Genetics Influence Adolescent Language Problems (November 16, 2006) — Specific language impairment (SLI) is a condition in which a child's language development is deficient despite showing normal development in all other areas. New research, published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, attempts to identify the cause behind this affliction. > full story 

Genes And Stressed-out Parents Lead To Shy Kids (March 5, 2007) — New research in Current Directions in Psychological Science shows that shyness in kids could relate to the manner in which a stress-related gene in children interacts with being raised by stressed-out parents. > full story

Late Talking Toddler: New Research Debunks The Myth (July 13, 2006) — New research findings from the world's largest study predicting children's late language emergence has revealed that parents are not to blame for late talking toddlers. > full story

Imaginary Friendships Could Boost Child Development (March 9, 2005) — A post-graduate student from The University of Manchester's School of Psychological Sciences is investigating the theory that children with imaginary companions are quicker to develop language skills and retain knowledge. > full story

Children Follow Same Steps To Learn Vocabulary, Regardless Of Language Spoken (September 15, 2004) — Regardless of the language they are learning to speak, young children learn vocabulary in fundamentally the same way, according to a study by researchers at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health. > full story

Babies Who Don't Respond To Their Names May Be At Risk For Autism Or Other Disorders (April 4, 2007) — Year-old babies who do not respond when their name is called may be more likely to be diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder or other developmental problem at age 2, making this simple test a potential early indicator for such conditions. > full story

Slow Balls Take The Swing Out Of Young Ball Players (May 5, 2005) — Exasperated parents practicing throw-and-connect skills with their young children will be relieved to know that their child's inability to hit a slow-moving ball has a scientific explanation: Children cannot hit slow balls because their brains are not wired to handle slow motion. "When you throw something slowly to a child, you think you're doing them a favour," said Terri Lewis, professor of psychology at McMaster University. "Slow balls actually appear stationary to a child." > full story

Children's Earliest Words Stem From What Interests Them (March 22, 2006) — A recent study has found that younger babies learn words for new objects based on how interested they are in the object. Older babies attach more importance to whether the speaker is interested in the object. The study was conducted with 10-month-old babies. These findings suggest that parents should talk more about what their babies are interested in rather than what they, the parents, are interested in. > full story

Birth Order Affects Career Interests, Study Shows (June 1, 2001) — A child's place in the family birth order may play a role in the type of occupations that will interest him or her as an adult, new research suggests. > full story

Early Child Care Linked To Increases In Vocabulary, Some Problem Behaviors In Fifth And Sixth Grades (March 27, 2007) — The most recent analysis of a long-term NIH-funded study found that children who received higher quality child care before entering kindergarten had better vocabulary scores in the fifth grade than did children who received lower quality care. > full story

Fathers Influence Child Language Development More Than Mothers (November 1, 2006) — In families with two working parents, fathers had greater impact than mothers on their children's language development between ages 2 and 3, according to a study by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute and UNC's School of Education. > full story

Pretending Not Just Child's Play: Parents Can Have Important Role, Too (October 9, 1997) — Years of research on early childhood have been dominated by thinking that children's pretending needs little help from adults. University of Illinois researchers have found that when parents join in, the kids' development gets a boost. > full story

Grandparents Relate To Adopted Grandchildren The Same As Biological Grandchildren (April 16, 2007) — Grandparents of adopted grandchildren relate to them as an integral part of the family -- just as they relate to their biological grandchildren. This research is unique in the field in that it evaluated adoptive relationships from the viewpoint of grandparents. Previous research examined relationships from the viewpoint of parents and children. > full story

School Achievement, Perceptions Of Ability, And Interest Change As Children Age (March 30, 2007) — A new study shows that children's academic interests increasingly match the subjects in which they get the best grades as they progress from elementary through high school. The study tracked approximately 1000 children from first grade through twelfth grade. Boys and girls were found to have differing patterns. This specialization might help children focus on a certain field, yet a more generalist approach could be beneficial for a labor market that requires flexibility. > full story

Breastfeeding Boosts Mental Health, New Research Reveals (October 28, 2006) — A new study has found that babies that are breastfed for longer than six months have significantly better mental health in childhood. The findings are based on data from the ground-breaking Raine Study at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research that has tracjed the growth and development of more than 2,500 West Australian children over the past 16 years. > full story

Aggressive Children Bad, Sad And Rejected, Shows Research: Youths Feel Alienated By Their Friends, Parents And Schools (November 24, 2000) — Violent young children are really sad children, says U of T criminologist Anthony Doob, so criminalizing their behaviour will not solve the problem. > full story

Toddlers Engage In 'Emotional Eavesdropping' To Guide Their Behavior (March 26, 2007) — Little children never cease to amaze. University of Washington researchers have found that 18-month-old toddlers engage in what they call "emotional eavesdropping" by listening and watching emotional reactions directed by one adult to another and then using this emotional information to shape their own behavior. > full story

Should Single Parents Stay That Way? (March 30, 2007) — Single parents concerned about the developmental health of their children may want to choose new partners slowly and deliberately. New research shows that the more transitions children go through in their living situation, the more likely they are to behave badly. > full story