What’s in the body? Children’s annotated drawings

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a study of children’s ideas of the body’s internal structure. Children between four and 13 years (N = 170) individually produced drawings. During each drawing session the children explained their drawings to a facilitator and added written labels either by themselves or, if they were too young to write, with the facilitator’s help. The results provide an updated comprehensive picture of children in different age groups and their views on the internal structure of the body. The type and numbers of organs drawn are similar to those documented in previous studies. However, in comparison to recent studies, the children drew more organs, the brain was indicated almost as often as the heart, and the Valentine heart was frequently used as a symbol. In contrast with previous research, children drew connections between organs. This result calls for caution regarding conclusions made from decontextualized questions. The importance of providing children with the opportunity to clarify their drawings is emphasised since it otherwise becomes a question of the researcher’s interpretation. The connections they draw, and explanations they give to their drawings, have interesting implications for understanding children’s ideas, and hence both for teaching and learning and for science education research.     

Biological age in children who practise swimming.

In the estimation of the developmental regularity among children it is important to know the relation between the developmental and the calendar age. It is particularly important in the estimation of the level of development among children with an increased level of guided motor activity. It takes place, for instance, in the case of children practising swimming. In auxology there are many morphological, physiological and motor features which are regarded as the measure of the developmental age. For several years researches have been conducted on the EMN index as the determinant of the biological age. The EMN index shows continuous changes during ontogeny, proves the existence of stages in the developmental age and is also considerably correlated with the calendar age. This is an ecosensitive factor. The EMN index differentiates individuals from another as well as groups isolated with regard to the effect of the environmental factors, for instance, the different levels of motor activity. The aim of this investigation is to estimate the standard of biological maturity (the body height and mass, the EMN index) among children, who went through a guided swimming training. Morphological features are most often used as the measures of development. However, they can become unreliable when they themselves establish the criterion of selection to a sports discipline or when some ranges of values are optimal on some given standards. The EMN index is not burdened with these features. The children who go through training show the higher level of the EMN index values than the children who do not go. The effect of this is the fact that young swimmers are biologically older than their peers. However, the shape of the curve of development of the EMN index in swimmers goes at a different level depending on the seniority of training.     

Parental Self-Feeding Effects on Parental Care Levels and Time Allocation in Palestine Sunbirds

The trade-off between parents feeding themselves and their young is an important life history problem that can be considered in terms of optimal behavioral strategies. Recent studies on birds have tested how parents allocate the food between themselves and their young. Until now the effect of food consumption by parent birds on their food delivery to their young as well as other parental activities has rarely been studied. I have previously shown that parent Palestine sunbirds (Nectarinia osea) will consume nectar and liquidized arthropods from artificial feeders. However, they will only feed their young with whole arthropods. This provided a unique opportunity to experimentally manipulate the food eaten by parents independent of that fed to their offspring. Here, I hypothesized that parents invest in their current young according to the quality of food that they themselves consume. Breeding pairs with two or three nestlings were provided with feeders containing water (control), sucrose solution (0.75 mol) or liquidized mealworms mixed with sucrose solution (0.75 mol). As food quality in feeders increased (from water up to liquidized mealworms mixed with sucrose solution): 1) Parents (especially females) increased their food delivery of whole arthropod prey to their young. 2) Only males increased their nest guarding effort. Nestling food intake and growth rate increased with increasing food quality of parents and decreasing brood size. These results imply that increasing the nutrient content of foods consumed by parent sunbirds allow them to increase the rate at which other foods are delivered to their young and to increase the time spent on other parental care activities.     

