Children, Parents, And Development In 1st Decade Of Life

儿童和家庭研究科（CFRS）调查性格、经验和环境因素，这些因素有助于人类在生命早期的身体、精神、情感和社会发展。实验室和家庭研究采用多种方法，包括心理生理记录、实验技术、行为观察、标准化评估、评定量表、访谈和人口统计记录。CFRS研究的总体目标是描述、分析和评估发育中的儿童的能力和倾向，包括他们的遗传特征、生理功能、感知和认知能力、情感、社会和互动方式，以及家庭发展对儿童和父母的性质和后果，以及儿童接触和与无生命环境的互动。研究主题涉及生命早期多种心理构象、结构和功能的起源、现状和发展；儿童认知和社会特征及活动对父母的影响以及在不同的社会人口和文化群体中父母和家庭的差异对儿童发展的意义。在CFRS中进行的项目设计是纵向的、横断面的和跨文化的。调查中的社会人口学比较包括家庭社会经济地位、母亲年龄和就业状况、儿童平等和日托经历。研究地点包括阿根廷、澳大利亚、比利时、巴西、喀麦隆、英国、法国、以色列、意大利、日本和肯尼亚，以及美国；对人类发展进行跨文化和文化间的比较。在孩子们大到足以进入正式的社会学习环境之前，他们几乎所有的经验都直接来自于他们与主要照顾者的互动。在这个项目中，CFRS重点关注母亲的特征（年龄、父母身份、胎次、就业状况以及母亲在就业期间所经历的替代照料类型）在多大程度上影响观察到的照料与儿童认知能力和社会能力发展之间的关系。在纵向设计中，在儿童5个月和20个月以及4岁、10岁和14岁时对家庭进行访问。在5个月时，观察到母婴互动。在20个月时，获得幼儿功能（游戏能力、语言发展和社会适应）和母亲行为（游戏和智力）的测量。在4岁，10岁和14岁时，儿童的各种能力（表征能力，解决问题的能力，推理能力，数学能力，语言使用和话语，以及一般适应性行为的选择方面）进行检查。评估各年龄段测量之间的关联，并比较各年龄段所有测量之间的群体表现。这项研究的前提是，儿童时期的发展主要发生在人际环境中；因此，一个中心目标是描述不同的儿童和母亲的行为如何与儿童心理和社会能力的中心维度的个体发生有关。主要目标是研究生命最初十年（或左右）心理和社会发展的稳定性、连续性、互动性和预测有效性。人们认为，婴儿期和幼儿期的经历不仅会影响发展的过程和结果，而且还会对文化的某些独特性产生影响。跨文化发展研究表明，不同的养育方式对人的发展有影响。许多理论家认为，一般来说，家庭，特别是母子关系，可能对个人的发展至关重要，对文化的组织至关重要。因此，调查人员经常研究父母和母子之间的互动，试图解决有关文化认同的起源和发展的问题。当然，每个社会都有适应自己特殊需求的育儿模式。文化内比较和跨文化比较同样重要。该项目的一个核心目的是确定阿根廷、澳大利亚、比利时、巴西、喀麦隆、英国、法国、以色列、意大利、日本、肯尼亚以及美国不同的儿童保育生态在儿童发展和养育方面的异同。CFRS还开展了一个广泛的行为儿科学研究项目，调查儿童发展、身体健康和生物发展之间的关系。这个研究项目有几个不同的方面。第一个研究领域涉及基本的心理生理学原理，围绕迷走神经功能在心理发展中的作用。第二个研究领域涉及胎儿功能及其产后预测有效性。可卡因接触下的发展是第三个主要研究领域；研究的核心问题是理解与产前和产后可卡因暴露相关的生物因素和环境条件之间的持续交易，因为它们与不同的发育结果有关。第四，CFRS有一个研究项目，调查耳聋在儿童发展和家庭生活中的作用，样本包括听力父母的正常儿童，听力父母的聋儿，听力父母的聋儿，聋人父母的聋儿。最后，儿童发展和早期保健的研究包括儿童应对医疗压力经验的知识、实施和评估策略的研究；儿童健康与保健认识的发展；儿童自身健康史、儿童保健服务利用与孕产妇保健信念的关系。

The Child and Family Research Section (CFRS) investigates dispositional, experiential, and environmental factors that contribute to physical, mental, emotional, and social development in human beings during the early years of the life course. Laboratory and home-based studies employ a variety of approaches, including psychophysiological recordings, experimental techniques, behavioral observations, standardized assessments, rating scales, interviews, and demographic records. The overall goals of research in the CFRS are to describe, analyze, and assess the capabilities and proclivities of developing children, including their genetic characteristics, physiological functioning, perceptual and cognitive abilities, emotional, social, and interactional styles, as well as the nature and consequences for children and parents of family development, and children's exposure to and interactions with the inanimate environment. Research topics concern the origins, status, and development of multiple psychological constructs, structures, and functions across the early years of life; effects of child cognitive and social characteristics and activities on parents; and the meaning for children's development of variations in parenting and in the family across different sociodemographic and cultural groups. Project designs underway in the CFRS are longitudinal, cross-sectional, and cross-cultural. Sociodemographic comparisons under investigation include family socioeconomic status, maternal age and employment status, and child parity and daycare experience. Study sites include Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, England, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, and Kenya, as well as the United States; cross-cultural as well as intra-cultural comparisons of human development are pursued. Before children are old enough to enter formal social learning situations, nearly all of their experiences stem directly from interactions they have with their primary caregivers. In this project, the CFRS focuses on the extent to which maternal characteristics (age, parenthood status, parity, employment status, as well as type of substitute care experienced during mother's employment) influence observed relations