Whereas considerable developmental memory research has examined the contributions of short-term memory, processing efficiency, retention duration, and scope of attention to complex memory span, little is known about the influence of controlled attention. The present study investigated the relative influence of three understudied attention mechanisms on the verbal working memory span of school-age children: memory updating; attention focus switching; and sustained attention. Results of general linear modeling revealed that, after controlling for age, only updating accuracy emerged as a significant predictor of verbal working memory span. Memory updating speed (that subsumed attention focus switching speed) also contributed but was mediated by age. The results extend the developmental memory literature by implicating the mechanism of memory updating and developmental improvement in speed of attention focus switching and updating as critical contributors to children&#x2019;s verbal working memory. Theoretically, the results provide substantively new information about the role of domain-general executive attention in children&#x2019;s verbal working memory.

Beula M. Magimairaj

James W. Montgomery

Examining the Relative Contribution of Memory Updating, Attention Focus Switching, and Sustained Attention to Children&#x2019;s Verbal Working Memory Span

The ability to regulate emotion is a crucial process that humans utilize in order to adapt to the demands of environmental constraints. Individuals exposed to early adverse life events such as being born at an extremely low birth weight (ELBW, 501&#x2013;1000&#x2009;g) are known to have problems regulating emotion which have been linked to the development of psychopathology in this population. Recent studies have used psychophysiological measures, such as electroencephalogram (EEG) and cardiac vagal tone, to index emotion regulatory processes. The purpose of this paper was three-fold: (1) to investigate the relation between ELBW and emotion regulation issues (pathway 1), (2) to review studies investigating the relation between early emotion regulation and later internalizing problems (pathway 2); and (3) to provide a model in which two psychophysiological measures (i.e., frontal EEG asymmetry and cardiac vagal tone) are suggested to understand the proposed conceptual pathways in the relation between ELBW and psychopathology.

Lauren A. Drvaric

Ryan J. Van Lieshout

Louis A. Schmidt

Linking Early Adversity, Emotion Dysregulation, and Psychopathology: The Case of Extremely Low Birth Weight Infants

The activation relationship theory serves as a complement to Bowlby&#x2019;s attachment theory to better understand the impact of fathering on child development, focusing primarily on parental stimulation of risk taking and control during children&#x2019;s exploration. The first aim of this study was to confirm that the activation relationship as assessed with the observational procedure, the Risky Situation, is primarily determined by paternal stimulation of risk taking as assessed by questionnaire. The second aim was to verify the link between the activation relationship and attachment disorganization. The third aim was to verify the existence of a sex difference in father-toddler dyad activation relationships. The Strange Situation procedure and the Risky Situation procedure were conducted with 58 father-toddler dyads. Fathers completed questionnaires on child temperament and parental behavior. Paternal stimulation of risk taking explains activation once child sex and temperament, the attachment relationship, and emotional support are taken into account. Moreover, there is no relation between the father-child activation relationship and attachment disorganization. Finally, data confirm the existence of a sex difference in the activation relationship in toddlers: fathers activate their sons more than their daughters.

Daniel Paquette

Caroline Dumont

The Father-Child Activation Relationship, Sex Differences, and Attachment Disorganization in Toddlerhood

Students face various learning challenges in their daily life. Teachers should teach them learning strategies to accommodate demands. One hundred ten fifth graders were randomly assigned to three groups: strategic notetaking, partial strategic notetaking, and control group, with three levels (high versus medium versus low) according to their prior science achievement. The levels also functioned as one independent variable in the MANCOVA analysis, with writing speed as covariate. The results showed significant treatment main effects in support of strategic and partial strategic groups on the measurements of board cued, verbal cued, and noncued information units. The high science achievement group outperformed the low one on the task of verbal cued, whereas the medium outperformed the low one on comprehension multiple-choice test. The study suggested notetaking as an effective learning strategy that can be taught to elementary students.

Pai-Lin Lee

Chiao-Li Wang

Douglas Hamman

Ching-Hsiang Hsiao

Chuang-Hua Huang

Notetaking Instruction Enhances Students&#x2019; Science Learning

This paper presents the validation of <i>Preschool Competition Questionnaire</i> (PCQ). The PCQ was completed by the childcare teachers of 780 French-speaking children between the ages of 36 and 71 months. The results of exploratory factor analysis suggest three dimensions involving neither physical nor relational aggression: other-referenced competition, task-oriented competition, and maintenance of dominance hierarchy. The three dimensions are positively correlated with dominance ratings and are linked to social adjustment. Girls are just as competitive as boys in the dimensions of other-referenced competition and dominance hierarchy maintenance. Task-oriented competition is relatively more important in older children and girls. Classification analysis reveals that the children who obtain the highest dominance ratings are the ones who employ a variety of competition strategies.

Marie-No&#xeb;lle Gagnon

Luc Bouchard

Marc Bigras

Barry H. Schneider

A New Tool to Explore Children&#x2019;s Social Competencies: The Preschool Competition Questionnaire

We report a generalization experiment in which 72 18-month-old infants were tested in the elicited imitation paradigm. Two questions were addressed: (1) whether infants' were able to generalize to differently looking (shape and color changes) but functionally equivalent props and (2) whether narrative support at both encoding and retrieval would facilitate memory. The results revealed that the 18-month-old infants were indeed capable of generalizing to differently looking but functionally equivalent props across a retention interval of two weeks. However, contrary to expectations, narrative support did not facilitate memory or generalization.

