Tag Archives: child development

By Karene Booker
Reprinted from Cornell Chronicle, August 6, 2012
 
Ceci

Ceci

 Children often use language differently than adults when referring to a person or thing, which can result in misleading testimony, according to a new Cornell study.

"This is the first study to examine developmental differences in referential language ability as a factor in children's ability to provide accurate testimony," said Stephen Ceci, professor of human development in Cornell's College of Human Ecology. He co-authored the study, which appears in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology (33:4), with lead author David Battin, Ph.D. '04, assistant professor at SUNY Institute of Technology, and Barbara Lust, professor of human development, also in the College of Human Ecology.

For the study, 63 children from 3 to 10 years old were shown a four-minute video in which a woman knocked down a stack of empty cans after being asked not to. The researchers compared the ability of the younger children (3-5 years old) with older children (6-10 years old) to explain who did it.

Children as old as 10 used words such as "a," "the" and "they" to refer to the woman. Small changes in the use of these words have big consequences in terms of meaning, including number and specificity, which is critical for legal testimony, the researchers said. Furthermore, the younger children were often incapable of correcting their misleading statements during follow-up questioning, because they don't understand what information listeners need for clarity. Overall, 13 percent of the younger children and 63 percent of the older children provided the information necessary for accurate identification of the wrong-doer.

"We found children lead adult conversational partners astray by using the definite article ['the'] to introduce a new person or a thing when they should have used the indefinite article ['a']," said Battin. "But, the big surprise in this research was the very high rate at which both younger and older children initially used the plural pronoun 'they' to refer to the person who committed the highly salient and disallowed act of knocking the cans down," he said.

Ceci, who has consulted for law enforcement and the legal system for several decades, elaborated: "When police interview young children in a suspected day care abuse investigation, they can be seriously misled when child after child keeps referring to the suspected perpetrator as 'they' rather than 'he' or 'she.' It can lead to the pursuit of multiple perpetrators when the actual situation had only one."

This research was funded by the Cornell Cognitive Studies Program.

Karene Booker is an extension support specialist in the Department of Human Development.

By Karene Booker
Reprinted from the Cornell Chronicle, May 7, 2012

Mendle

Mendle

Boys who reach sexual maturity more rapidly than their peers have more problems getting along with others their age and are at a higher risk for depression, according to a Cornell study published in Developmental Psychology (47:2).

"The dramatic physical changes of puberty are paralleled by equally dramatic social and emotional changes because boys are transitioning into the new roles and expectations that go along with biological maturity," said lead author Jane Mendle, assistant professor of human development in Cornell's College of Human Ecology. Co-authors include K. Paige Harden, University of Texas at Austin; Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Columbia University; and Julia Graber, University of Florida.

These changes mean big adjustments not only for the individual but also for their family and social network, she said. "In cases of rapid pubertal tempo, boys may progress through puberty at a rate that is faster than the social environment can feasibly respond."

During adolescence when friendships with peers are becoming increasingly important, it may be especially difficult for rapidly maturing adolescent boys to maintain friendships with their peers who aren't developing at a comparable rate, the researchers said. Problems getting along with others their age heighten the risk for depression and future mental health problems, they said.

Although there have been many studies on the timing of puberty, Mendle and colleagues were the first to research the effects of its tempo, beginning with a study published in 2010 that found a link between pubertal tempo and depression in boys. There was no association between the tempo of puberty and depression in girls, although the study replicated the well-established finding that an earlier timing of puberty in girls was associated with depression. The study also found that early pubertal timing in boys was associated with increased depression, though the effect of timing in boys was significantly smaller than the effect of tempo.

"These findings were an important step," Mendle said, "since virtually all of the puberty research to date has been conducted on girls. Very little is known about the role puberty plays in emotional health for boys, and virtually no research had been conducted on individual differences in puberty other than timing."

The current study looks at the potential mechanisms for the links they found between pubertal tempo and depression in boys, using a sample of 128 boys between ages 8 and 12 from the New York City metropolitan area. The parents and children in the study completed annual assessments measuring the child's level of physical development, depressive symptoms and quality of peer relationships over the course of four years.

