Deferred imitation and object permanence (OP) were tested in 48 young children with Down syndrome (DS), ranging from 20 to 43 months of age. Deferred imitation and high-level OP (invisible displacements) have long been held to be synchronous developments during sensory-motor “Stage 6” (18–24 months of age in unimpaired children). The results of the current study demonstrate deferred imitation in young children with DS, showing they can learn novel behaviors from observation and retain multiple models in memory. This is the first demonstration of deferred imitation in young children with DS. The average OP level passed in this sample was A-not-B, a task passed at 8–12 months of age in normally developing infants. Analyses showed that individual children who failed high-level OP (invisible displacements) could still perform deferred imitation. This indicates that deferred imitation and OP invisible displacements are not synchronous developments in children with DS. This asynchrony is compatible with new data from unimpaired children suggesting that deferred imitation and high-level OP entail separate and distinctive kinds of memory and representation

Persons with autism (n = 28) or Down syndrome (n = 30) took part in a study of the ability to detect intermodal correspondence between facial and vocal/linguistic information for affect. Participants viewed 24 split-screen images of an individual talking and displaying a different affect on each side of the display (happy, sad, angry, surprised, or neutral). The vocal track, matching one affect (i.e., one side of the split-screen) but not the other, was played from a central speaker. Subjects were asked to point to the side matching the vocal track. The vocal track was desynchronized with both sides, so that rhythmic synchrony was greatly reduced and subjects must use affect to make their choices. In the first control condition, rhythmic synchrony information was restored. In a second control condition, inanimate objects and their sounds were presented. In the experimental condition, when verbal mental age and IQ were taken into account, the autism group performed more poorly than did the Down syndrome group in detecting intermodal correspondence of face and voice. When rhythmic synchrony information was available, both groups' performances improved, with the Down syndrome group performing slightly better than the group with autism. There were no group differences in the condition using inanimate objects. Results suggest that persons with autism may have difficulty detecting intermodal correspondence of facial and vocal/linguistic affect.

This study examined the longitudinal components of vigilance performance and attentional behaviors across the ages of 4, 7, and 14 years of life as they relate to prenatal alcohol exposure assessed by maternal self-report in midpregnancy for a cohort of 512 children. The vigilance score most salient for prenatal alcohol across this 10-year developmental period was Standard Deviation of Reaction Time (SDRT). Also salient were False Alarms (FA) on the AX task, impulsive errors reflecting difficulty in withholding a response. All 19 of the children with poorest scores on a Vigilance Latent Variable (LV) at 14 years had scored low on a similarly-defined Vigilance LV at age 7 years. Cross-lagged correlations revealed that the 7-year Vigilance LV not only predicted second-grade teacher ratings of attention a year later (r = – .38), but also predicted fourth-fifth-grade teacher ratings of attention (r = – .36). These data reveal considerable consistency across time in the impact of prenatal alcohol on child/adolescent vigilance performance and attention between 4 and 14 years of age.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether children classified as controlling in attachment differ from children classified into the traditional Ainsworth attachment categories in their symbolic representations of attachment and level of behavior problems. Sixty-nine middle-class kindergarten children and their mothers participated in a laboratory separation and reunion. Children enacted doll-play stories about attachment-related themes. A four-group representation classification scheme was developed from the doll-play transcripts of 27 children. Mothers (n = 44) completed Achenbach's Child Behavior Checklist and teachers (n = 40) completed a 30-item inventory of classroom behavior. Results showed significant agreement between the representational system and Main and Cassidy's classification system (1988) for children's reunion behavior. The doll-play of controlling children was characterized by themes of catastrophe and helplessness or by complete inhibition of play and suggested disorganization of representational processes. Controlling children also were described by mothers and teachers as significantly more aggressive than other children. The results validate the distinction between the controlling and traditional classification groups and suggest that controlling children are at risk for behavioral maladaptation at home and at school.

A community sample of 96 mother-child dyads participated in a study evaluating the extent to which directly observed differences in maternal parenting behavior could be predicted on the basis of both global and proximal maternal reports of child behavior problems and personal distress. To allow for simultaneous testing of a set of relations and make tentative causal inferences, a structural equation modeling approach was used. When the analysis was conducted on the entire sample, results indicated that global and to a lesser extent proximal measures of child behavior problems and personal distress made modest contributions to dysfunctional parenting, with neither child behavior problems or personal distress playing a more important role than the other. When the sample was divided into low (n = 54) and high (n = 42) socioeconomic disadvantage (SED) families, a different picture emerged. In low disadvantage families, parenting was most strongly predicted by mothers' proximal reports of their children's behavior; whereas in high disadvantage families, parenting was best predicted by mothers' proximal reports of their own personal distress. Results are interpreted in light of Wahler and Dumas' (1989) attentional hypothesis. It suggests that mothers who do not experience chronic sources of distress (such as SED) attend and respond to their children's behavior in a fairl accurate and consistent manner, but that mothers who experience chronic distress are unable to attend effectively to their children, responding to them often in light of the many stressors to which they are exposed, rather than in light of the children's actual behavior.

