksonian psychotherapy. Children's cognitive skills are explored as isomorphic to those found to be paradigmatic of creativity and to those utilized during accessing of unconscious resources during therapy. Bibliotherapy is discussed as a particularly efficacious technique for concretization of the model inasmuch as the hermeneutic process invites the child to actualize cognitive skills necessary for creative accessing of unconscious resources. Case examples of children's dialogue during literature interpretation are analyzed to highlight the cognitive underpinnings of the interpretive process and their therapeutic implications.

The Effect of Multiple Victimization on Children's Cognition

Children's experience of multiple forms of abuse is regarded as traumatic, with the effect of trauma on attention and perception being the closest to a universal response to multiple victimization that may be discovered. Unique responses are a function of cultural and familial expectations, developmental level, and individual differences. Children's attributions of meaning and subsequent behaviors depend heavily on the interplay between experience, thought and action. Professionals working with multiply victimized children need to understand children's understandings and cognitive capacities in order to devise the most effective interventions.

Les productions vocales des jeunes enfants français : convergence vers le modèle adulte

P. A. Halle, French infants vocal productions: Convergence toward the adult language patterns The study of French children's vocal productions suggests that, at each period of development, the emerging and developing aspects specific to French language are those aspects which are functional, given the children's cognitive capacities. Children soon overcome the limitations imposed by physiological and biological maturation, and their vocalisations reflect native language specificity well before they can say words. Language specificity first appears in the prosodic, then in the segmental characteristics of vocalisations. Language specificity also affects the way children's early words deviate from the adult model, and the kind of regularities that later emerge as a "proto-phonology", roughly at the time of lexical burst.

Preschool Children's Attention to Television: Visual Attention and Probe Response Times

Moment-to-moment variations in the engagement of young children's cognitive capacity by televised material were examined using a secondary task paradigm. Thirty-five 5-year-olds watched a 35-minSesame Streetprogram containing three types of segments: normal segments, segments with scenes reordered, and segments with incomprehensible language audio tracks. While watching the program, children were to respond quickly to auditory probes distributed across all types of segments and positions within segments. Probe response times and visual attention were recorded. Major findings were: As indicated by longer probe response times, capacity was more effectively engaged if language was comprehensible, provided children were looking at television when probes were presented. If not looking, response times were equally fast across segment types. For normal segments only, there were increases in the engagement of cognitive capacity if a look at the television or the program content had been continuous for some time. The findings provide evidence for, but important refinements of, the hypothesis that young children's ongoing comprehension is a major determinant of their attention to television.

Prediction of performance using motivation and ability information: New light on integrational capacity and weighting strategies

Children between the ages of 4 and 10 predicted exam performance of stimulus students using information about both motivation and ability as well as about either motivation or ability alone. Each kind of information came from two independent sources, and the same set of four- and two-cue descriptions were judged across five trials spaced over three days. Age differences were examined with respect to (a) response consistency across trials of judgments, (b) the number of cues used, and (c) information weighting. Age of the subjects did not emerge as a main determinant of response consistency. More importantly, the inconsistent age effect found with boys diminished considerably by Day 3. Children used all the four given cues from the very beginning. Importance of a cue depended upon what other cues it was paired with. This configural weighting, as reflected in the interaction term, steadily decreased with increasing age. Although predictions were heavily influenced by the recency effects, they conformed to an egalitarian belief that motivation is equally effective with students of low and of high ability. These results portray a very different picture of young children's cognitive capacity than did the previous literature.

The Development of Fair-Play Standards in Same-Race and Mixed-Race Situations

GRAZIANO, WMLLAM G.; MUSSER, LYNN MATHER; ROSEN, SIDNEY; and SHAFFER, DAVID R. The Development of Fair-Play Standards in Same-Race and Mixed-Race Situations. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1982, 53, 938-947. 3 convergent studies investigated the hypothesis that task-irrelevant status attributes of peers influence judgment of deservingness more for younger than for older children. In study 1, black and white first and third graders allocated rewards to peer pairs whose members were either both black or both white. Allocations of first graders were more influenced by the player's race than were the third grader's. In study 2, children made allocations to pairs in which one partner was black and the other white. Relative size and task performance were also varied. Player's race did not influence allocations, but relative size did. In study 3, children's judgments were assessed longitudinally, in first grade and 4 years later. Allocations of younger children and children retained in grade were less task-based than those of older and promoted children. Results were discussed in terms of children's cognitive capacities, equity theory, status generalization, and the development of fair-play standards.