Mendle and colleagues found that while most boys experienced fewer friendship problems over the transition from childhood to early adolescence, the early maturing and the rapidly maturing boys experienced more friendship problems over time. Those with the greatest increases in friendship problems had the greatest increases in depressive symptoms. Their analysis indicated that the link between maturation and depression was due to the changes in peer relationships.

When asked about the implications of her research for parents and people working with youth, Mendle replied, "Probably the biggest advice I can give is that puberty is a highly individualized process, and the way an adolescent appears externally is no indicator of cognitive or emotional maturity."

The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Karene Booker is an extension support specialist in the Department of Human Development.

By Karene Booker
Reprinted from Cornell Chronicle, February 16, 2012

Big Red Buddies volunteer, Michael Verini

Michael Verini '14 works with children at the Cornell Child Care Center as part of the Big Red Buddies program. Photo by Mark Vorreuter

Not everyone gets to be a prince for an afternoon, but Emilie Stewart '14 did as a volunteer for Big Red Buddies. The new program places Cornell students at the Cornell Child Care Center to read to and play with the children -- and to learn and be inspired.

Stewart, a human development major in the College of Human Ecology, explained that one afternoon when she came in, the children did not want story time. Instead they headed for the dress-up corner. "I spent my entire afternoon pretending to be a prince and chasing the kids around on my imaginary horse," she said. "The spirit and enthusiasm of these children reminded me of the importance of doing things just because they bring you happiness."

Someday, she said, "the firsthand experiences that I have had with children during their educational process will enable me to better develop early childhood programs within low-income communities."

Human development major Monique Hall '14 volunteers with infants, which provides her with a close-up view of child development. "I saw one of the babies go from just being able to lie on her back to being able to roll over and sit up on her own. Another went from babbling to saying words. Others begin to walk and feed themselves," she said. "It's just so amazing to watch them grow."

The program was started last semester by Elizabeth Stilwell, lecturer and teaching liaison in the Department of Human Development. She got the idea for the program from students who observe children at the center to fulfill course requirements. "Observing was interesting, but these students wanted to spend time interacting with children," Stilwell said.

The center's director, Patty Sinclair, welcomed the idea. Stilwell and the center's leaders set about building the program. With funding from the Department of Human Development's undergraduate education committee, Stilwell hired a student coordinator, Michael Verini '14, a human development major who not only volunteers at the center but also recruits, trains and schedules the other student volunteers.

This past fall, the program had about 35 students spending one to two hours per week with children. "Because of the large number of applicants, we plan on expanding to 50 volunteers this spring," said Verini. "Ultimately, we hope to extend Big Red Buddies to include off-campus, community-based child care programs to increase the diversity of settings."

The program offers a way to thank the center for the undergraduate education and research opportunities that it provides to the College of Human Ecology, Stilwell noted.

While the students benefit from the play time, the children do too, Sinclair said.

"Whether the students are comforting a sleepy baby, helping a toddler express herself or reading a preschool child his favorite book, they are making a big impact in these young children's lives."

Karene Booker is extension support specialist in the Department of Human Development.

Evans

Evans

By Karene Booker
Reprinted from Cornell Chronicle, October 31, 2011

Chronic stress in childhood can hurt children and teens physically, mentally and emotionally. However, having a sensitive, responsive mother can reduce at least one of these harmful effects, reports a new Cornell study. It shows that such moms can help buffer the effects of chronic stress on teens' working memories.

The study, published in Development and Psychopathology (23), sheds light on why some children are surprisingly resilient and seemingly unharmed despite growing up in difficult, high-stress situations. It was authored by Stacey N. Doan, Ph.D. '10, assistant professor of psychology at Boston University, and environmental psychologist Gary Evans, professor of design and environmental analysis and of human development in the College of Human Ecology.

Earlier research by Evans showed that the chronic high stress of children living in poverty was linked to working memory deficits in young adults. Working memory -- the ability to temporarily hold information in mind -- is critical for tasks like learning and problem-solving, he said.