Adoption and Kinship in Oceania

The frequency and form of adoption practices in Oceania recently have been cited as evidence that human behavior is inconsistent with predictions derived from sociobiological theory (Sahlins 1976). Ethnographic data reviewed here, however, suggest otherwise. In Oceania kinship is an important factor in the selection and treatment of adopted children as adoption occurs almost exclusively among close relatives. Natal children often ally against their adopted siblings over the division of their common parents' estate while adoptive parents themselves frequently apportion their land unequally among their natal and adopted children. These patterns and other data are consistent with predictions generated by a socio biological model of adoptive decisions. The model illustrates how kinship facilitates adoption as a means of modifying extreme family sizes, and how asymmetries in the degrees of relatedness between parents and their adopted and natal children provide the basis of differential treatment of them. Adoption in Oceania provides an example of a clearly cultural behavior which is consistent with socio biological predictions, and suggests that both culture and biology are relevant to an understanding of human behavior . [sociobiology, kinship, adoption, Oceania]     

The Enhancement of Children versus Circumcision: A Case of Double Moral Standards?

The application of enhancement technologies to children and non‐medical infant male circumcision are both topics that enjoy the continuous attention of bioethical research but are usually discussed in isolation from each other. Yet one can show that three major arguments used by opponents of the enhancement of children are also applicable to circumcision. These arguments are based on the insecurity of these procedures, the child's right to an open future, and human nature as a foundation of human dignity. People who reject the enhancement of children because of these arguments but accept circumcision hold mutually inconsistent moral convictions or apply double moral standards to these cases. This is particularly important when legislative systems treat the enhancement of children and circumcision in a considerably different manner, which is true for many contemporary legislative systems. At least three strategies can be adopted in order to avoid such inconsistencies, two of which, however, fail for various reasons. According to a third, more promising strategy, circumcision should be subsumed under human enhancement and treated like other enhancement technologies. This strategy justifies restrictions on, but not the prohibition of circumcision. Furthermore, proponents of circumcision should be prepared for future technologies that provide similar benefits as circumcision but are not as contentious as this intervention, so that, in the future, circumcision could become more and more unacceptable.     

The influence of chronotype in the daily lives of young children

Research on chronotypic differences has been conducted for many years, however, until recently, little attention has been paid to young children. The current study examined the influence of morningness–eveningness in the daily lives of 2 to 4 year olds (291 females, 230 males, 8 gender not given) via an online survey completed by 529 mothers from across the United States. The results replicated previous findings on chronotypic differences in sleep-wake patterns and the development of morningness–eveningness in early childhood. The influence of chronotype on sleep habits, daily routines and schedules was also explored. At both bed and wake times, mothers of evening type (E-type) children were more likely to report challenges. For a while, morning type (M-type) children tended to fall asleep easily and wake themselves up in the morning, E-types were more likely to show bedtime resistance, wake in a negative mood and have conflicts with their parents. In the morning, mothers of M-type children often stuck to their normal routine on days when the child had to be somewhere at 7:00 am, whereas mothers of E-type children employed different strategies to get their child up and out the door. Bedtime routines and daily schedules also differed by chronotype. Individual differences in morningness–eveningness and their impact on sleep-wake patterns and social interactions are evident early on. A greater understanding of how they affect the lives of young children and their future development is needed.     

When and What Parents Tell Children About Race: An Examination of Race-Related Socialization Among African American Families

This article describes a developmental systems approach to applied developmental science (ADS), which provides a framework to design and evaluate technology-rich programs that promote positive development by emphasizing the strengths and assets of young people instead of focusing on diminishing or preventing risk-taking behaviors. Until now, most of the psychoeducational programs conceived within the ADS model have not focused on the role of new technologies in young people's lives. This absence is particularly striking given that, in today's world, new technologies play an important role in different areas of the lives of young people, such as education, entertainment, socialization, and communication. This article presents the concept of identity construction environments (ICE), an interdisciplinary model that proposes guidelines to design and study new technologies purposefully created to promote positive youth development (PYD). Two types of ICE have been developed: one focusing on stand-alone technologies for learning, such as the Zora virtual city; and the other focusing on an approach for developing technologically rich learning contexts, such as the Project Inter-Actions robotics workshops. This article presents both examples of ICE and describes how their design fosters the 6 components of PYD. Initial findings from pilot studies conducted with very different populations of youth engaged in both types of ICE—such as young children, adolescents, and chronically ill children—are presented.     