between caregiving and children's developing cognitive and social competencies. In a longitudinal design, families are visited when children are 5 and 20 months and 4, 10, and 14 years of age. At 5 months, mother-infant interaction is observed. At 20 months, measures of toddler functioning (play competence, language development, and social adaptation) and maternal behavior (play and intelligence) are obtained. At 4, 10, and 14 years, children's diverse abilities (representational competence, problem solving, reasoning skills, mathematical ability, language use and discourse, and selected aspects of generally adaptive behavior) are examined. Associations among measures across ages are evaluated, and group performances among all measures within age are compared. The premise underlying this research is that development in childhood occurs primarily within an interpersonal context; thus, a central goal is to describe how diverse child and maternal behaviors relate to the ontogeny of central dimensions of children's mental and social competencies. Major objectives are to study stability, continuity, interaction, and predictive validity in mental and social development over the first decade (or so) of life. Experiences in infancy and early childhood are acknowledged not only to affect the course and outcome of development, but they are credited for some of the distinctiveness of culture. Cross-cultural developmental study has shown that variations in childrearing styles have implications for human development. Many theorists have contended that the family generally, and the mother-child relationship specifically, may be vital to development of the individual and basic to the organization of the culture. As a result, investigators have frequently studied parents and mother-child interactions in attempts to address questions about the origins and development of cultural identity. Of course, each society has evolved patterns of childrearing adjusted to its own special demands. Within-culture comparisons are equally important to cross-cultural ones. A central purpose of this project is to identify similarities and differences in child development and parenting in the contrasting childcaring ecologies of Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, England, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, and Kenya, as well as the United States. The CFRS also conducts a broad program of research in behavioral pediatrics that investigates questions at the interface of child development and physical health and biological development. This research program has several different facets. The first area of research concerns basic psychophysiological principles centering on the role of vagal function in psychological development. The second area of research concerns itaself with fetal function and its post-natal predictive validity. Development under cocaine exposure comprises a third major area of research; studies address issues central to understanding ongoing transactions between biological factors and environmental conditions associated with pre- and postnatal cocaine exposure as they relate to diverse developmental outcomes. Fourth, the CFRS has a research program which investigates the role of deafness in child development and family life with samples that include hearing children of hearing parents, deaf children of hearing parents, deaf children of hearing parents, and deaf children of deaf parents. Last, research in child development and early health care includes studies of children's knowledge, implementation, and evaluation of strategies for coping with stressful medical experiences; the development of children's understanding of health and health care; and relations among children's own health histories, pediatric health care utilization, and maternal health beliefs.