Research on the development of childhood internalizing problems has largely failed to consider that there may be different developmental paths for boys and girls. Additionally, studies have begun with elementary school children who are well beyond their first social experiences. This study follows 144 boys and 125 girls from kindergarten (for most children the time of first social experiences) to fifth grade. We identify the best predictors of fifth grade internalizing problems from kindergarten measure of anxiety-withdrawal, shyness, adaptability, and popularity. We also test whether maternal overprotectiveness moderates the link between kindergarten predictors and fifth-grade internalizing problems. Throughout, we consider boys and girls separately. Peer-rated unpopularity was the best predictor of later problems for both boys and girls, followed by peer-rated shyness for boys and teacher-rated anxiety-withdrawal for girls. Maternal overprotectiveness was more important for boys than girls. For boys overprotectiveness reduced the predictive link between some kindergarten variables and some fifth-grade outcomes; for girls overprotectiveness did not significantly moderate the predictive link. We discuss the advantages of different perspectives (peers, teachers, and mothers) for predicting internalizing problems. We also discuss the roles of early temperament, early social experience, and maternal overprotectiveness versus close temporal experience in developing internalizing problems.

Differences in mothers' and fathers' relationships with siblings and children's behavior problems were studied in a sample of 63 8-year-olds and their families. Mothers and fathers independently provided information about their relationships with siblings, and mothers rated children's adjustment and temperament. Children whose relationships with mothers and fathers were more conflictual and less close than their siblings' relationships had more emotional temperaments and more behavior problems than did other children in the sample. Mothers' and fathers' differential relationships with children were examined in combination. Children had the fewest behavior problems if both parents were closer to them than to their sibling, and they had the most behavior problems if both parents were closer to their sibling than to them. In families in which the mother was closer to one sibling and the father was closer to the other sibling, children had adjustment outcomes that fell in between the other two groups but did not differ significantly from them.

Researchers have examined links between maternal differential treatment of siblings and children's adjustment; however, little is known about the longitudinal nature of these associations. The goal of this study was to examine the relationship between maternal differential treatment of the siblings, direct parenting of older siblings, and older siblings' behavior problems across middle childhood. Eighty-two families were interviewed twice in their homes when the siblings averaged 4.7 and 7.7 years of age and, again when they averaged 7.9 and 10.5 years of age. Mothers completed questionnaires about parenting and older siblings' adjustment during the summer after the older siblings' 7th and 11th birthdays. Teachers completed questionnaires about the older siblings' adjustment and returned them through the mail. There was significant stability in the mothers' reports of differential treatment and significant associations between mothers' reports of maternal differential discipline and differential attention and mothers' and teachers' reports of older siblings' externalizing problems across time. Direct parenting measures were not correlated with differential treatment or older siblings' behavior problems across time.

Depression is often associated with social withdrawal. However, especially among children from traumatic backgrounds, dysphoric affect may also be manifested by increased demands for social contact. The present research employed intensive observations, children's self-reports, and therapist and staff ratings to investigate associations between affect regulation and interpersonal behavior among 32 emotionally disturbed children (ages 7 to 12 years) in residential or day treatment. As predicted, children who reported dysphoric moods on the Children's Depression Inventory (Kovacs, 1980/81) were most socially engaged and presented themselves as relatively vulnerable and dependent on others. These children not only expressed more overt sadness but also exhibited higher rates of excited/hyperactive behavior. The subgroup of children who were most prone to deny even normative levels of negative affect were least interpersonally involved as well as least impulsive. The results highlight the importance of individual differences in coping with traumatic relationship histories and the need for further study of the interplay between affect and interpersonal behavior in childhood psychopathology.

Few studies have examined social competence in adolescents utilizing multiple sources of data, or have examined the role of the internal representation of others in terms of social problem-solving skills and social competence. The purpose of this study was to examine how constructs within social-cognitive (i.e., the problem-solving skill involving perspective integration) and object relations theory (i.e., internal representation of others) are related to adolescents' social adjustment assessed via self-report, teacher ratings, and behavioral observations. Results indicated that adolescents (N = 56) with more advanced problem-solving skills reported fewer behavioral/emotional problems, were rated as less aggressive by teachers, and were rated as more competent in behavioral interactions. Furthermore, adolescents' problem-solving skills appeared to mediate the relationship between the representation of others and behavioral ratings of competence. These results suggest that a broader understanding of social competence in adolescence can be attained by including information on the internal representation of others, which is consistent with the approach that involves integrating concepts from different theoretical viewpoints (i.e., social cognitive and object relations).

A retrospective longitudinal research design was used to evaluate male adult outcomes associated with four patterns of physical aggression from childhood to adulthood—child-only aggression, child and adult continuity of aggression, adult-onset aggression, and a contrast group with low levels of aggression in childhood and adulthood. The continuity and adult-onset aggression groups had the highest levels of social maladjustment (e.g., marital instability), psychiatric disturbance (e.g., alcohol disorders, major depression), personality dysfunction (e.g., higher prevalence of elevated borderline and narcissistic personality disorder scores), and higher plasma testosterone levels. The child-only aggression group manifested more psychiatric and personality disturbance than the contrast group, but not nearly as much disturbance as the continuity and adult-onset groups. After controlling for age and socioeconomic status (SES) variables, race (White/Black) was typically not a significant predictor of outcome variables. Findings are discussed with regard to life course implications of the physical aggression patterns, and of the support provided for an adult-onset aggressive type.