The new study used longitudinal data on children and families in rural upstate New York when the children were about 9, 13 and 17 years old. More than half of the families were low-income. Wave 1 included 1,342 children, wave 2 involved 195 and wave 3 involved 214. Allostatic load -- a measure of stress-induced changes in neuroendocrine hormonal systems, cardiovascular responses and metabolism that indicate the severity of wear and tear that cumulative strain puts on organs and tissues -- was assessed in the 9- and 13-year-olds. Maternal responsiveness was measured when the children were 13 years of age, by rating during games such maternal behaviors as cooperation, helping and adaptability to their child's mood and abilities, and by their children's perception of how much their mothers helped with homework, were willingness to talk when needed, spent time doing enjoyable things with the child or knowing where the child was after school. Children's working memory was assessed when they were 17.

The study confirmed that low-income children with higher levels of allostatic load tended to have worse working memory -- but only when maternal responsiveness was medium to low.

"Although high chronic stress in childhood appears to be problematic for working memory among young adults, if during the childhood period you had a more responsive, sensitive parent, you have some protection," Evans said.

Next, the researchers plan to determine whether allostatic load has direct effects on brain areas associated with working memory and to explore whether maternal responsiveness buffers some of the effects of chronic stress via better self-regulation/coping strategies in their children or by influencing levels of stress hormone, for example.

Evans noted that the study underscores the potential for interventions to break the poverty-stress-working memory link, which may be one pathway by which children growing up in poverty fall behind in school. The authors also emphasize, however, that parenting is not sufficient or even the best way to overcome the adverse consequences of childhood poverty. The impacts of poverty, they said, far outweigh the protective effects of maternal responsiveness. Ultimately poverty must be dealt with by more equitable and generous sharing of resources throughout society.

The research was supported by the W.T. Grant Foundations and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Karene Booker is an extension support specialist in the Department of Human Development.

Related Links:
College of Human Ecology
Gary Evans

By Karene Booker

Anna Zhu practices teaching an experimental curriculum

Nine undergraduate students from the College of Human Ecology serving as extension interns spent their summer engaged in everything from teaching teens how to make better decisions to playing games with toddlers in order to answer key child development questions. Four of the internships were led by faculty in the department of human development.

The interns worked with faculty and community collaborators, particularly Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) associations, on creative projects that embody the college’s research, education and outreach missions and benefit communities throughout New York State. “CCE internships provide excellent opportunities for undergraduate students to learn first-hand about the ways research, education, and outreach complement each other,” said Jennifer Tiffany, associate director for extension and outreach in the College of Human Ecology.

Distenfeld poster

Shelby Distenfeld's presentation poster

Human development major Shelby Distenfeld ’13, traveled to Tioga and Seneca counties to recruit rural and low-income children for a study about how factors such as income and parenting influence children’s concept of choice. The project, under the direction of Tamar Kushnir, assistant professor of human development, “was very rewarding because I was able to play a role in many aspects of research from administrative duties and participant recruitment to collecting data,” Distenfeld said. “The opportunity to work with the mothers and children and see first-hand the differences in development among the children was eye opening.”

“An important lesson I learned is how research is actually conducted and how to successfully run a research project,” said Hemavattie Ramtahal ‘13. As a human development major, she dedicated her summer to investigating the relationship between poverty, emotion, and cognitive development in young children with Marianella Casasola, associate professor of human development. Ramtahal worked in Tompkins, Cortland, and Yates counties recruiting families for the study, conducted the experimental tasks or “baby games” with the children, trained other research assistants and analyzed data.

“My burning curiosity about risky decision making started in high school,” said Anna Zhu ’14.  She wondered why teens make bad choices that jeopardize their health, future, or lives, and how to help them. A Human Biology, Health & Society major, she tackled these questions as part of her internship with Valerie Reyna, professor of human development. Zhu taught the experimental risk reduction curriculum in CCE’s 4-H Career Exploration program, prepared data for analysis, and worked with local partners and extension staff in New York City and Broome counties to administer follow-up surveys. “From this experience,” she said “I’ve already gained valuable skills in teaching, statistical analysis, and social science research – tools I expect to use in my career in public health.”

Sarah Dephtereos ’13 spent her summer exploring how 4-H educators use research. A policy analysis and management major, she worked with Steve Hamilton, human development professor and associate director for youth development at the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research, to review the literature on research utilization and draft a guide to youth development websites for 4-H educators. Her review identified common problems practitioners experience with accessing research. “I saw these issues reflected in the youth development websites I assessed,” Dephtereos said.”