An approach to human work systems development under the circumstances of an aging society and international business operations

At least three serious aspects of problems exist as obstacles for the national economy in Japan to grow or even to maintain its present level: the lack of natural resources, the trends of a decreasing young labor force, and an increase in the shift of domestic business operations to foreign countries. Although top managers make the decisions of product or service planning, or both, work systems designers are also responsible for conserving the resources. An action against the decrease of the young work force is needed to maintain work systems in an operable condition. The business shifts to foreign countries affect all the people, who are losing job opportunities. The present paper presents an approach to reorienting human work systems within the scope of the work systems designers' roles under the circumstance of these social environments. The following discussion is based on the assumptions that work organizations be productive for themselves and the world, effective and efficient for themselves, and contributive to their communities and the world. In essence, an approach to human work systems development should be fair to managers and workers alike. Presented are cases of these work systems as developed along the perspectives mentioned.     

Speech development: toddlers don't mind getting it wrong

A recent study has found that toddlers do not compensate for an artificial alteration in a vowel they hear themselves producing. This raises questions about how young children learn speech sounds.     

Children Love Their Pets: Do Relationships between Children and Pets Co-vary with Taxonomic Order,Gender, and Age?

Generally, children love their pets. However, a deeper insight into the beneficial effects of pets on the physical, psychological, and social wellbeing and development of children is needed. This study investigated whether children have more intense relationships with animals which are behaviorally similar to humans (according to the scala naturae), and whether the relationship patterns between 11- to 14-year-old children (n = 72) and their pets differ from those in prepubescent children, between 6 and 10 years of age (n = 84). We also investigated whether pet-relationship quality is associated with children’s age, gender, and number of siblings. Data about individual bonding type and attachment quality between the children and their pet were collected using a questionnaire. The results indicate that the younger children’s relationships clearly co-varied with taxonomic order of the pet. In contrast, 11- to 14-year-old children reported similarly high scores of attachment with their mouse or iguana as with their dog or cat, and the relationship patterns did not co-vary with taxonomic order. Gender effects on relationship quality were found in both age groups; especially girls reported intense relationships with their pets. In addition to gender, children without siblings had stronger attachment to their pet than children who had siblings. Our data suggest that young children develop high-quality relationships with pets, particularly those which are taxonomically closely related, such as dogs and cats, and less so with other pet species, such as birds or fish. Older children were also able to strongly attach to other pet species. We argue that mental relationship representations change during puberty and that older (11- to 14-year-old) children may no longer make attachments to pets based on them being behaviorally similar to people.     

Human adoption in evolutionary perspective

Exploitation is a fundamental element of the parental strategies of many species of birds. Cuckoos, for example, lay their eggs in the nest of other birds, who often unwittingly rear the alien nestlings as their own. Nest parasitism is an efficient reproductive strategy for cuckoos, who do not have to worry about building a nest, incubating their eggs, or feeding their nestlings. But not all hosts respond passively to such intrusions. In response to parasitic cowbirds, for example, robins have evolved the ability to detect and selectively eject alien young from their nests. Human parenting strategies differ sharply from the strategies of cuckoos and robins. Unlike cuckoos, we are reluctant to allow our children to be raised by others. Unlike robins, we knowingly rear strange young. What makes human behavior toward children so different from that of cuckoos and robins? Humans seem to share a number of predispositions that facilitate successful adoptive relationships, and the desire to raise children seems to be pervasive among modern humans. Despite these commonalities, patterns of adoption transactions vary greatly among contemporary human societies. This paper considers the origins and causes of cross-cultural variation in human adoptive behavior from an evolutionary perspective.     