Osman S. Kingo

Peter Kr&#xf8;jgaard

Eighteen-Month-Old Infants Generalize to Analog Props across a Two-Week Retention Interval in an Elicited Imitation Paradigm

This paper examined the general trend of timing of breastfeeding initiation among nursing mothers in Nigeria. The time of initiating the first breast milk to an infant by his/her mother is measured as whether it is immediate (before the first hour of birth) or delayed (after the first hour of birth), and the impacts of some socioeconomic and maternal factors on this are determined. Results from this study showed that mother’s age at birth, her enhanced educational status, mothers’ domiciling in urban areas, singleton birth, and mother’s frequent antenatal visits among others contributed positively to early initiation of breastfeeding by Nigerian nursing mothers (<svg style="vertical-align:-0.1638pt;width:58.712502px;" id="M1" height="11.375" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 58.712502 11.375" width="58.712502" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g transform="matrix(.017,-0,0,-.017,.062,11.112)"><path id="x1D443" d="M619 482q0 -69 -40.5 -119t-96 -72.5t-118.5 -26.5h-44l-70 20l-31 -151q-14 -67 0.5 -83t89.5 -22l-5 -28h-287l8 28q65 7 81.5 22t29.5 83l79 398q12 56 0.5 70.5t-78.5 20.5l7 28h255q108 0 164 -43t56 -125zM524 478q0 141 -146 141q-25 0 -47 -8q-16 -6 -20.5 -13.5&#xA;t-10.5 -39.5l-43 -241q37 -13 83 -13q67 0 125.5 45t58.5 129z" /></g><g transform="matrix(.017,-0,0,-.017,15.582,11.112)"><path id="x3C" d="M512 -3l-437 233v51l437 233v-58l-378 -200v-2l378 -199v-58z" /></g><g transform="matrix(.017,-0,0,-.017,30.286,11.112)"><path id="x30" d="M241 635q53 0 94 -28.5t63.5 -76t33.5 -102.5t11 -116q0 -58 -11 -112.5t-34 -103.5t-63.5 -78.5t-94.5 -29.5t-95 28t-64.5 75t-34.5 102.5t-11 118.5q0 58 11.5 112.5t34.5 103t64.5 78t95.5 29.5zM238 602q-32 0 -55.5 -25t-35.5 -68t-17.5 -91t-5.5 -105&#xA;q0 -76 10 -138.5t37 -107.5t69 -45q32 0 55.5 25t35.5 68.5t17.5 91.5t5.5 105t-5.5 105.5t-18 92t-36 68t-56.5 24.5z" /></g><g transform="matrix(.017,-0,0,-.017,38.446,11.112)"><path id="x2E" d="M113 -12q-24 0 -39.5 16t-15.5 42q0 24 16 40.5t40 16.5t40 -16.5t16 -40.5q0 -26 -16 -42t-41 -16z" /></g><g transform="matrix(.017,-0,0,-.017,42.321,11.112)"><use xlink:href="#x30" /></g><g transform="matrix(.017,-0,0,-.017,50.481,11.112)"><path id="x35" d="M153 550l-26 -186q79 31 111 31q90 0 141.5 -51t51.5 -119q0 -93 -89 -166q-85 -69 -173 -71q-32 0 -61.5 11.5t-41.5 23.5q-18 17 -17 34q2 16 22 33q14 9 26 -1q61 -50 124 -50q60 0 93 43.5t33 104.5q0 69 -41.5 110t-121.5 41q-53 0 -102 -20l38 305h286l6 -8&#xA;l-26 -65h-233z" /></g></svg>). In the contrary, delivery through caesarean operation, nursing mothers that delivers at homes instead of hospitals, and the current birth being the first from a mother are all found to militate against early initiation of breastfeeding (<svg style="vertical-align:-0.1638pt;width:58.712502px;" id="M2" height="11.375" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 58.712502 11.375" width="58.712502" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g transform="matrix(.017,-0,0,-.017,.062,11.112)"><use xlink:href="#x1D443" /></g><g transform="matrix(.017,-0,0,-.017,15.582,11.112)"><use xlink:href="#x3C" /></g><g transform="matrix(.017,-0,0,-.017,30.286,11.112)"><use xlink:href="#x30" /></g><g transform="matrix(.017,-0,0,-.017,38.446,11.112)"><use xlink:href="#x2E" /></g><g transform="matrix(.017,-0,0,-.017,42.321,11.112)"><use xlink:href="#x30" /></g><g transform="matrix(.017,-0,0,-.017,50.481,11.112)"><use xlink:href="#x35" /></g></svg>) among others. General results showed that early breastfeeding initiation experience among nursing mothers in Nigeria significantly improves over time between 1990 and 2008 (<svg style="vertical-align:-0.1638pt;width:58.712502px;" id="M3" height="11.375" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 58.712502 11.375" width="58.712502" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g transform="matrix(.017,-0,0,-.017,.062,11.112)"><use xlink:href="#x1D443" /></g><g transform="matrix(.017,-0,0,-.017,15.582,11.112)"><use xlink:href="#x3C" /></g><g transform="matrix(.017,-0,0,-.017,30.286,11.112)"><use xlink:href="#x30" /></g><g transform="matrix(.017,-0,0,-.017,38.446,11.112)"><use xlink:href="#x2E" /></g><g transform="matrix(.017,-0,0,-.017,42.321,11.112)"><use xlink:href="#x30" /></g><g transform="matrix(.017,-0,0,-.017,50.481,11.112)"><use xlink:href="#x35" /></g></svg>), although following a sinusoidal pattern. Four waves of national data from the Nigerian Demographic and Health Surveys for 1990, 1999, 2003, and 2008 were employed in the study.

Waheed Babatunde Yahya

Samson Babatunde Adebayo

Modelling the Trend and Determinants of Breastfeeding Initiation in Nigeria

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<p><em>Child Development Research</em> publishes original research articles as well as review articles in all areas of child development research.</p>


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Child Development Research ceased publication in 2019 and is no longer accepting submissions.

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Child Development Research publishes original research articles as well as review articles in all areas of child development research.

Child Development Research