Other extension internships in the college included teaching new immigrants ways to maintain a healthy diet, creating gardens at low-income schools, developing a high tech fabric class for girls, piloting nutrition and parenting education program, and researching child custody decisions in low-income families.

Information for faculty about applying for the 2012 CCE internship program will be available in December.

Karene Booker is an extension support specialist in the department of human development.

Related websites:
Jennifer Tiffany:
CCE Summer Internship Program

 

By Karene Booker

Graduate student Yoo Mee Lee works in the Cornell Language Acquisition Lab with Professor Barbara Lust on research results of how multilingualism affects children.

When young children learn a second language, it strengthens their ability to pay attention to the right stuff, reports a new Cornell study.

"Our study showed that bilingualism in young children strengthens what is known as executive attention, which helps orient individuals in the sea of information coming in," said Sujin Yang, Ph.D. '07, lead author and now a professor at Tyndale University College in Canada. "It helps them know what to pay attention to, what to ignore and what action to take."

The study, co-authored by Barbara Lust, professor of human development in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell, and Hwajin Yang of Singapore Management University, is published in the July issue of Bilingualism: Language and Cognition.

"We were able to begin to separate out the effects of bilingualism from the effects of culture, which other studies had not done," noted Lust. "Culture strongly influences parenting and child development. Emphasis on behavioral control and inhibition at an early age -- a feature more often found in East Asian cultures - has been linked to improved attention in children. Western cultures, by contrast, tend to emphasize individuality and self expression."

In their study of 56 4-year-olds with college-educated parents living in middle-class neighborhoods, the researchers compared native English-only speaking U.S. children, bilingual children in the United States, Korean-only speaking children in the United States and Korean-only speaking children in Korea. The Korean and Korean-English speaking children from the United States had first generation native Korean parents; the bilingual children had about 11 months of formal exposure to English through a bilingual daycare program.

The study reports that a child's version of a computer-game test that is designed to assess various components of executive attention showed that the Korean-English bilingual children were significantly faster and more accurate compared with the other three groups. The researchers also found that the Korean-speaking children in Korea were more accurate than the Korean-only and English-only speaking children in the United States, indicating a sizable effect of culture. This accuracy, however, was accompanied by slower response times.

Their results suggest not only that bilingualism is good for executive attention, but also that executive attention develops quite early in both cognitive development and in the process of gaining a second language.

"If executive attention is improved by bilingualism, then we should be able to detect and perhaps enhance improvements in academic skills. Ultimately, we want to understand how bilingualism is creating the advanced executive attention," Lust said. "Understanding this could potentially lead to other interventions to facilitate the development of this essential capacity."

The work was supported by the College of Human Ecology and Cornell's Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies.

Karene Booker is an extension support specialist in human development.

Related Links:
College of Human Ecology
Department of Human Development
Cornell Language Acquisition Laboratory
Virtual Center for Language Acquisition
Barbara Lust
Sinhala Language at Cornell

By Karene Booker

students in classroomWhen assessing education, much attention goes to the administrative control of the school district, teaching and testing. But little goes to the growing evidence that where learning occurs matters. American school buildings are aging and in disrepair, with the worst conditions found in those that serve low-income children.

Low building quality negatively affects student achievement, and this effect is exacerbated when students change schools often; both conditions are more often found in low-income districts, according to a new study by Cornell researchers Gary Evans, professor of design and environmental analysis; Min Jun Yoo, M.S. '08; and John Sipple, associate professor of education; and published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology (Vol. 30).

The researchers studied the relation between school building quality and student stability, socio-economic background and scores on standardized achievement tests in 511 public elementary schools in the New York City school system. Prior studies had confirmed a link between building quality and student performance independent of socio-economic status, but most did not address the question of why. One study provided a clue. It indicated that one reason for this relationship was because of absenteeism. Independent of socio-economic status, students in poorer quality buildings were absent more often. Students do not learn as much if they spend less time in school.

Thus, Evans and his colleagues investigated how student mobility might also contribute to the linkage between school building quality and student achievement.

"We found that students attending schools with lower building quality and those attending schools with high student mobility had lower test scores," says environmental psychologist Evans.