人类记忆的所有权效应及其认知神经机制

人们对属于自己的物品比属于他人的物品更容易回忆和再认,即便物品和主体的所有权关联仅仅是暂时的和想象的,这称之为记忆的所有权效应.该效应在非常年幼的幼儿和一些认知缺陷的个体身上也会出现.跨文化研究表明,东方文化的个体和西方文化的个体在该效应的表现上也存在差异.该效应可能是由于对自我相关的项目进行深度语义加工的结果,但其早期阶段可能是因为获得了更多的注意资源分配.自我选择和身体活动的具身化在该效应中起着调节作用.当注视属于自己的项目时,P300等成分波幅明显增强,这为注意在记忆的所有权效应中的作用提供了脑电方面的支持.当被试对分类任务中属于自己的物品进行再认时,会导致内侧前额叶皮质、扣带回皮质、缘上回和顶叶等皮质中线结构的激活.未来研究需要考虑奖赏加工等其他的认知加工在这一效应中的作用,并尝试利用灵长类动物的研究从进化角度对这一现象进行解释.考察认知障碍个体执行该任务时的脑机制,有助于进一步完善本领域的研究.     

农村留守孩心理健康的家庭因素研究

青少年时期是儿童个性发展的一个重要时期,个性发展有较大的可塑性。目前农村劳动力迁移导致了大批留守儿童亲子教育缺失和家庭教育缺位。本文对留守儿童心理健康的相关研究进行了整理,分析了影响留守儿童心理健康状况的四个主要家庭因素,并总结了关于为留守儿童建立社区学校和家庭的三维支持系统的建议。     

Parental marriage and the non-cognitive abilities of infants and toddlers: Survey findings from China Family Panel Studies

Early childhood is a critical period for developing children’s abilities. Non-cognitive abilities are comparable to or even stronger than cognitive abilities in predicting many socioeconomic outcomes. Usually, most scholars take personality as the core indicator of non-cognitive abilities. While temperament is also an important component of children’s non-cognitive abilities, it was often ignored in previous studies. Based on the panel data from the 2018 and 2020 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), this study investigates the effects of parental marital satisfaction on the non-cognitive development of children aged one to three; meanwhile, the heterogeneous effects and mechanisms were also examined. The results show that young children exhibit more negative emotions when their parents reported dissatisfaction with their marriages. Parental depression was an important mechanism of parental marital satisfaction affecting children’s non-cognitive development, while the frequency of parent-child interaction was not. The effects of marital dissatisfaction on non-cognitive abilities were heterogeneous across child age and gender, as well as parental genders and education levels. The findings shed some light on the early interventions and offer important reference values for public policies aimed at improving family welfare and children’s non-cognitive development.     

The role of antibodies to Plasmodium falciparum-infected-erythrocyte surface antigens in naturally acquired immunity to malaria

Plasmodium falciparum, the most virulent species of human malaria parasite, causes 1-3 million deaths per year. Because this parasite is susceptible to naturally acquired host immunity the main burden of diseases falls on young children. The mechanism of this immunity is still unclear. However, the parasite makes a considerable investment in the insertion of highly polymorphic antigens (parasite-infected-erythrocyte surface antigens, PIESA) on the infected erythrocyte surface, and these antigens are potentially important immune targets.     

The epidemiology of pneumococcal infection in children in the developing world.

Pneumonia causes about three million deaths a year in young children, nearly all of which are in developing countries. Streptococcus pneumoniae (the pneumococcus) is the most important bacterial cause of pneumonia in young children and so is likely to be responsible for a high proportion of these deaths. The pneumococcus is also responsible for a substantial proportion of the 100,000-500,000 deaths that occur from meningitis in children each year. The incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease in children in the developing world is several times higher than in industrialized countries. This discrepancy may, in part, be due to socio-economic differences but genetic factors may also play a role. Children with sickle cell disease have a substantially increased risk of invasive pneumococcal infection and a search is being made for other possible genetic risk factors. Infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) also predisposes to invasive pneumococcal disease and so the incidence of this disease in young children is expected to rise as increasing numbers of African and Asian children are born with a perinatally acquired HIV infection. Until recently, pneumococcal infections could be treated effectively with penicillin, a cheap and safe antibiotic. However, pneumococci that are resistant to penicillin are becoming prevalent in many countries, necessitating a change to more costly antibiotics which may be beyond the reach of the health services of poor, developing countries. The spread of antibiotic resistance has provided an added stimulus to the development of vaccines that might be able to prevent pneumococcal disease in infants. Recently developed polysaccharide-protein conjugate vaccines show promise and are now undergoing field trials. How deployment of these vaccines will influence the balance between invasive pneumococcal infections and asymptomatic nasopharyngeal carriage of pneumococci is uncertain.     

