{"title":"“Here, Let Me Do It for You”: Psychological Consequences of Receiving Direct and Indirect Help in Childhood","authors":"Jellie Sierksma, Eddie Brummelman","doi":"10.1111/cdev.14259","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.14259","url":null,"abstract":"What are the psychological consequences of receiving direct and indirect help in childhood? We conducted three preregistered experiments (<i>N</i> = 619, 7–9 years, 80% Dutch, 51% girls, 49% boys, mostly higher socioeconomic status) in the Netherlands (July 2020–July 2022). Children received direct help (correct answer), indirect help (hint), or no help. An internal meta-analysis showed that children who received help felt less competent, liked the task less, and felt more in need of help. Children who received help also sought fewer challenges (Study 3). Effect sizes were modest. Direct and indirect help had largely similar effects, except that children disliked and misreported receiving direct help more. Thus, despite being well-intentioned, direct and indirect help can be discouraging.","PeriodicalId":10109,"journal":{"name":"Child development","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.6,"publicationDate":"2025-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144202236","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Lindsay Taraban, Daniel S. Shaw, Kristen B. Nordahl, Ane Nærde
{"title":"Teaching Lessons, Learning Words: Mothers' and Fathers' Sensitivity During Teaching Uniquely Mediates Associations Between Early Familial Socioeconomic Risk and Preschoolers' Receptive Language Development","authors":"Lindsay Taraban, Daniel S. Shaw, Kristen B. Nordahl, Ane Nærde","doi":"10.1111/cdev.14260","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.14260","url":null,"abstract":"Observed parental sensitivity during a parent–child teaching task and free-play task was tested as mediators of the association between family socioeconomic risk and child receptive language at 48 months, consistent with family investment theory. Parents (<i>n</i> = 881 mothers; 624 fathers, data collected between 2006-2008) and their 5-month-old children (52% male) were recruited from public health clinics in Norway. Both maternal sensitivity (measured at 24 months) and paternal sensitivity (measured at 36 months) during the teaching task mediated the association between family socioeconomic risk and child language, controlling for sensitivity during free play, which was not significantly associated with child language. Results suggest that both mothers and fathers make meaningful contributions to early language development via sensitive parenting, particularly in the context of teaching-based interactions.","PeriodicalId":10109,"journal":{"name":"Child development","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.6,"publicationDate":"2025-06-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144193285","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Shuting Huo, Jason Chor Ming Lo, Kelvin Fai Hong Lui, Urs Maurer, Catherine Mcbride
{"title":"EEG N1 Specialization to Print in Chinese Primary School Students: Developmental Trajectories, Longitudinal Changes, and Individual Differences.","authors":"Shuting Huo, Jason Chor Ming Lo, Kelvin Fai Hong Lui, Urs Maurer, Catherine Mcbride","doi":"10.1111/cdev.14258","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.14258","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Neural specialization for print can be indexed by the left-lateralized N1 response as a tuning gradient to visual words, indicated by sensitivity (character vs. visual control) and selectivity (character vs. character-like stimuli). Forty-five Chinese children (20 boys) were recorded with EEG twice with a 2-year interval during a character decision task (T1, 2016-2017: 7-9 years old; T2, 2018-2020: 9-11). Character N1 amplitude decreased faster with age (7-11 years) compared to non-character N1, and character and character-like N1 became less right-lateralized. T1 better readers showed more longitudinal decrease of print sensitivity and more left-lateralized T2 print sensitivity and selectivity. To conclude, reading skill drives functional neural efficiency for processing print, and the left hemisphere may be a linguistically universal neural mechanism for reading development.</p>","PeriodicalId":10109,"journal":{"name":"Child development","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144198377","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Children Strategically Decide What to Practice.","authors":"Daniil Serko, Julia Leonard, Azzurra Ruggeri","doi":"10.1111/cdev.14268","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.14268","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Adjusting practice to different goals and characteristics is key to learning, but its development remains unclear. Across 2 preregistered experiments, 190 4-to-8-year-olds (106 female; mostly White; data collection: December 2021-September 2022) and 31 adults played an easy and a difficult game, then chose one to practice before a test on either the easy, difficult, or a randomly chosen game. All children adjusted their active practice choices to condition. When the test game was known, they practiced that game. However, when the test game was randomly chosen, only children 6+ and adults practiced the difficult game, while younger children only showed a trending effect. This suggests that the ability to prepare for uncertainty may develop between ages 4 and 6.</p>","PeriodicalId":10109,"journal":{"name":"Child development","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144191587","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cyann Bernard, Adeline Depierreux, Viviane Huet, Olivier Mascaro