Furthermore, they found that when these two risk factors were combined, it was particularly damaging to academic achievement. These negative effects on test scores occurred independently of socio-economic and racial composition of the school. Further research at the individual student and teacher levels may shed light on the mechanisms for these synergistic effects.

While it is widely understood that teacher experience, curriculum and school social climate influence children's learning, this study underscores the importance of the physical environment as well. It is the first study to demonstrate the interaction between the condition of school facilities and student mobility.

"Our findings highlight a serious issue in American education -- inequality," says Evans. "Although we controlled for socio-economic status and race in our analysis, in reality low-income children are both more likely to change schools and more likely to attend schools with lower quality buildings. We conclude that the school environment contributes to the income-achievement gap and, therefore, warrants greater attention."

The study was supported in part by the New York City Department of Education, the William T. Grant Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Network for Socioeconomic Status and Health.

Reference

Evans, G.W., Yoo, M.J. & Sipple, J. (2010). The ecological context of student achievement: School building quality effects are exacerbated by high levels of student mobility.  Journal of Environmental Psychology, 30, 239-244.

Research by Tamar Kushnir in the Department of Human Development at Cornell University sheds light on how young children learn about cause and effect through everyday experiences. 

Young children are naturally curious about cause and effect, and are naturally motivated to learn all about the “hows” and “whys” of the world. “Babies and children are like little scientists. They gather evidence by observing and experiencing the world,” Kushnir says.  While playing with dolls, searching through a toy box, or banging blocks together in a seemingly haphazard manner, they’re actually engaging in a quite rational process of making hypotheses, evaluating statistical data, and dismissing prior beliefs when presented with stronger evidence.  They also display remarkable psychological intuition and, by observing the actions of other people, can determine underlying motivations, desires and preferences.

While early childhood cognition has traditionally been studied separately from social context, Kushnir’s research brings these strands together.  Children learn about people from statistical information and they in turn evaluate evidence in light of their developing social knowledge, in an ongoing, reinforcing cycle.

By the time children are in preschool, they already understand a lot about other people’s desires, preferences, beliefs and emotions. But how do they learn about these internal motivations? It is generally thought that children pick up this knowledge from emotional cues such as facial expressions. But Kushnir’s recent work demonstrates that children can use statistics to figure out another person’s preference. Read the full outreach publication

Reprinted from The Cornell Chronicle, August 26, 2010

Young children are natural psychologists, says Cornell cognitive psychologist Tamar Kushnir. By the time they're in preschool, they already understand a lot about other people's inner mental lives -- their desires, preferences, beliefs and emotions. But how do they acquire this understanding? In part by using statistics, reports a new study led by Kushnir.

The research, described in the August issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, "provides the first evidence that young children can use intuitive statistical abilities to infer a psychological cause -- a preference," says Kushnir, assistant professor of human development and director of the Early Childhood Cognition Laboratory in the College of Human Ecology.

For example, in one experiment, preschool children saw a puppet named Squirrel remove five toys of the same type (all blue flowers) from a container full of toys and happily play with them. What varied for different children, however, were the contents of the container. For one-third of the children, all the toys were blue flowers. For another third of the children, only 50 percent were blue flowers; the others were red circles. For the last third of the children, 18 percent were blue flowers and 82 percent were red circles.

When later asked to give Squirrel a toy that she liked, the children were most likely to give her blue flowers when the container held only 18 percent blue flowers, and slightly less frequently when the container had 50 percent blue flowers. When the container had 100 percent blue flowers, they gave her toys at random.

"That means children inferred that the puppet had a preference for blue flowers if the sample of five toys didn't match the proportion of toys in the population (the container)," explains Kushnir. "This is a statistical phenomenon known as non-random sampling."