Characterizing the Data in Online Companion-dog Obituaries to Assess Their Usefulness as a Source of Information about Human–Animal Bonds

Online pet obituary sites host hundreds of obituaries regarding the passing of companion animals. Often composed by the owner or primary caretaker of the animal, they are a potential source of data about human–animal bonds where there were strong positive human emotions surrounding the animal at point of death. The aim of the present study was to characterize on-line pet obituaries and to evaluate their usefulness as a source of information on the human–animal bond. One hundred and thirty full obituaries of dogs were studied. Where the role of the writer could be identified, the majority of obituary writers identified themselves as a female parental figure to the dog (34.6%); however, obituaries were also written by male parental figures (7.7%) and children (5.4%). Most obituaries (60%) fell within the 100-400 words length range. Obituaries were seen to express several key concepts. For instance, dogs were described as “child-like,” “part of the family,” showing “sympathy” and/or “gratitude” to the owner, and having a “sense of humor.” For their part, writers expressed “guilt” over the dog’s death, discussed a concept of the “afterlife” and noted an “instant connection” between themselves and the dog. A high proportion of the obituaries discussed the afterlife (51%) and indicated that the dog was considered part of the family (49%). There were some significant associations between concept usage within obituaries. Dogs that were described as “child-like” were more often perceived to be in an “afterlife” and to have had an “instant connection” with obituary writers (x² = 38.08, p < 0.001). We conclude that online pet obituaries can be a valuable source of information on human feelings surrounding a companion animal death.     

Migration,Remittances and Nutrition Outcomes of Left-Behind Children: A National-Level Quantitative Assessment of Guatemala

Historically, Guatemalans have suffered high rates of poverty and malnutrition while nearly ten percent of their population resides abroad. Many Guatemalan parents use economic migration, mainly international migration to the United States, as a means to improve the human capital prospects of their children. However, as this investigation shows, the timing of migration events in relation to left-behind children’s ages has important, often negative and likely permanent, repercussions on the physical development of their children. To illustrate these dynamics, this investigation uses an instrumental variables framework to disentangle the countervailing effects of Guatemalan fathers’ absences due to migration from concomitant remittances on left-behind children’s growth outcomes. Based on national-level data collected in 2000, the investigation reveals that the international migration of a father in the previous year is correlated with a 22.1% lower length/height-for-age z-score for the average left-behind child aged ≤ 3. In contrast, the receipt of remittance income has no influence on the physical stature of a child, which may indicate that migrant fathers with young children are not able to achieve economic success soon enough during their ventures abroad to fully ameliorate the harmful effects caused by their absences.     

Negotiated Bonds: The Practice of Childfree Pet Parenting

The American Pet Products Association reports a decade-long increase of pet spending, estimated to reach over $69 billion in 2017. In some cases, these owners apply traditional parenting practices while nurturing their pets. Relatedly, a growing number of pet owners identify themselves as “pet parents.” This study is the first known work to investigate how identity plays a role in the growing population of pet parents. While previous research into the pet parenting phenomenon has sought to quantify the demographics, spending, and frequency of this population, less work seeks to understand what pet parenting looks like in practice. Sampling a population of childfree pet parents, the current study utilized semi-structured interviews and identified two common themes in their daily practice of the identity: 1) Despite the use of parent–child terms and strategies, childfree pet parents are acutely aware of the differences between raising children and raising pets, and 2) pet parents ascribe agency to their pet, identifying individual pet wants and needs to fulfill. This may further inform future research on human–animal relationships by establishing a human identity that connects directly to pet practices in the United States, asking us to consider the lived experiences of this growing population and their pets including spending, lifestyle, and attachment concerns.