Measuring development

Question 1

Moffitt (1993)

Answer 1

[blank]’s developmental taxonomy of antisocial behaviour. A theory about why we see shifts in the rate of antisocial behaviour in the life span. There are two groups: children that will be naughty very early on and stay naughty and those who will just be naughty at a certain age. Schools are more impacted by the this in adolescence and the criminal justice system later on. We can see some kids trajectories very early on but some only have adolescence limited pathways. All this research based on longitudinal data.

Question 2

Hart and Risley (1995)

Answer 2

Well established relationship between total amount of speech exposure and language outcomes. Steep socioeconomic gradient which gives rise to the notion of the 30 million word gap. Quality and interactivity of early linguistic interactions are more important than quantity. Socioeconomic differences in the number of words children are exposed to in infancy. The precise value of the differential exposure is contested but we know there is a difference based on children’s SES.

Question 3

Aguilar (2000)

Answer 3

Longitudinal study of 180 infants in Minnesota on attachment and behavioural problems. Follow ups were done repeatedly from 2 to 17.5. These were what they considered a high social risk sample by focusing on a high poverty neighbourhood. Preschool teacher assessments of Behaviour problems. Insecure boys were more at risk in later childhood of behavioural problems. Avoidant had more behavioural problems than secure and an avoidant attachment style was the main predictor of behavioural problems. This shows persistent longitudinal effects of attachment.

Question 4

Bates et al (1985)

Answer 4

120 children seen for strange situation assessment at 12 months and mothers reported behaviour problems at age 3. They found no significant associations between attachment styles and later behavioural problems.

Question 5

Lewis et al (1984)

Answer 5

113 infants assessed using strange situation at 12 months and the mother reports behaviour problems at age 6. They found weak overall effects of attachment. They got an effect of insecure boys predicting externalising behavioural problems but for girls they found the opposite, more future externalising behavioural problems for secure girls.

Question 6

Fearon et al (2010)

Answer 6

Systematic literature search, meta-analysis to try and synthesize evidence to reduce variability in it. Extraction of effect sizes and coding of moderators. Extracted and synthesized statistics and gave more weight to bigger studies. Overall results show children classified as insecure are more likely to have future behavioural problems. However, disorganized were the most likely to have behavioural problems later in life. The original studies didn’t code for a disorganised attachment because it didn’t exist yet. Clinical studies overall had stronger effect sizes that non-clinical. The studies that asked teachers about behavioural problems had bigger effect sizes than asking parents but studies where they observed the children had the biggest. Studies that measured behavioural problems later showed stronger effect sizes than those measuring earlier so it would appear the effects are getting larger overtime but as this is not a longitudinal study, we can’t conclude this for sure. This shows how you measure attachment matters.

Question 7

Fearon and Belsky (2011)

Answer 7

Meta analysis result from previous study showed a possibility of increasing effects with age, a larger effect for boys and uncertainty around the effects of risk. Measured attachment at 15 months and looked at children from grades 1 to 6 in America. To look into these further they completed a longitudinal study. They looked at risk indicators: economic risk (poverty), partner risk (single parenthood), education risk (high school only), age risk (child born at age 20 or younger). They affirmed the relatively long term predictive associations between attachment and externalising problems. They suggest effects are time varying: avoidance effects decline whereas disorganisation effect increase with development across this period. Confirms evidence of the importance of disorganised attachments. Might also explain earlier non results for disorganised attachments as the effects take time to emerge. They confirm the importance of gender and suggest the importance of risk interactions.

Question 8

Madigam et al (2019)

Answer 8

38 studies of observed sensitivity and parent reported language development to see how sensitive caregiving effects language development. They found an average association of .27. Sensitive caregiving is more important than attachment type in language development. However, sensitive caregiving was developed as a thing because of the effects of attachment styles.

Question 9

Crooke et al (2022)

Answer 9

108 studies on the association between sensitivity and emotional and behavioural problems. They found an average effect size for externalising of .14 and internalising of .08. This was significantly larger effects for externalising problems.

Question 10

NICHD SECCYD

Answer 10

Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Showed caregiving quality predicts multiple outcomes. Sensitivity of caregiving at 15 months predicts school readiness (.30), vocabulary (.35) and behavioural problems (.15) all at age 3.