{"title":"Infants Assume Questions Serve an Information-Seeking Function, Link Them to Interrogative Sentences and Differentiate Them From Assertions.","authors":"Cyann Bernard, Adeline Depierreux, Viviane Huet, Olivier Mascaro","doi":"10.1111/cdev.14267","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.14267","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Eye-tracking studies tested the understanding of two types of speech acts (questions and assertions) in 14-, 18-, and 30-month-olds (N = 280; 149 females; ethnicity data collection forbidden, testing in 2021-2024). Experiments involved objects either hidden or visible for a speaker. By 14 months, when the speaker asked questions, infants focused on hidden objects (rs > 0.31). Infants linked novel labels in interrogative sentences to hidden objects by 18 months and novel labels in declarative sentences to visible objects by 14 months (ds > 0.52). Thus, infants assume questions seek information one is lacking, while assertions share information one has access to. Furthermore, infants connect interrogative sentences to questions and declarative sentences to assertions, showing an understanding of communicative form-function relations.</p>","PeriodicalId":10109,"journal":{"name":"Child development","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144186684","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Emotional Vaccine: Maternal Caregiving in Infancy Shaped Future Preschoolers' Internalizing Symptoms During the COVID-19 Pandemic","authors":"Yael Schlesinger, Yael Paz, Sofie Rousseau, Naama Atzaba-Poria, Tahl I. Frenkel","doi":"10.1111/cdev.14250","DOIUrl":"10.1111/cdev.14250","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The present study assessed both concurrent and early influences of the maternal caregiving environment to examine unique contributions of each to variation in children's emotional responses to COVID-19 pandemic. Preschoolers (3–5 years; <i>M</i> = 4.12, SD = 0.49) previously assessed in infancy, several years prior to pandemic outbreak, were re-assessed during pandemic-related nationwide lockdown (<i>N</i> = 200; 50% female; 63.5% secular Jews; 2016; 2021). Maternal stress during lockdown significantly moderated (<i>β</i> = 0.13, <i>p</i> < 0.05) and mediated (<i>β</i> = 0.08, <i>p</i> < 0.05) concurrent associations between preschoolers' dose of exposure (DOE) to COVID-19 psychosocial stressors and symptoms. Furthermore, maternal sensitive care observed in infancy significantly moderated future associations between preschoolers' DOE and symptoms (<i>β</i> = −0.16, <i>p</i> < 0.05). Longitudinal protective effects of infant care remained significant after controlling for caregiver stress and behavior during the lockdown.</p>","PeriodicalId":10109,"journal":{"name":"Child development","volume":"96 4","pages":"1274-1289"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cdev.14250","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144186685","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nicolette Granata, Chyna Bacchus, Melanie Leguizamon, Jonathan D. Lane
{"title":"Developments in Children's Evaluations of and Reasoning About Disability-Related Accommodations","authors":"Nicolette Granata, Chyna Bacchus, Melanie Leguizamon, Jonathan D. Lane","doi":"10.1111/cdev.14255","DOIUrl":"10.1111/cdev.14255","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Children with disabilities often receive accommodations, but teachers rarely explain them to typically-developing (TD) classmates. How do TD students reason about these accommodations and evaluate their fairness? Five-, seven-, and nine-year-olds from the United States (<i>N</i> = 122; 50% female; 87.7% white; data collected April 2022 - September 2023) heard stories where a child character with a cognitive or physical disability engaged with a cognitive or physical accommodation. Participants explained why the child engaged in the accommodation and evaluated the accommodation's fairness. Nine-year-olds judged accommodations to be significantly fairer than 5-year-olds. In their explanations, the oldest children mentioned characters' <i>needs</i> significantly more, whereas the youngest children mentioned characters' <i>motives</i> significantly more. Mentioning characters' needs predicted evaluating accommodations as fairer, and mentioning characters' motives predicted evaluating accommodations as less fair.</p>","PeriodicalId":10109,"journal":{"name":"Child development","volume":"96 4","pages":"1502-1518"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cdev.14255","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144165666","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Laure Lu Chen, Jean Anne Heng, Chengyi Xu, Michelle R Ellefson, Miryam Edwards, Hana D'Souza, Elian Fink, Mikeda Jess, Louise Gray, Caoimhe Dempsey, Mishika Mehrotra, Siu Ching Wong, Catherine Wu, Brittany Huang, Jiayin Zheng, Zhen Wu, Rory T Devine, Claire Hughes