In another experiment, 18- to 24-month-old children also learned about the preferences of an adult experimenter from non-random sampling. They watched the adult choose five toys -- either from a box with 18 percent of that toy or 82 percent. The adult played happily with the toy either way, but the toddler only concluded that the adult had a preference if she had chosen the toys from a box in which that toy was scarce.
"Our results support the intriguing conclusion that statistical inference plays a critical role in early social learning -- both as infants form initial notions of psychological causality and later as preschoolers achieve more detailed and sophisticated psychological knowledge," write the authors, who include Fei Xu of the University of California-Berkeley and Henry M. Wellman of the University of Michigan.
Early statistical intuitions are not conscious or explicit, Kushnir said. "Xu previously found that infants have expectations about random sampling when they are 8 months old. What we did was ask -- could these expectations be useful for learning about other people? We found that indeed they could. When infants' expectations are violated they look for a hidden cause. In this case, the hidden cause is a preference for one toy over another.

"Babies are incredible natural learners," adds Kushnir. "Babies and children are like little scientists. They gather evidence by observing and experiencing the world. Later on, there will be time for formal instruction, but when they're really young, this sort of informal learning is critical."
The research was supported by the McDonnell Collaborative Initiative on Causal Learning, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, Canada.

This story is adapted from an article by the Association for Psychological Science.

Young Children’s Understanding of Free Will

When do children learn how not to do something they want to do? Every parent wants to know! The answer has important implications for parenting and early childhood education. Free will, the notion that someone who has performed an action could have done otherwise, plays a central role in adults’ explanations of behavior and is critical to our ability to reason about moral obligation and social responsibility. Yet, very little research has examined the development of the concept in children.

Tamar Kushnir, Assistant Professor of Human Development and her colleagues, Henry Wellman, University of Michigan and Alison Gopnik, University of California at Berkeley, propose to do just that. In a new grant from the Causal Learning Collaborative through the James S. McDonnell Foundation, the team will study preschoolers’ reasoning about their choices and actions.

Research on children’s learning shows that by the time children are 4 or 5 years old, they can reason about the psychological causes of human actions, including goals, beliefs, desires, and intentions.  They can make distinctions between actions caused by psychological states such as desires and those caused by physical forces or biological processes.  Preschoolers are also able to reason about things that might have happened.  Thus, it is plausible that preschoolers may have some concept of freedom of choice.

Preliminary work by Kushnir, graduate student Nadia Chernyak, and her colleagues has shown that 4-year-olds can already reason about freedom of choice in some circumstances, but important developmental differences exist between 4- and 6-year olds.  In particular, 4-year-olds appreciate that in some situations they would have been able to freely choose a course of action, while in other situations their actions are constrained. However, 4-year-olds cannot reason about the freedom to inhibit or not do a desired action, whereas 6-year-olds can.

The researchers have designed two studies to look more deeply at young children’s understanding of free will.  In one, the researchers will examine preschoolers’ understanding of free versus constrained actions in more depth, hoping to establish an early link between action understanding, social cognition, and moral reasoning. In the second study, the researchers will look more closely at developmental differences in children’s reasoning about not doing an action and their own inhibitory control.

Who Knows Best? How Children Evaluate Who to Learn From

In another grant, from the Institute for the Social Sciences, Kushnir will conduct preliminary studies on how 3- and 4-year-old children evaluate evidence from experts in light of their own experiences through play.

Increasingly very young children are being exposed to formal instruction, either at home or in academically-oriented preschool programs. More research is needed to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of this trend in early childhood education. The notion that dominates theories of young children’s learning – that they learn best through play and active exploratory experiences – suggests that that instruction may not benefit this age group. On the other hand, research on developing social cognition has shown that even preschoolers understand that some people know more than others, and this understanding guides who they choose to learn from.

These experiments involve causal learning, both because causal knowledge has been shown to be central to young children’s early concepts and because new research shows that play is critical to causal learning. One study looks at whether 3- and 4-year olds take into account another person’s level of expertise when there is ambiguous or conflicting evidence from the their own play. Another study looks at whether preschoolers know that some types of causal learning benefit from instruction whereas others may benefit more from their own play.

Findings from these studies will build on a growing body of research on the mechanisms of learning in young children with important implications for the study of cognitive development as well as for early childhood education.

“We hope studies such as these will shed light on the process by which children learn – and specifically how social cognition and social context influence early learning," said Kushhir.  "Maybe more importantly, though, we hope this research will inspire people to talk to children, answer their questions, and also to listen to them and ask them questions."

She ended with a challenge, do your own 'experiments;' find out what the young minds around us are capable of.  I promise they will amaze you.”