{"title":"Links Between Child Executive Function and Adjustment: A Three-Site Study.","authors":"Laure Lu Chen, Jean Anne Heng, Chengyi Xu, Michelle R Ellefson, Miryam Edwards, Hana D'Souza, Elian Fink, Mikeda Jess, Louise Gray, Caoimhe Dempsey, Mishika Mehrotra, Siu Ching Wong, Catherine Wu, Brittany Huang, Jiayin Zheng, Zhen Wu, Rory T Devine, Claire Hughes","doi":"10.1111/cdev.14264","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.14264","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Cross-site comparisons indicate that East Asian children typically excel on tests of executive function (EF), but interpreting this contrast is made difficult by both the heavy reliance on testing in school settings and by the scarcity of studies that assess across-site measurement invariance. Addressing these gaps, our study included remote home-based assessments of EF for 1002 children (M<sub>age</sub> = 5.19 years, SD = 0.51; 49% male) from England, Hong Kong, and mainland China, as well as parental ratings of externalizing and internalizing adjustment problems (data collected between June 2021 and December 2022). The models established partial scalar invariance but did not show clear site differences. Supporting the universal importance of EF for behavioral self-regulation, EF task performance and parent-rated externalizing problems showed similar inverse associations across sites.</p>","PeriodicalId":10109,"journal":{"name":"Child development","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144172924","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Eun Cho, Lidya Yurdum, Ekanem Ebinne, Courtney B. Hilton, Estelle Lai, Mila Bertolo, Pip Brown, Brooke Milosh, Haran Sened, Diana I. Tamir, Samuel A. Mehr
{"title":"Ecological Momentary Assessment Reveals Causal Effects of Music Enrichment on Infant Mood","authors":"Eun Cho, Lidya Yurdum, Ekanem Ebinne, Courtney B. Hilton, Estelle Lai, Mila Bertolo, Pip Brown, Brooke Milosh, Haran Sened, Diana I. Tamir, Samuel A. Mehr","doi":"10.1111/cdev.14246","DOIUrl":"10.1111/cdev.14246","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Music appears universally in human infancy with self-evident effects: as many parents know intuitively, infants love to be sung to. The long-term effects of parental singing remain unclear, however. In an offset-design exploratory 10-week randomized trial conducted in 2023 (110 families of young infants, <i>M</i><sub>age</sub> = 3.67 months, 53% female, 73% White), the study manipulated the frequency of infant-directed singing via a music enrichment intervention. Results, measured by smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment (EMA), show that infant-directed singing causes general post-intervention improvements to infant mood, but not to caregiver mood. The findings show the feasibility of longitudinal EMA (retention: 92%; EMA response rate: 74%) of infants and the potential of longer-term and higher-intensity music enrichment interventions to improve health in infancy.</p>","PeriodicalId":10109,"journal":{"name":"Child development","volume":"96 4","pages":"1555-1567"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cdev.14246","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144154008","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Theodore E A Waters, Rui Yang, Yufei Gu, Victoria Zhu, Lixian Cui, Xuan Li, Niobe Way, Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Xinyin Chen, Sumie Okazaki, Kristen Bernard, Guangzhen Zhang, Zongbao Liang
{"title":"Maternal Sensitivity Predicts Child Attachment in a Non-Western Context: A 9-Year Longitudinal Study of Chinese Families.","authors":"Theodore E A Waters, Rui Yang, Yufei Gu, Victoria Zhu, Lixian Cui, Xuan Li, Niobe Way, Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Xinyin Chen, Sumie Okazaki, Kristen Bernard, Guangzhen Zhang, Zongbao Liang","doi":"10.1111/cdev.14256","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.14256","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Despite the long-standing debate over the assumed universality of maternal sensitivity predicting attachment security (i.e., sensitivity hypothesis), few long-term longitudinal investigations on attachment have been conducted outside the Western context. We leveraged data from a prospective 9-year longitudinal study of middle-class families (N = 356; female = 48.9%) in China to examine if early maternal sensitivity predicts attachment representations in middle childhood. Maternal sensitivity was assessed from lab-based observed interactions at 14 and 24 months. At 10 years old, children completed the Chinese version of the Attachment Script Assessment. Maternal sensitivity positively predicted the child's attachment representations at age 10 years (β = 0.20, p < 0.01). These results supported the view that maternal sensitivity is prospectively related to secure attachment across cultures.</p>","PeriodicalId":10109,"journal":{"name":"Child development","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143954985","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}